Harry sat in a chair in his room, looking out the window, thinking.
How could Harry see things as someone else when all his life he'd only ever been himself?
How could Sev expect Harry to do nothing when Timmy was mocking him at every turn?
Harry killed Alecto, an obvious message, and Timmy replaced him with Amycus. Timmy didn't like being called Timmy, so he jinxed his name.
If Timmy was going to be petty, why couldn't Harry?
If Timmy was going to make rules up and fight the war his own way, why was Harry wrong for doing the same thing?
"What's on your mind, darlin?"
Harry glanced from the black sky outside to see Fred sneaking in their bedroom with Rosie cradled in his arms.
"Theo needed a shower and Rosie can't sleep," Fred said, smiling softly at Harry while he bounced Rosie lightly.
Harry admired the image of Fred standing there with Rosie reaching up for Fred's hair with her tiny brown fingers. That was Harry's husband, his fit and brilliant husband who had never done anything aside from support Harry and fight for him and with him. And that was Harry's goddaughter, his innocent little goddaughter who couldn't grow up in a war.
"Are wars ever won by the good guys?" Harry asked Fred, looking away back out the window. "Sev doesn't think so."
"Sev isn't perfect," Fred said immediately, bringing a sardonic grin to Harry's face. Fred was always ready to defend Harry, no matter what.
"What's really on your mind, Harry?" Fred asked again. He moved to stand beside Harry, offering Rosie to him, but Harry shook his head.
"I don't know," Harry sighed. He hated it when it got dark out, he'd always hated it. "I used to be scared of the dark," he told Fred quietly. "When I was a kid? I was fuckin terrified of the dark. In the cupboard, I'd think about spiders with poison biting me. On the streets, I'd think about cops finding me or- or someone killing me for the shoes on my feet.
"It was the same at Hogwarts, I thought when the lights went out, Draco or Ron would snap and curse me in my sleep. It's why I always sleep with my knife," he explained. "And it's dark now, Fred, it's real dark, isn't it?"
Fred reached out and tangled his fingers in Harry's hair, offering him a gentle comfort.
"It won't be dark forever," Fred said sagely. "The sun's going to rise tomorrow, darlin. It always does."
"Yeah," Harry agreed without agreeing. He tried to find the stars in the sky, but all he could see was the endless black. "The sun will rise tomorrow."
But in Harry's world, it felt like it would be endlessly dark.
Harry missed when he could see the sun and his worst problem was Hermione haunting him.
"What's the plan?" Susan asked the next afternoon. Harry had his dad's map open and his eyes were trailing the dots that moved around.
Ron Weasley's dot was gone, hidden away in the Hidden Room. Draco, Blaise, and Neville were in the dungeons, in one of the empty classrooms. Sirius Black was in the defense classroom with a dozen names Harry didn't care about. Horace Slughorn was in his classroom as well, teaching the sixth years judging by Ginevra Weasley's dot.
Amycus Carrow was in the Headmaster's office alone.
It was the perfect time to slip through Slughorn's quarters and go up to Carrow's office and end her life as easily as Harry had her Alecto's.
And Harry couldn't see any other plan because he wasn't any other person and if Sev hadn't figured that out by then, then that was his problem.
"I go through Slughorn's rooms, sneak up to the office, kill her," Harry said simply. He traced the path he would take with his finger and saw nothing that could stop him. It would be easier to go through Sirius' quarters, but Harry didn't want Sirius to be under suspicion.
And if Slughorn didn't want unauthorized people using his floo, then he should have changed the password since it was Sev's.
"What if he brings in someone worse?" Theo asked. "How do we know he won't just bring in another Fenrir?"
"He won't," Harry said. "I've got a plan."
"You've always been bad at having plans," George said, a hard edge to his tone that differentiated him from Fred without Harry even having to check.
"Yeah, but this one's brill," Harry murmured, refusing to look at George.
"Don't leave us in suspense, love," Susan said cajolingly. "How do you know he won't send in some other sadistic monster next?"
Harry folded his map up, leaving it on for quick reference, and smiled charmingly at his best friend.
"Because I'm going to ask him not to. I'll be back in a bit. Ta."
"Wait! You're going alone?"
Harry had gotten up and pulled his cloak from his bag and paused long enough to smirk at Susan. She had jumped to her feet and had her wand behind her ear and her pocketknife in her golden hand.
