Unwanted Obsessions

Unwanted Obsessions

By Aariyha Ruby

~Prologue ~

The End of an Era

~The end of an adventure, is another to begin? Never to see the one who walked the world in sin. There be a follower, loyal and true, but the secrets suppressed by nature were made to break through~

"At last, the time has come for us to rejoice, for the evil, which has plagued the Muggle and Wizarding world alike, has been destroyed at last and we can finally live in peace. For many years time passed as a blur, but at last the evil that we all seemed to fear so much has gone. Everyone is gathered and welcomed here today to celebrate this honour and pay respect to those who didn't make it to this point."

Nothing but emotional applause followed the speech of Albus Dumbledore, as he stood grandly at the large wooden doors which led to the esteemed Hogwarts. The crowd stretched out across the grounds, everyone dressed in their very best robes. All looked up to Dumbledore anxiously, each taking in Dumbledore's words personally. They all had been affected by the war, which had lasted only for a year, but was gruesome, and today was the day to celebrate.

"And let us remember he who has saved us. He who fought with all his might and showed no sign of selfishness."

The crowd all chorused "Hear! Hear!"

"Let us hope that he will regain consciousness so that we can have a humungous celebration-" Dumbledore sighed a little and some of the crowd along with him, "let us take a moment to pray for Harry Potter."

Every being in the crowd that possessed a wand held it to the sky, and there was a moment silence. Then, with a sigh, Dumbledore tucked his wand back into his robes.

"Now, I suggest we all go to Hogsmeade for a celebration drink!"

There were murmurs of agreement and the crowd all headed for the Hogwarts gates, towards Hogsmeade. Everyone was aware of the horrors that had finally come to an end and each was more than willing to celebrate.

Dumbledore regarded them with glowing pride. These people were heroes; these were the survivors, not just Aurors but everyday people just willing to help in the battle against the Dementors, Giants and Death Eaters, and of course Voldemort.

It was surprising how many Death Eaters there actually were, but when they attacked the castle, in the middle of the seventh years NEWT's exams, the Death Eaters were out numbered by the students and when the Ministry turned up some time later, the Death Eaters didn't stand a chance. That was until Voldemort arrived, an army of thousands of Dementors in tow...

Dumbledore could still see Tom's lifeless red eyes flash before him. Tom Riddle no longer seemed to fear Dumbledore. But Dumbledore had soon discovered himself to be nowhere near as powerful as Harry Potter...

"Professor?" asked an uncertain voice. Dumbledore smiled at the tall red haired girl before him.

"Miss Weasley," Dumbledore acknowledged with a nod. Ginny smiled up at him, her face smudged with dirt, a shallow scratch through her eyebrow and her black Hogwarts robes terribly ripped. Around her neck hung a silver chain and on it was a golden key that gleamed as if it was winking.

"Um, have you seen Ron? Or Hermione?" Her voice was strained as she asked and Dumbledore thought for a moment. Why hadn't they been at the ceremony?

"Forgive me, young Ginny, but the whereabouts of those two remains a mystery to me, but do not worry. I'm sure they're just hanging around somewhere." With a twinkling wink he turned to the other professors and ministers behind him.

Ginny stood on the step below where Dumbledore had just stood. She sighed and sat down on the stairs with a plonk. She rested her chin on her hands and scanned the crowd as it moved towards the gate, hunting for a flash of bright red Weasley hair but none was seen. She couldn't think of where they'd got to. She had only seen them earlier, when Dumbledore's speech had began. They were grinning happily to themselves.

"Ginny dear, there you are." Ginny's felt her heart leap into her throat. She looked around for the source of the voice. That familiar, loving voice.

Her mother's voice

Ginny stood quickly and cast around wildly, but there was no sign, there was no evidence, there was nothing only the squashed grass and Dumbledore and his crew passing her as they walked over to Hogsmeade to get drinks ... leaving Ginny alone.

But she could've sworn she heard her mother, the love, the sweetness in her tone. It could've only been her.

But deep down Ginny knew it wasn't, how could it be? Ginny had seen it with her own eyes, the horror had haunted every waking minute she had and everything was worse in her sleep ... so much worse.

Ginny shook the images from her sight and walked into the castle. She was going to pack her things, as the other students had earlier, and then prepare to go home at last.

~The war has ended, it only lasted a year, but the one thing that won't end, is the fear~

"Of course they can't help you, who ever told you they could?"

Those eyes, those deep red eyes, so hollow, he could see right into the skull, but nothing could stop him from doing what he was about to, it was time, he could feel it.

"Don't bother Voldemort!" he cried above the whistling of the golden air that spun around him. "I know I can kill you!"

Harry had seen all this before, but why was this happening now, why was it happening again? He didn't understand.

