FicWad

Disclamier: As you can probably guess, I don't own Harry Potter or anything to do with it.

A New Beginning

Torture really is a cruel and inhuman thing. It not only ruins the life of whoever you are torturing, but it will eventually do the same to you. There will always be someone or something to torture the torturer. After all, the saying goes, "What goes around comes around." You have always been a firm believer in that.

Looking back, you should have been prepared for this. Yet you chose to follow the will of others, putting faith before good judgement. The pieces were laid out before your eyes; if only you'd had the will to look, you could have seen how this would play out from the beginning.

So here you are now, sullied in filthy, tattered garments that cocoon around you. You lay at the centre of the room with a chain from each corner clasping around one of your limbs, giving you just enough room to either sit up or lie down, whichever you should prefer.

They did not torture you with knives or with any other conventional tool. Instead they found an even better way, one that made your very bones ache. For you, there was never too much power, just not enough. It seemed that no matter how hard you tried and how fast you improved, he was always at least one step ahead of you.

Time was a key element in what you were hoping to accomplish. It was also the only element he was unwilling to give. You understood his reasoning; after all, why would a man seeking power and immortal life give all that oppose him a chance to discover the way to finish him off?

"Avada Kedavra!"


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You ducked down low behind a table, tried to dodge the spell of death, and it whizzed past your hair. Perhaps that last comment about his mother being a beaten down whore was a little cruel, but it was no reason to start throwing around the deadliest curse known to wizard kind. Then again, it could be the fact that four straight hours of duelling tended to make one feel just a little aggravated.
You jumped away from your spot behind the table seconds before a Banishing Charm blasted it all the way to the wall. You quickly answered with a Lung-Piercing Hex, furious that he tried to impale you with a table. It was pretty weak, you knew it, but the fight was almost over. Both you and he could see that the magical reserves were nearly gone; it was evident in the expressions on your sweaty faces and the spells you were using. The final outbursts of magic would determine the outcome of the duel.

Putting up a quick Protego, you watched his Reductor curse get knocked to the side and responded with a Stunner. You watched as he caught it on the end of his wand and with a quick spin sent it flying back your way, with his own energy now added to the concoction. It was one the few master techniques that you are glad to say you learned, and you also knew that if it hits, it was likely to knock you out for at least a week.

A quick back flip left you wide open in mid-air, right in path of the Cruciatus he sent your way, anticipating your next move. That was the biggest problem the two of you faced in this duel: you were so alike in every way, it was like you were fighting yourself, able to predict the other's every next move. Grinding your teeth together in an effort to prevent yourself from screeching like a little girl, you waved your wand in a quick slashing motion, aiming a little to the right of him. The loud crack you heard revealed that your bone shattering curse hit something.

Glancing up from your undignified position on your stomach, you saw him cradling an obviously shattered wrist. You stood and fired a Sectumsempra at your foe, but your aim was wrecked by a sharp blinding pain in your right calf. The curse missed it's target, slicing a clean cut through his robes and skin instead of his throat.

Glancing down, you saw something that almost made you pass out right then and there. Nagini's fangs were sunken into your calf, dripping drop after drop of deadly poison into your blood stream. You saw the skin around the bite turning black due to the immediate effects of the poison; it's as if the bite was decaying at a rapid pace. You now wished that you had tried to ignore the pain: knowing what was happening seemed to increase the pain tenfold.

Hearing a muttered Destruction Curse reminded you of the danger you were in, and you noticed that your opponent had the brilliant idea to switch wand hands. Realising that with your leg in such bad shape, you wouldn't stand a chance in hell of pulling off a manoeuvre to get out of the way; you reacted without thinking.

A quick Wingardium Leviosa and a Banishing Charm released Nagini from your leg and placed her in the direct path of the oncoming curse. Unfortunately it also ripped the deadly fangs from her mouth, leaving them buried in your leg.

Glancing behind Voldemort and trying to discern some advantage, you saw the balcony and realised there was only one way you could win. Having reduced his familiar to a pile of ash, you took advantage of his momentary lapse in concentration and quickly fired a blasting hex at the wall right behind your current position.