"Sue, you're a wanted criminal and I'm the Boy-Who-Lived," Harry reminded her. "If I get caught, T- Thomas won't lock me up again. But he'd kill you to prove a point, wouldn't he?"
"That makes us all feel rather secure," Theo drawled. He had Rosie strapped to his chest with a soft black carrier and Harry thought he looked ridiculous planning the murder of the Hogwarts Headmistress with a baby on his chest. If Rosie grew up and began plotting and scheming because she'd been exposed to it as a child, that was Theo's fault.
"It should," Harry snapped, glowering at his brother. "Now if there's no objections, I'm off."
There had been objections, a great many of them, but Harry shouted them down and refused to bend to their will. Harry had listened to them all the last few years, letting his decisions become group decisions, and Harry lost every time.
Harry was still going to lose at the end of the war, but he was going to do it on his own terms.
When Harry passed the office he and Sev shared, Harry saw dark eyes watching him.
Harry forced a charming smile and a sarcastic salute before he stepped in the fireplace and floo'd to Horace Slughorn's quarters.
Sneaking around Hogwarts under his cloak made Harry feel like a second year again even while the corridors all felt entirely different. It was cold and Harry didn't hear anyone laughing, talking, or tripping each other on the stairs.
It wasn't a school anymore, it was a prison.
Muggleborn kids went to Azkaban, anyone with at least one magical parent went to Hogwarts.
Harry wondered if the only ones who escaped torture were himself, Susan, and Luna.
Then Harry wondered if anyone actually avoided torture.
There was a scrap of parchment inside the suit of armor that Sirius told him it'd be at. It was a single word, nonsense to anyone else who read it, but Harry knew it was the password to the headmaster office.
'Purity' was so unoriginal and expected that Harry could have guessed that himself.
Harry checked his map once more beneath his cloak, checking that Amycus Carrow was alone in the office before whispering the password to the gargoyles and silently making his way upstairs.
The knife Sirius once gave Harry, the blue handled knife that could undo any lock and had the invisible stain of Alecto's blood on it, was in Harry's hand when he cracked the ornate doors open and immediately stunned and silenced Amycus before she could even sense his presence.
"Ah, I see our mysterious assassin has returned."
Harry glanced up and smirked at the portrait of Headmistress Minerva McGonagall even though she couldn't see him. She'd made a lot of comments last time Harry was there as well, mostly snark aimed at Alecto that he deserved what he got.
"Minerva, please…" Headmaster Dumbledore, who also made a lot of annoying comments last time, tsk'd disapprovingly at McGonagall.
Harry didn't know why Dumbledore got a portrait when most of the world didn't even know he was dead, but he assumed that magic just made the paintings appear post-mortem.
"Mister Potter, if that is you, this is unnecessary," Dumbledore said while Harry invisibly advanced on the witch staring forward with wide eyes, unable to speak.
"Albus, quiet, this- this- foul, disgrace of a witch, abhorrentwoman deserves nothing less than her brother got," McGonagall said heatedly from her portrait.
"This is a life, Minerva."
"So are the children who deserve safety!"
Harry blocked out the argument happening behind him while he stood in front of Amycus and studied her curiously.
Knock, knock, dickface.
Harry waited patiently for Timmy to reply, knowing he could.
Little Horcrux, I haven't heard from you since you freed my prisoners.
Harry smiled to himself and pulled his arm out from under the cloak so he could press the tip of the blade to the edge of Amycus' throat.
I've been busy, so have you. Wanna play a game?
A game? Is that not what this cat and mouse chase has been?
New game, new rules.
Harry dug the knife in hard enough to draw a single droplet of blood and he concentrated very hard on letting Timmy see what he was looking at.
I'm going to kill her, just like the last one and just like the next one if you don't give me what I want.
Timmy's laughter was cold even in Harry's head, but Harry understood coldness and couldn't be bothered by it anymore.
You think that I care about their lives, Little Horcrux? Every one you drop, I will replace before you make it home for dinner.
Harry pushed the knife in a little deeper, causing a more steady stream of blood. He expected Timmy to not care about his people; what was one witch when Timmy had a whole Ministry at his disposal?
Yeah, you're right, Harry agreed pleasantly in his head. But it's going to get suspicious, isn't it, Minister? When all the headmasters of the greatest school of magic keep dropping dead and you can't protect them? What will you tell the media? Because I know what I'll say, I'll say: that never happened when Fudge was minister.
