By his own hand

Chapter three

‘Tell Draco how many times the dark lord of yours used the cruciatus curse on you because you displeased him.’

‘Too many times.’

‘Show Draco what he will feel when Voldemort returns.’

‘I will not curse him, he is a child.’

‘Voldemort didn’t care about those types of things. To become a death eater you have to torture and kill an innocent, the younger and more innocent the better.’

‘I will not use that curse on him.’

‘Fine, I will,’ Harry had Draco on the ground screaming within seconds but his switch was still held up, ‘All the Slytherin’s should listen, this is what he will put you through when he returns and he will return. I feel him so often, hear him, he’s becoming stronger, so even if he won’t get my blood he can use any enemy to return.’

‘Please, let him go.’

Harry stared at the dark haired man, ‘You care for him, don’t you Severus?’

‘He’s my godson.’

‘I see, my godfather who is innocent has to stay in hiding just because you couldn’t let it go. Well, I lost him years ago, you should lose something now. The curse won’t kill him, but he will end up without his mind.’

‘Harry, no, not that.’ Neville yelled as he stood up.

Harry looked towards the Gryffindor table, ‘Why not Neville? He also tormented you, just like he did to me and Snape let him get away with it. Don’t you want to see them punished? I know I do.’

‘Yes, I do, but not that, no one should suffer like my parents.’

Harry lifted the wand, ‘Fine, I might just kill him instead. But tell me Neville, don’t you want to pay everyone back for what you’ve gone through. You saw your parents cursed, you get treated worse than I do by most, don’t you want them to suffer?’

‘I would like them punished, but not suffer.’

‘I used to feel like that, but my heart became cold, my soul is dark now. Hey, if he doesn’t return maybe I could become the next dark lord, that way I could kill or curse everyone that ruined my life. I will start with Dumblefuck, then the disgusting muggles I’m forced to live with, then most of the Slytherin’s, not all are bad, some are okay. Smith, got to get rid of him, he's an annoying little bastard. Anyway, who else will die, some Gryffindor’s will go as well, especially Ron. He’s jealous of me because I'm the-boy-who-lived, yet he has the one thing I want, a family,’ Harry pointed his gun at Draco, ‘He’s next.’

‘No,’ Severus moved until he was standing in front of Draco, ‘If you want to kill anyone, then kill me.’

‘Oh, I plan to, but him first, you need to see what it’s like to lose someone you care about. If you did then you might not be such a bastard. I have no idea what my father was like, he might have been an arrogant prick, I wasn’t raised by him so how can I be like him. You never stopped to look past my face and see who I really was. All you saw was James Potter, the man that married the woman you loved. That’s true, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, I loved Lily, I did for a long time.’

‘Mummy is dead. I used to wonder what it felt like to be hugged by a mother, by anyone really. Do you know Hermione was the first person to ever hug me?’

Albus groaned as he heard what Harry said, yet a lot of the people inside the Great Hall didn’t hear anything of what Harry Potter was saying. They were too busy watching him and the muggle weapon in his hand

‘I was twelve, pathetic isn’t it, to be twelve before someone wants to hug you. Ron is jealous of me, yet he has a mother to hug him and a father. Who do I have? Muggles that starve me, that hit me, that lock me in a cupboard. Gred, Forge, tell them what you found that time.’

‘Harry was locked in his room, we had to pull the bars off the window,’ Fred said.

‘His trunk with his wand was locked in the cupboard under the stairs,’ George said.

‘We picked the lock using a muggle method, went downstairs.’

‘When we got Harry’s trunk out of the cupboard we saw an old blood stained mattress on the floor,’ George said.

‘There were pictures on the wall, drawings, a birthday cake with candles, it said happy birthday Harry,’ Fred said.

‘There was another lot of writing that said Harry’s room,’ George said.

‘Harry told Ron they only gave him the room upstairs when the Hogwarts letters arrived. They thought they were being spied on. He lived in that cupboard until he was eleven years old,’ Fred said.

‘We took Harry home, found out that he hadn’t eaten in four days, even Hedwig was starving, she was locked in her cage,’ George said.

‘Mum gave Harry four helpings of breakfast that day. But that’s not all,’ Fred said.

‘We saw Harry coming out of the bathroom, he has a lot of old scars. He practically ran to the bedroom and hid from us. He made us promise to never tell anyone that his uncle beat the shit out of him, that happened every day,’ George said.

‘He tried to beat the magic out of him. But we kept our word just got him healing potions and ointments from mum.’

‘You should have told me Harry.’ Albus said wearily.

‘You fucking left me there, in the middle of the night on the doorstep, a fifteen month old baby dumped like a piece of fucking trash,’ Harry snarled, ‘Now it’s time to finish this.’