Like planned, it sent you flying through the air at your foe like a speeding bullet. You received a Bludger to the head as he attempted to stop your flying form, but it was too late. Crashing into his body, you noticed he was attempting the killing curse as a last effort in finishing you off. You grabbed his left arm and twisted, making the curse to fly to the side and dissolve into a book shelf. Ignoring the pain in your skull, you latched onto him with both hands and prevented him from moving.

As both of you crashed through the balcony doors, you made your way towards the edge, feeling sorry that it had to end this way. You had hoped that putting forth your best efforts would have been enough to defeat him, that despite a hefty beating, you would emerge victorious from the flames.

You had hoped to emerge from the rubble of some building, limping and making your way towards your fellow warriors, who had worked so hard to get you this far. With any luck, you'd get to snap his wand in front of all the witnesses, finally passing out from the exhaustion under their joyful and grateful eyes.

Right then, though, the only things you were feeling were a great deal of pain and a hard snap as the pair of you ploughed right through the cement railing. You broke some ribs crashing through the rail, but you knew he was no better off; it was worth the pain. Your stunt would cost you your life, but you would take him down with you. Then you could begin your next big journey, though chances were that he would fuck it up by joining you at the party.

Relaxing your grip a little to glance down and get a better look at his reaction to his defeat, you were amazed to hear a high-pitched cackle break free from his snakelike lips. Fate really is a bitch if he were able to survive a four-hundred foot fall; you felt like shit knowing your plan had failed.

It appeared that he saw your shocked look. He started talking, his high-pitched voice barely audible over the wind rushing past your ears.

"Don't worry Potter; you will have your victory. Not even one as close to immortality as I will be able to survive a fall such as this. Well... At least not now that you, or should I say I, have destroyed the last remaining Horcrux. But never fear, Potter; just mark my words! I will return one day, and it will be with your help. And when that day comes, I shall once more offer you the chance to join me and help in the salvation of wizard kind.

"Only this time," he said, smirking up at you, "I believe you will make the correct choice. After all, you are just as doomed as I am, and you will realise it some day. And when you do, you will make the same choice as I did."

You did not have time to contemplate what foul meanings this monster may have put behind his words, and the damage to your body was finally taking its toll. Releasing your opponent, you drifted into the world of blackness while a tingle ran over your body.

You're not sure how you managed to stay alive, but when you regain consciousness, it is to the pleasant sight of a rather attractive healer. Your first thought is, "Heaven rules!" and you may have said it out loud, because for some reason she blushes, and smiles shyly at you.

You try to move your limbs in an attempt to see how much damage has been done. You are slightly disappointed to realise your head is the only thing that you can control. And even that isn't much; bandages cover everything but your eyes, and you have a splitting headache. The other parts of your body seem to be either unwilling to move or otherwise incapable of movement.

Shifting your gaze to the left, you behold a sight you have been longing to see since you were told that your parents had not been killed in a car crash after all. The murderer of your parents and thousands of others has finally been put to justice. A sharp, spiralling rock sticking nearly ten feet into the air happened to be the judge. His eyes are blank, and his blood has been flowing down the spirals to the base of the rock, creating a nice, red pool.

Gazing back at the healer, a full-fledged grin on your face, you ask her in a raspy voice that still retains some cockiness, "What seems to be the problem, little lady?"

Gazing back at you, she responds with a little smile of her own: "It would seem, Mister Potter, that four-hundred foot falls are not going to be on your "to-do" list any time soon. They seem to leave you with quite a few broken bones and enough cuts and bruises to discourage such acts in the future."

You chuckle appreciatively and rasp out a response.

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger!"

A full smile on her lips, she replies with a, "For you Mister Potter, that would indeed seem the case; after all, you are the boy who lived."

You grunt at being called a boy, but soon afterwards drift back into unconsciousness.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fate is indeed a bitch, in your humble opinion. You had given everything you had, and just when you thought that you had finally succeeded, she decided it wasn't enough and smacked you down yet another time.
Shifting into a more comfortable position on the floor, you hear a faint tingle and glance down at your neck. There they are, two of the last remaining objects from Lord Voldemort's reign of terror over Britain. The two fangs that were stuck to your leg until the end.

You recall the pain those suckers caused you when they pulled them out to heal your leg. You had thought that getting bit was a bitch, but pulling them out... It had hurt like hell. They had managed to stabilise the poison, to keep it from spreading with your blood stream. Then they called in the top poison specialists from all over the world to come take a look. It had them approximately four and a half hours to break down the chemicals in Nagini's poison, and yet another two to come up with a formula that actually worked.