Perhaps I will tell them that you are killing them, Little Horcrux. Or one of your allies, perhaps the mentally unstable Lovegood girl?
Harry thought of that too. As impulsive as Sev said he was, Harry knew Timmy well enough to know what he was going to do about Harry's threats and if it didn't work yet, it would.
How can we ever rule together if you label me a killer, Timmy? That's why you didn't say I was at the prison, yeah? You want my reputation to be as spotless as Marvolo Gaunt's.
A moment of silence, but Harry could still feel Timmy in his head while Amycus tried to look down at the knife digging in her throat.
Games have prizes, Little Horcrux. What do you want in return for this clever bit of cunning?
Sirius Black is the next headmaster.
Harry kept the stunning spell in place, but he removed the silencing charm - a gift to McGonagall who helped Harry find his animagus form - and sent Timmy a live mental feed of him dragging his knife across Amycus' throat. Harry pulled the front of his cloak down so Amycus could see his smile while he watched her blood pour out on the floor.
Sirius Black, Harry reminded Timmy before closing the link between them and putting the full force of his walls against him.
"You do have a flair for the dramatic, don't you, Mister Potter?" McGonagall asked when Harry pulled his hood back up and turned to leave. "I suppose I'll see you soon."
"I doubt that, ma'am," Harry murmured to himself as he quickly left the school back the way he came.
The next morning, when Hermes Caddel was named Headmaster of Hogwarts in the face of Amycus Carrow's 'shocking death', Sev slid the paper to Harry with a cold sneer on his face.
"Caddel is a death eater," Sev said. "Will you end his life as well?"
Harry tilted his head to the side while he read the article, his lip twitching when he read a quote from the Minister where he stated he believed it was the act of a 'crazed criminal'.
"I have to, don't I?" Harry mused, inspecting the dark eyed man with the ridiculous pencil mustache smirking on the front of the paper. "That's the rules of the game."
Sev slapped his hand on the table, gaining Harry's attention.
"When have you ever followed the rules?" Sev hissed, his eyes flashing with something Harry wasn't used to seeing from him.
"I've always followed the rules," Harry said irritably. When the rules made sense - when the rules kept Harry alive - Harry followed the rules. His fingers spasmed on the table and he summoned a cigarette with a single tap.
Nothing calmed Harry's nerves anymore; not tobacco, not alcohol, not even screaming in the woods behind their house and destroying trees. Flying might, but Harry couldn't fly because he made George Weasley live when George hadn't wanted to. Driving his bike did sometimes, but only when Harry hit maximum speed and spun around curves as harshly as he could.
But if Sev was going to be a dick, as Harry suspected he was about to be, then Harry was going to smoke in the dining room and bother him.
"You never follow the rules," Sev said, his face twisted up in anger. "You have always been impertinent, pigheaded, callous—"
"Arrogant, rude, vulgar," Harry drawled, lighting his cigarette and blowing smoke to the side. He smiled at Sev, mocking him, when Sev gnashed his teeth together. "Did I forget anything?"
"IS THIS A GAME TO YOU?"
"Yes!" Harry screamed right back. "All of this?! IT'S A GIANT FUCKIN' GAME AND I AM LOSING! HE IS WINNING AND I AM LOSING!"
And Harry hated to lose. Harry had been a loser for ten years and he got magic and became special and became a winner. And now Timmy was kicking Harry back in the dirt, making him a god damned loser.
Sev didn't say anything while Harry screamed and then he waited until Harry sat back down, not even realizing he'd stood up, and he raised a dark brow at Harry.
"You are still the same child you have always been," Sev said. "Grow up, Potter. This is a war, people are dying, and you are worried about winning?"
Harry closed his eyes, clearing his mind, and breathed slowly.
"It's the only fuckin thing I get to worry about, Snape," Harry said with only a small bite to his tone. Harry turned to Mavis, who was lingering in the doorway, with a much more friendly expression. "Mavis, can I get some coffee to go?"
Mavis straightened up immediately and gave Harry a wide and toothy smile. "Yes, Master Harry!" he squeaked eagerly. "Cream and sugar?"
"Black, please," Harry said. He waited until Mavis gave him the charmed coffee mug that Fred made for Harry, it kept the coffee hot and wouldn't let it spill, and then Harry slid the paper back to Sev.