"Who are you trying to save Harry? There's no one who loves you, no one who cares for you. They're all gone, all dead!" Voldemort had to yell now, his wand held tightly in his hand, his hand shaking just as Harry's was. The wind around them picked up and Harry couldn't even see the people fighting around him, because of the golden sphere.

"You're wrong! I loved them, but there are people I love here as well!"

Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Remus, the Weasleys ... Cho ...

Voldemort was struggling now, the vibrating increased from Harry's wand, he could feel it beneath him, as the ground was falling away from his feet and cracking to where Voldemort stood. Neither of them looked at it, they glared into each others eyes, each as keen as the other to kill.

How could this end, we're as strong as each other? There has to be a way...

"You can always be the hero but there will come a time when you have to pull away, you will have to. If you go down so does your enemy, there's only one way and you'll know it-"

"But how? Of course!"

Then with all the will power he felt within him, Harry pulled his wand back, he let the golden thread that joined his wand with Voldemort's hit him in the chest, knocking the wind out of him and sending him flying backwards.

"FOOL!" cried Voldemort, a cackling laugh echoed through the sphere around the pair.

Perhaps Harry was wrong.

But then the sphere began to change. A violet colour streamed through the gold like poison. It soaked its way around where Harry lay and slowly it seeped into Voldemort.

His eyes grew wide as he realised what Harry had done.

"POTTER! YOU WILL PAY! MY FOLLOWERS WILL NOT LET THIS HAPPEN! I CAN NOT DIE! I CANNOT!"

But it turned out he could.

In moments he exploded into thousands of tiny little pieces, and Harry suddenly felt extremely weak and every bit of weakness he had ever felt clambered into Harry's soul, making his vision darken as the golden sphere around him disappeared and the commotion outside the sphere ceased as they saw only Harry alive, falling to the ground. All that remained of the darkest wizard the generation had known was a tiny golden key, so tiny, no one even noticed it, they were so worried about the boy who was unconscious, his wand still held tightly in his hand.

~If you go down so does you're enemy, there's only one way and you'll know it~

When Draco was young his father had told him that Draco would fear him up to the last moment of his death. But as Draco stood over his father's dead body he had the strangest feeling that his father had been wrong.

Dead wrong

"So many lies you told, dear father. How could I ever have believed them? Now because of you I have to hide, I have to hide because the only person who knows I'm not like you is dead!"

Draco kicked his father's body wildly. Everything was his fault! How could a man ever do this to his son?! Draco looked around the small room he was standing in. A few moments ago his father was alone in this room, waiting in cowardice for the battle outside to end. Draco wasn't intending on killing his father just annoying him a bit, but what he'd said would haunt Draco forever, and his father had known that when he said it.

"You think I would give you that satisfaction? You've never meant anything to me, besides it was me who planted it. I was the spy, I was the one who freed the Dementors and tortured those pathetic Weasley's. What is it boy? You think you're special? You're not special and never have been. Now get back outside and fight!"

Draco sighed, he felt himself breaking up inside. He was beginning to shake, but was determined not to cry, now wasn't the time for it. Draco was going to have to run. Now that his own father had deceived him and framed him for murder, he had no choice. He would leave evidence that he'd killed his father; he wanted everyone to know he had done it.

"Draco?" asked a woman sweetly. Draco looked up from his father's body to his mother, who was standing in the doorway. Her hands flew to her mouth as her pale eyes fell onto her murdered husband lying at the feet of her blood covered son. "What's-?"

"Mother, what are you doing?"

"I was coming to see your father, Draco you didn't, did you? Not you ..." Her voice trailed, as she looked wide eyed at Lucius Malfoy's body. For a moment Draco stood staring at his mother, as she stared at his father. His mother was one of those people that could look entirely gentle but were really fierce and uncaring. His friends would tell Draco how lucky he was to have a mother so beautiful and glamorous, but they didn't see the bruises his father had left on her and they didn't feel it when she slapped her son.

"I'm leaving," Draco stated bluntly. His mother didn't even glance at him as he passed her. Draco walked into the small tunnel-like corridor; he stopped, and turned back to his mother.

She was still standing in the doorframe, her hand over her mouth, breathing deeply. Draco looked at her for a moment. How could a woman like her ever fall for that pathetic excuse for a man?

"Why, mother?" Draco asked. She didn't turn and look at him, she gazed into the room. "How could you stand by the man that beat you? That said he never loved you?"

"Stop it!" Narcissa cried as she turned to her son, her cheeks stricken with tears, her shoulders shaking fiercely with gasps she tried to hold back.

