Chapter Text
Cedric dies first.
Tossed aside like a piece of scrap parchment.
“Kill the spare,” and a flash of green reflected in glassy eyes that stare at Harry, full of blame and judgment.
“You could have saved me,” Cedric’s still form seems to whisper, “If you were stronger, better.”
Harry screams. Screams and cries as he duels Voldemort, as their wands connect, and as he brings back Cedric’s body to Hogwarts, stiff and cold.
Harry falls asleep, after the tournament, after the funeral, and his dreams are filled with green.
The forbidden section isn’t hard to access, not for someone as adept at sneaking around as Harry.
His father’s cloak settles loosely on his shoulders as he draws book after dangerous book from the library’s shelves. Tomes filled with magic too dangerous to be left around for younger students to stumble upon slip into his bag.
In between DA meetings and detentions Harry studies. Hexes and curses committed to memory, Auror battle tactics learned and understood. He refuses to be helpless in the face of danger again.
He will defeat Voldemort. No matter what.
Sirius dies second.
Laughter echoes through the chamber as he stumbles through the veil, the same smile he always wears is on his face as the wispy fabric caresses him and he vanishes,
And he falls.
Harry falls too, falls deep into rage as he witnesses the death of his godfather, the man he had hoped to call home.
He seizes that rage with both hands and funnels it through his magic, fueling the first dark curse he has ever cast. But it will not be the last.
“Crucio.”
“You’ve got to mean it,” Bellatrix cackles, voice taunting and mocking as she shrugs off the unforgivable curse.
Harry does mean it. It just takes more than hatred to fuel a Crucio.
It takes power and control. Both of which he lacks.
Both of which he vows to improve.
He swears, that the next time he sees Bellatrix his curse won’t fail again.
Dumbledore dies third.
The headmaster falls.
The man full of best intentions and harmful manipulations slips over the edge of the astronomy tower with a flash of green.
His face is calm, peaceful. Devoid of the pain that had been carved into his face from Voldemort’s foul potion.
Harry watches as the ever-present twinkle in Dumbledore’s eyes is replaced by the glimmer of an Avada Kedavra. The man who, even though he has wronged Harry through the Dursleys, his manipulations, and keeping him in the dark, he still cares for like a grandfather.
Draco dies next.
The third dark curse Harry ever casts finishes what he started in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom weeks before.
A sickly white flash rips Malfoy open from his neck to his waist. The Sectumsempra carves deep slashes that stain white skin and white clothes red.
Malfoy gasps for breath, long fingers scrabbling at the wound as if he’s trying to hold himself together as red red red bubbles from his lips.
There’s no time for Snape to save him as the Death Eaters flee from Hogwarts.
Draco dies young, too soon for any hope of redemption. He dies with the knowledge that he failed his lord, with the shame of defeat by his schoolyard nemesis.
Harry’s eyes burn as he studies the darkest books he could find in Knockturn Alley.
Deep purple bags form under his eyes when he returns home to the Dursleys.
No, not home. It has never been home. Not with how he has suffered there.
Harry stays up late reading cursed tome after tome.
He repeats an adage, “Know your enemy and know yourself and in a hundred battles you will never peril.”
He tells himself it’s so he can find everything possible about Horcruxes, so he can identify the spells he might need to counter.
Harry chooses not to think about how he’s memorizing the incantations and wand movements as he reads
Mad-Eye dies in the skies above Little Whinging.
Mundungus’s cowardice draws the attention of the Dark Lord to the master auror.
Harry doesn’t see it happen but he knows, knows with bone-deep certainty that Moody wouldn’t have gone without a fight.
It’s the first real taste of death in battle in what is sure to be a bloody war.
Bill and Fleur look radiant at their wedding. They dance and spin with laughs, smiles, and overwhelming love. The wedding is a relief, a chance for everyone to be happy. Happy for a little bit of distraction and hope in these dark times.
Then the Death Eaters attack.
Screams rend the air but Harry is already moving, spells and shields pouring from his wand as he charges through the crowd.
He grabs Hermione’s hand and they fight their way over to Ron. He hopes that she doesn’t notice the increasingly dark curses he throws at the black robes and silver masks, but Harry doesn't hold back.
He can’t afford to, not while body after familiar body hits the floor, pale and still.
Ron and Ginny are fighting back to back, wands raised and red hair flying fiercely. They are surrounded by Death Eaters, two bits of color in a sea of black and silver.
Green fills the air. Harry and Hermione watch helplessly as Ron and Ginny are struck down by killing curses.