When they were done, you asked to keep the fangs as a keepsake of sentimental value. Much to the displeasure of some, and to the shock of others, you had then taken a silver chain and bound them together. The creation was a rather freaky-looking necklace. It looked even better when you found a talisman shaped like the Dark Mark and placed it between the two fangs. Needless to say, you placed an irremovable charm on the thing.

Shifting back to lying flat on your back, you glance up at the last remaining objects from that horrible time in your life. Hanging from the ceiling was not only your wand, but the Dark Lord's wand as well. Both were held securely in restraints, just out of your reach. Had you been able to stand, they would have been yours in an instant, along with the power to escape this hellhole. But some things just aren't meant to be.

This is what you have been reduced to, a broken man chained to the floor, unable to stand, unable to free yourself from this prison he condemned you to; caged like a rabid beast, you are unable to help others, and most importantly unable to help yourself.

They never tortured you physically, but the mental abuse you were put through - and are put through - is beginning to take its toll. Nothing they could have done to you would ever be worse than the torture your own soul puts you through. They decided to let you hurt yourself. You had the power to save yourself as well as others; you had the power to make the world a better place. But the final say of what you can and cannot do came down to others, as it always seemed to be in your life. And that thought alone caused your pain; a pain so intense that no words can describe it.

This was, of course, your greatest weakness. It isn't the "Saving People Thing" , as the bookworm once so elegantly put it. No, it isn't the fact that you are so easily tricked to go on a wild goose chase to save people. It wasn't because of such a noble, foolhardy thing that you tried to rid the world of Voldemort, tried to prove your strength to everyone. It's just a different kind of mindset - a mindset that made you who you are today.

Screw the people that are powerful enough to help, to offer aid to the weak and not do so. Damn them to the infernal pits of hell for their attitude; you would not let that happen to you. You had known ever since you began your studies at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry that you were one of the good. All those problems you faced were not chances to save everyone else. They were chances for you to perfect your skills for the task that you had been set.

Fate had been preparing you since day one, and because of her you were able to succeed in the end. Without her constant pushing both up and down, you would have remained motionless, weak, and pathetic to the rest of the world; nothing but yet another burden upon their souls.

And with that, the barrier was breached, and the walls that had been holding you back came down. No longer were you going to suffer the pains of being Fate's little bitch. No longer were you going to answer the call of the rest of the world, and accomplish goals that they were capable of doing for themselves. No. For the first time since you were born, you were going to take your life into your own hands. You were going to make the decisions that would ultimately affect the lives of millions, and you were going to relish in the feeling of it.

The souls of those who fought to protect you would now take the place of those who opposed you. No longer would you stand taking orders from others weaker and less intelligent then yourself. This was the dawning of a new age, and you were going to start the revolution!

The chains snapped and you were set free. You stand with a grace and elegance that you did not possess before. You withdrew your tools from their holsters, accepting their aid in your revolution. You turned and began your walk towards the door, a new objective in sight.

You now understood perfectly what Lord Voldemort had said to you all those years ago. You knew what he had planned since the beginning. Blasting apart the door and continuing your way down the hall, it all became clear to you. It was now your turn to lead the rebellion against the Light. It was your chance to stand in the spotlight and receive the recognition you deserved.

You destroy the guards one by one and look back on all that has happened. You realise the benefits of being trained by the Light. You now have the understanding and the skills the Light possessed, and the mind set to take their ideals and plans and shove them right up their high and mighty arse.

And now you have the time you required from the start. Time to master the dark! Reaching the exit and staring into the setting sun you understand what was planned from the beginning of time. The age of the Light was at an end. Lord Voldemort had risen from the ashes once more, stronger and more powerful then ever before! He was part of you, and this time, you made the correct choice.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Authors Note: This is just a little drabble I had hanging around in my head, and needed to let free. It is a One-shot just like I have stated in the Summery, and I do not intend to do anything further with it.
I owe a huge debt to my Beta reader Eldaria, for she is the one attempting to make my chapters and stories readable.

Any comments you people might have, I would love to hear them, so please don't hesitate to review.

-Void