"Enjoy your breakfast, I have winning to do," he said curtly before heading straight to the fireplace, summoning his map, knife, and cloak as he went.
Maybe if Sev worried more about his job, finding the fuckin tiara, then Harry wouldn't have to keep playing the only game he knew the current rules of.
"I warned you," McGonagall said smugly to the death eater stunned in the Headmasters chair at Hogwarts. Harry had to wait around a while, Caddel had been in the dungeons for nearly an hour when Harry arrived.
Harry had just tracked the man up the stairs and stunned him the moment he sat down. Even with his cloak on, Harry wasn't surprised that McGonagall knew it was him, she'd been the only one to catch him when he killed Umbridge and she'd been the one who knew that Harry needed a project in sixth year when he returned from Azkaban.
"Mister Potter, you cannot continue doing this," Dumbledore said sternly, as if Harry cared what he had to say to him. Harry killed him once and Dumbledore went out by ending Harry's life.
In Harry's opinion, if Dumbledore didn't like what Harry was doing, then he really had nobody to blame but himself.
Harry sat on the desk that time, taking the hood of his cloak off and watching Caddel's eyes while he twirled his blue knife between his fingers.
"I'm going to kill you," Harry murmured to him. He tilted his head to the side and repeated himself. "I'm going to kill you."
Caddel didn't say anything, he couldn't, so Harry said it once more before bothering Timmy.
I will have you arrested and imprisoned once more.
Where? I blew up your prison, Timmy.
In the bowels of the Minister where dementors will be all you can see for the eternity that you will live for.
Harry paused flipping the knife in his fingers, actually momentarily considering Timmy's threat.
I'd kill myself, Harry finally said. What will you do then without your horcrux, Timmy?
Harry was smug when he slit Caddel's throat from ear to ear. Timmy couldn't argue against Harry's threat without revealing his other horcruxes.
"Bring news of your fellow rebels tomorrow, Mister Potter," McGonagall said when Harry finished up.
Harry wiped his knife off on his jeans and nodded up to her. "I will." He hesitated by the door, his hand on the knob.
"Professor…" Harry turned to face McGonagall, looking her in her painted eyes. "I apologize."
"Oh?" McGonagall adjusted her glasses and peered at Harry over the top of them. "Whatever for, Mister Potter?"
Harry raised his chin high, knowing he owed it to her. "I should have gotten to your house sooner that night. I could have saved you if I hadn't been busy with the duel."
McGonagall smiled at Harry and he could feel the warmth coming from her, warming something cold inside of him.
"Mister Potter, you are not responsible for everything," she said. "It was not your fault."
"Unlike the three murders you have committed in this castle," Dumbledore tacked on solemnly.
Harry rolled his eyes at him and turned to leave again, his piece to McGonagall said.
"You're a fuckin idiot if you think I've only committed three murders here," Harry sneered before reminding Timmy once more that it was Sirius Black who needed to be the next headmaster.
"You're so tired, darlin," Fred murmured that night when they laid in bed and Harry couldn't sleep. Fred was curled up against Harry's back, his arm wrapped around Harry's torso, pulling Harry against him tightly.
"How goes Operation Gringotts?" Harry asked him, staring out their window.
"Susie-Q wants to use bombs, Bill thinks it's impossible, Charlie said he could get us a dragon," Fred told him. "What's going on with you and Snape?"
Harry rolled around in Fred's arms and kissed his cold lips against Fred's collarbone.
"Let's talk about something else," Harry whispered. "I'm cold, can you warm me up?"
Harry stared down at the paper the next morning, victory burning inside him and finally chasing away the cold that he'd felt for so long.
SIRIUS BLACK NAMED HOGWARTS HEADMASTER!
"I did it," Harry breathed, smiling wildly. Sirius looked surprised in the photo, but happy enough. The students would be safe, it wouldn't be a prison anymore, not with Sirius in charge.
"I did it," Harry said again, smiling fiercely across the table at Sev. "I did this," he told him. "I won."
"Turn the page," Sev said coldly, not even looking at Harry in the eyes. "Turn the page and see what your prize is."
Harry did, flipping to the second page and his stomach twisting at the article in the center of the page.
Three Hogwarts Students Dead in Freak Accident
The names listed weren't familiar, but they were all first year Slytherins. Harry knew without needing to check that they would be half-bloods as well.
"It wasn't my fault," Harry whispered, looking at the sepia-toned photographs of three young boys. One of them had a little gap between his teeth and Harry wondered if that gap was why he died.