Harry apparates them both away to the forest where the Quidditch cup was played.
Hermoine drops like a stone, sobs echoing from her hunched form.
Harry keeps moving, wards and spells surrounding them as he paces, layering protections deep and strong.
He finishes and slumps down next to Hermione, tears silently streaming down his face. They break down holding each other. Sobbing over lost friends and lost loves.
When the tears dry and they set up camp Hermione asks him about the spells Harry used at the battle of the Burrow. He hesitates but tells her about the entrail expelling curse and the bone shatterer, the withering curse and the skinning hex. He lays out the score of dark spells he had thrown at Death Eaters, the spells that kept them alive.
He defends his actions, rationalizing them to her the same way he has been rationalizing them to himself.
“Stunners don’t work in a war. Not when our enemies can be ennervated and thrown right back into the fray. Sometimes you have to put them down hard. You have to fight fire with fire.”
Hermione bites her lip, the same way she always has when he and Ron are doing something that she disapproves of.
She warns him of the dangers of dark magic. Tell him how it is addictive and enticing.
She asks him to teach her the spells anyways.
Harry tries not to think how Ron would be vehemently against the use of dark magic.
So many more die during their quest for the Horcruxes.
The casualties that are listed on the wizarding radio go on for hours.
Sometimes they hear names they know, so they weep and mourn silently.
A gang of snatchers corners them, greedy and certain that they are Hogwarts students on the run from the ministry and looking for the bounty.
After the first deadly spell from their attackers, Harry obliterates them quickly with an overpowered dark spell. The horrible screaming and squelching that rings in his ears as their internal organs rip from their chests haunts him.
Harry sits there in the carnage, wondering how he had enough power to affect multiple people on a spell meant for one.
Harry and Hermione grow closer. They talk every once and a while about Ron and Ginny, how they felt about their long-gone friends. They share a bed when Harry’s nightmares become too much to handle.
Umbridge dies next.
They infiltrate the ministry, following the trail of Slytherin’s locket. Deep in the bowels of the DMLE, past dank courtrooms and dark cells, they come upon a horde of dementors, circling around a crowd of prisoners.
Harry’s Patronus flickers, but he wills it strong.
In the center of the misery sits a frog clothed in pink, and Harry doesn't try to hold back his anger.
A simple piercing hex to Umbridge’s heart proves that Harry doesn't need dark spells to kill.The words “I must not tell lies” carved into her hand bring him a small piece of revenge.
They capture Snape as he tries to lead them with his doe Patronus in the Forest of Dean.
Three drops of Hermione’s homebrewed veritasium is enough to make their dour potions instructor spill everything.
They ask him question after question, about Hogwarts, Dumbledore, Voldemort, and the sword of Gryffindor.
The secrets that spill from Snape’s lips rock Harry to his core.
Dumbledore had known that Harry is a Horcrux. Instead of telling him, or helping get the foul magic out of him, the headmaster had instead bound his core to stop it from gaining power. The bindings must have broken, Harry realizes, thinking back on the influx of power to his spells.
Dumbledore’s betrayal, the concealment of important information, and lies stoke the fires of Harry’s rage higher.
Snape dies on his own curse. Bone-white magic bounces off the shield that Harry throws up to protect Hermione when he curses her in the back. The Sectumsempra catches him in the throat and drops him like a stone.
They left him there for the wolves and crows.
The imperius curse sings from Harry’s wand.
He uses the second unforgivable as he and Hermione make their way into Gringotts. The feeling of control is intoxicating, the inviting nature of that power is screaming warning signs at Harry but he ignores them. Mostly.
Harry knows that he’s slipping down a slope with nothing good at the end. He swears on the graves of his parents that he won't use the third Unforgivable, the curse that killed them, that gave him that scar.
Goblin after goblin falls as they rob Gringotts. Twisted faces are locked with expressions or rage and terror as he cuts them down. They try to kill him, and Harry gives as good as he gets. Something warped and dark pulses in the back of Harry’s mind.
With each successive dark spell he finds himself more willing to be brutal and deadly. Curses shatter the air with more frequency as he advances.
Harry ignores Hermione's slightly disapproving gaze and rushes past warnings about the corruption of dark magic in favor of the power that flows from his wand.
Spells he used to not like using come effortlessly to his fingertips as Harry tears through the crowd of warriors he could have stunned and subdued.
“You don't need to kill them,” a voice in his head whispers, soft and sad. He ignores it and throws the next dark curse at a goblin in his path. He can’t afford to fall.