"Stop what? The truth! Oh, can't you handle the truth, mother. Don't fucking like it do you? Always hiding behind father! Like a stupid fucking-"

"Shut up! You stupid child! You pathetic little brat! Go away!" She cried. Her voice shook as she pointed down the corridor. "Get away before I call an Auror to lock you up, you disgusting Death Eater."

Draco glared at his mother. She had really lost this time. She could never handle the truth; never handle it when Draco told her about what his father was really doing behind her back.

Suddenly she broke down against the wall. She slid onto the ground, crying loudly, her breaths shaking gasps.

"You have - no - idea - what - you - have - done!" she croaked between gasps. "You've ruined everything-!"

"No! He ruined it!" Draco cried, interrupting her. He pointed to where he knew his father's body lay in a pool of blood, a signature Malfoy knife beside his body. Narcissa wept under Draco's tone.

"Draco-"

"He fucking ruined everything for me and you and everyone!" Draco felt the stinging in the back of his eyes. He wouldn't cry, he wouldn't cry, he wouldn't.

But he was, and he could tell that by seeing her son cry, Narcissa was tearing apart inside. She looked at Draco through half closed eyes. Tears were pouring down her cheeks.

Draco glowered at her for a moment then he turned and walked a few steps before she called out to him.

"Draco! Please ... don't go."

Draco stopped walking, but didn't turn around; he hung his head and stared at the ground. "It's too late. There's nothing now. Nothing!"

"Look at me Draco. Please. Just look, I have something to say."

Draco turned around, annoyed at her now. He expected to see her still on the ground, but she wasn't. She was standing in the centre of the walkway, her wand held firmly in her hand, pointed at her head.

"Mum, no-" Draco said taking a step towards her.

It was the first time he'd ever called her mum; he always called her Narcissa or Mother... never mum.

"Draco, I know what I'm doing." She paused and wiped her eyes with her free hand. "Draco, I love you, son."

Then while she still looked lovingly at her son, she mumbled the killing curse and before Draco knew it she was a lifeless heap on the cold stone floor, just like his father.

Everything seemed to freeze. It was as if time had frozen for the longest moment. Draco felt as though he'd been ripped in half. His mother had said she loved him, she had said the words he had always longed to hear. But things were even stranger when he remembered his father's last words.

Pull yourself together, they probably planned this.

Yeah right! His parents planned their own deaths and their last goodbyes to their son. Draco rolled his eyes sarcastically. He knew where he'd have to go now, he'd have to pledge allegiance to her. A shiver ran through his spine as he saw her in his mind.

Pitch-black hair, silver shiny eyes, pale skin...

He glanced back at his mother before walking up the corridor and into the bright light. People tried to stop him as he walked through the crowd on the Hogwarts grounds, but he was determined. Soon the rumours would fly, everyone would think that he murdered those Weasleys, which ones he wasn't sure, and they would think his mother had murdered his father then killed herself.

And he was going to sell his soul, so he could be protected by the one person he still stood a chance with.

Emerald Viper Slytherin, the other heir of Slytherin.

~She is lost to the devil, always to feel pain~

"They forever play in that garden, it sickens me. This whole place sickens me shitless. How could I ever be a help here? Are you listening? I don't think you are. You're watching me; you're watching me every moment because you think I'm insane. If you gave me my wand back, I will prove that I am not."

Those were the first words I heard her speak. I watched her on the muggle screen after I had killed the guards. She was talking bullshit, making things up. Pretending she was insane. Well, I hope she was pretending.

I had heard the myths about her, whispers in the alleys, writing on the cubicle walls but never any certain evidence, until I heard Muggles, of all things, talking about the "insane, Slytherin something girl that was on the news..." And my heart jumped and I suddenly knew exactly where she was and I was scared and I hoped that she needed me, my plan was simple.

Free her,

And she'll free me.

And as you know diary, being free from this curse has been my goal for the past year and a half, ever since 6th year. Well, that is besides looking for her, which has been on my mind for quite some time now. But I was cursed before the war ended, before I realised I needed to find her.

I watched her sit in the small square room. The walls were padded, a small window high above her head and the walls, floor and door were a clean pearl-white.

She sat in the exact centre of the room, with her legs crossed and arms folded. She stared up at the camera with a cocky grin. After a moment I opened the door and she knew why I was there.

She said she couldn't help me, there was no way.

But I was so sure! So fucking sure that she would be able to help because of her blood! Because of her bloodline! But then she said she has a secret and wants me to take her to The Realm of Olearia. And I have no idea what that is.

This is the last time I'm ever going to write here. Emerald says that to get to Olearia we need a "team" of some sort, like a travelling party or something. Times are about to change, diary. We've got only two years to find the prophecy, read it, and then complete it at the exact right moment.

This is going to be a challenge.

Signed, Draco Malfoy