Harry looked away from the dead boys straight in Sev's dark eyes.
"It wasn't my fault," Harry said again, louder. "I'm not responsible for everything, Sev, I'm not. I can't be."
"You believe it is a coincidence?" Sev asked him. He sat in his chair like the judge he'd never had the right to be. "You killed three people and he killed three small boys."
"I'm not responsible for everything," Harry insisted. Harry's hands were shaking and he tucked them beneath his legs. There wasn't anyway to just tuck away the way his heart was racing and his stomach was churning.
"I CANT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERYTHING!" Harry screamed, his voice breaking midway through. Harry's shoulders shook then, "I can't. I can't."
In an instant, despite all the space that had grown between them, Sev was by Harry's side, his arms around Harry's torso, pulling him in his chest.
"I won," Harry babbled. He reached out for Sev's back, scrambling to pull him closer. "I won."
"Did you?" Sev asked. He rubbed Harry's back like Harry was a desperate twelve year old needing to be held together again. "Do you feel as if you won?"
"It wasn't my fault," Harry cried while he felt like his chest was splitting with all the unbearable weight on his shoulders. "I lost again and it wasn't my fault."
Sev didn't say anything, but when the creak of footsteps on the staircase could be heard and Harry was still shaking from how he just kept losing, Sev urged Harry to his feet and pulled him in their office.
Harry slid his back against the door until he was sitting with his legs pulled against his chest, screaming about how he just couldn't fucking win at all.
"You cannot always win," Sev said. He sat beside Harry on the floor with his hand on Harry's head. "But at some point, Harry, you have to accept responsibility for the choices you make."
"WHAT CHOICE?" Harry screamed, yanking away from him in a fierce flash of absolute anger. "Tell me, Sev, what god damned choices do I get to make?" Harry jumped up and barely refrained from actually kicking Sev while he sat there so imperiously.
"You have two fucking jobs to do, don't you?" Harry sneered. "Just find the fuckin tiara and kill me. You have two jobs, one life, in your hand. Me?" Harry laughed, high-pitched and mad. "I have EVERYONE ELSES!" Harry reminded him.
Harry yanked hard on the door, hitting Sev with it in his haste to leave the room.
"Maybe while I'm with Theo, doing one of those fuckin jobs you think I've got a choice in the matter, you could do yours, yeah?" Harry said, glaring at Sev hotly.
"I was mistaken, are not the same child you once were," Sev said as he got to his feet and brushed a hand down the front of the robes. Sev's eyes were as cold as his voice when he looked at Harry then. "I hardly recognize you at all."
Harry scoffed, and slammed the door behind him, headed to Theo's room to work on keeping everyone out of trouble once he was gone.
Sev didn't recognize Harry?
He could join the fucking club.
"You're going to regret fighting so much with Sev," Theo murmured to Harry while he bottled up Harry's falsified memories.
"What? When I'm dead?" Harry asked after he swallowed a pain reliever. "Oh, no, I forgot, you think I'll live."
Theo sighed and looked like he was fighting hard to keep his patience with Harry, a look that Harry was becoming used to receiving from everyone lately.
"Listen to me," Theo said, crossing his arms and scowling at Harry. "You are pushing everyone away, you're making plans up on the go, and you're thinking of the end and you're missing everything that's going to happen between now and then."
"Whose fault is that?" Harry asked, raising a brow at his brother. "Whose fault is this?"
When Theo had nothing to say, Harry left his room to go find Fred.
Fred could borrow Sirius' bike and they could race around town under disillusionment charms until Harry could feel something again.
Theo,
You're a good brother- the best brother in the world.
Thank you for always being there. Thank you for keeping my secrets. Thank you for (usually) remembering to use a silencing charm in our old room. Thank you for making me godfather to your daughter, I'm sorry I won't get to watch her grow up.
Tell her about me, yeah? Tell her how I shot you in the knee once (that was mostly* an accident) and tell her how you got even at the paintball place.
If you hurt my Rosie, I'll haunt you and you'll never know a moment of peace for the rest of your life.
Keep this knife, alright? It was my first ever weapon and now it's yours to carry on you forever. I always wanted a brother, my whole life, I'm glad I got one. You're the best brother I could have ever asked for.
Love always,
-Harry
*PS: Okay, it wasn't an accident. I was pretty pissed.