‘You don’t want to kill your friends, do you?’

‘Oh, I plan to let a few go, Hermione, Fred, George, Ginny, Lee, Neville, Luna, that’s about it. No one else is worth saving.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘What?’ Harry turned back to Snape whose head was lowered, ‘What did you say?’

‘I’m sorry, I am so sorry, I made a vow to keep you safe, I never knew. I thought they cared for you.’

‘You knew Petunia, you saw the way she acted towards my mother. You knew she hated anyone magical.’

‘She was a child then.’

‘Oh I see and you think kids can’t stay the same when they grow up, or get worse?’

‘I believed they would love you,’ Severus looked up, ‘I’m sorry, but you can come back from this, if you let me help you. I will tell you about your mother, how beautiful and kind she was. Don’t hurt anyone, if you do kill, it will change you. Please…Harry, don’t do this. There isn’t a day that I don’t think of your mother, about what I did. I pay now by staying here, teaching. I do not like to teach, but I do it to make sure you are safe.’

‘But I’m not safe, I haven’t been since I stepped foot through those fucking doors. Did you forget the troll, Fluffy, Quirrell, Voldemort; that was just in my first year, I was eleven. Then the following year, I risk my life to save Ginny from the basilisk and Tom Riddle, I almost die and would have if it wasn’t for Fawkes, he used his tears to save me. Even after that Lucius Malfoy was going to a-k me but thanks to Dobby, I was saved again. Then there’s last year, I find out the man who was supposed to have been my parent’s secret keeper wasn’t, he wasn’t here to kill me, but he came to make sure I was safe. He at least tried to get to Peter, even then no one believed me. Sirius wasn’t even given a trial, just chucked into Azkaban, an innocent man. You made that worse when you lied to the minister. Why would I want to stay in a world like that, I decided I don’t but I have to take out the ones that ruined my life first.’

‘Please don’t Harry, let me help you, let someone help you.’

Harry moved his thumb slightly, pushed one of the small buttons on his switch. An almighty boom echoed through the castle making all the students scream and jump.

‘No one can help me, not anymore. That was Dumbledore’s office by the way. All he likes to do is sit on his throne or sit in his ivory tower and play god. At least now he has to join the mortals like everyone else.’

‘Okay, he should not have given you to Petunia and your godfather should have been given a trial, but that does not mean you have to kill.’

‘It does, life isn’t worth living, so since I’m about to die I want to take others with me, the ones that deserve it.’

‘You’re life is worth living, if you trust me, I will make sure it is. Don’t let your mother’s sacrifice be in vain.’

‘I’m going to join my mother, at least I know she loves me, no one else ever has.’

‘I care for you, I know you probably don’t believe me but I do. I tried to hate you, I was supposed to. We knew the dark lord would return, I always planned to join him, but as a spy for the light. When he went after you, I made a decision, I changed sides. So even though…Lily died, I stayed. I made a promise to Lily, to protect you, so I stayed to make sure you were safe.’

‘Why, because I’m the one the prophecy says has to kill Voldemort?’

‘No, you are the one the prophecy means but I made a vow to Lily to keep you safe. Please Harry, don’t let me break that vow, not to Lily. She would want you to live, she loved you,’ Severus saw Harry’s eyes moisten, ‘Lily loved you, she was willing to die so you could live, she gave you a protection, if she was a ghost she would tell you not to do this. She loved life, she loved to stand outside and let the wind blow through her beautiful red hair. She would stare at the clouds and tell me what she saw, most were ridiculous, but she did that to make me laugh. I’ll tell you something no one else knows. My father, my muggle father was a drunk who liked to beat up on his wife and son,’ Severus pulled his other sleeve up, ‘I used to cut myself just to forget what I felt and heard in that house. But see the big scar?’

‘Yeah,’ Harry stared down at Snape’s scarred arm.

‘I tried to kill myself, when I was thirteen, you’re mother saved me just like she saved you. Don’t you see Harry, I do know how you feel. You’ve been tormented and ridiculed ever since you joined our world, you were beaten and starved before that. I might not know what it feels like to go hungry, but I do know how it feels to be tormented. I do know it wasn’t just your fathers and godfathers fault when they tormented me, I used to hex them as well. I tried to forget my pain by taking it out on them. I do know Harry, so let me help you, please, and then you will see that life is worth living. You just have to give me a chance to show you.’

Harry pulled up his own sleeve, he looked at the scars that marred his arm, similar to Snape’s arm. Most people in the great hall also saw the cut marks up and down Harry’s arm and knew he had been cutting himself, and for a long time by the amount of scars on his arm.