Unexpected Betrayal

Harry ate his food, trying to seem as if he was all right. And in truth, he was better than he could have been. All of them were at the table, eating. Everyone at Hogwarts that year had survived when Voldemort tried to attack, so things weren't so bad, even if everyone was in hiding. Even after Voldemort took over and all of the kids had to hide out, without contact with anybody, there was still some laughter, they still tried to have some cheer. They still needed hope.

Harry noticed that Ron was looking around with a half-smug, half-nervous look. He was constantly looking around in worry, looking at the door and eating very little. That wasn't normal for Ron, normally his appetite was ravenous and he only paid attention to what was on his plate.

"Hey, Ron, what's wrong?" Harry asked lightly. Ron had taken the entire thing pretty well, and was doing OK without his parents. This sudden discomfort was a surprise. Of course, the ease in which their friend had accepted everything alarmed Hermione, but Harry convinced her that it wasn't any sort of problem; after all, the last reports that came in had said that the Weasley family was probably safe.

"Oh, nothing," Ron didn't look as if nothing was wrong; he looked like a trapped animal.

"But--" started Harry, when suddenly there was a huge explosion. The chairs flew across the room, and everyone turned to see what had happened. Over at one of the tables, there were only cinders where people had been moments before. Everyone started screaming, and they all ran for cover. All except for Ron.

"Ron, come on!" hissed Harry, trying to drag his best friend along. "There's not much time!" Why wasn't Ron trying to get away?

To Harry's surprise, Ron smiled. It wasn't the sort of smile that the young wizard had been accustom to seeing on his best friend; it seemed sinister, evil. "You're right. There's not." He grabbed Harry's arm. "Here he is!" he called. "Harry Potter!"

Harry didn't have time to be shocked; he just reacted. That was thankful for him, because if he had been in a coherent state of mind then Harry would have ended up dead. However, in his purely instinctual state, he quickly jerked away from Ron's grip and started running, trying to get away from this awful nightmare.

Harry's breath was loud in his ears, and his feet hitting the ground sounded like a loud drum playing in rhythmic beats. However, it wasn't loud enough, and he couldn't fast enough; he couldn't get away before he heard Ron, his supposed best friend, saying, "Alright, where's my money? You promised that you'd give me two thousand galleons for telling you where the hideout was..."

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Two Months Later...

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Harry looked around. He was crouched in a cave, looking around at the barren land. He was all dirty, and his robes were practically rags. There were cuts and bruises all over his body and he hadn't eaten a decent meal in weeks.

However, he was alive, which was more than you could say for most of the Hogwarts students. For most of the wizards of England, for that matter. Alive, he thought, I lived when they died. I should have been the one to die, not them. Harry would never forgive himself for being alive; after all, it was his own fault that everyone else was dead.

He tried to say it out loud once, but he stopped. Everybody just tried to deny it. But he knew. Even if he didn't mean to, if it hadn't been for Harry they would still be alive.

"You know, if not for you they already would have been dead," said a voice from behind Harry. The wizard jumped, and spun around. He relaxed when he saw that it was Hermione who had spoken. "You can't continue blaming yourself."

"I can, and I will," responded Harry shortly, turning back around again. He didn't want to face her.

"Harry, it's not your fault! If not for you, Voldemort would have won fourteen years ago. Anyway, it's not your fault that he won now." Hermione's eyes were concerned. "Harry, you're all I have left." The last part came out as a whisper, almost as if she hadn't wanted to say it out loud. But once it was out, the girl straightened and something almost like anger flashed in her eyes. "Harry, stop sulking about what you can't change!"

Harry took a deep breath, sounding as if he was trying to fight down a tremendous pain. "Hermione, the plain truth is, if I hadn't been there then nobody would have died. I should have just given myself up."

If Hermione's eyes hadn't held any anger before, they certainly did now. "Look, I know why you're saying this. You're trying to avoid the truth. Well, here's the truth, plain and simple: It's Ron's fault. He sold you out, Harry, and without him they'd be alive."

Harry spun around. Now there was anger in his eyes, anger and an almost incomprehensible sadness. "I was too insensitive," he whispered. "I should have seen how he was feeling, I should have seen what I was doing to him. But no, I was too blind. Flaunting the money...I should have taken it more seriously, the thing with the Leprechaun gold two years ago, all of those looks he gave over the years..."

"Harry!" screeched Hermione. "I have had enough of this sulking. He should have told you what he thought, maybe he should have broken off the friendship. But what he shouldn't have done was give away your hiding place to the Death Eaters! It doesn't matter how much he wanted money--" The look in Harry's eyes made her stop there. She took a step back, almost frightened by the intensity of the emotion in them.

"Can we stop talking about this? Please?" Harry's voice was expressionless.

Hermione gave a hesitant nod. "As long as you don't keep sulking like this. Harry, you have to do your part--"

"Just tell me what needs to be done, and I'll do it." Still no expression. It was starting to scare Hermione, and she needed something familiar here in hiding, something to cling on to. The only thing was Harry, and all he did was sulk.

"We need to be there for each other. We need company. Harry, I need some contact with my only remaining friend." There was no mistaking the pleading in the young witch's voice, nor the pain. She and Ron had had a relationship before he'd snapped, and Harry knew that she mourned the old Ron all the time, and the she considered the Ron that she'd known dead. "Please?"

Harry sighed. "I don't think that any of us will truly get over this, Hermione. And I'll always consider this my fault. But yeah. I'll try. I'll try to move on." He walked back into the cave, and Hermione followed him.

The cave was much larger than it appeared to be, and much better furnished. The students and teachers both ran to a sanctuary after Voldemort came back and rose to power again. However, after Ron had snapped and gave the Death Eaters the location of their hideout, all of the survivors had to find somewhere else. Harry still remembered when they had attacked. He relived it, over and over, in his head.

"Alright, where's my money? You promised that you'd give me two thousand galleons for telling you where the hideout was..."

That was the one thing that Harry just couldn't escape from, no matter how hard he tried. The voice echoed in his brain, never stopping, even when the wizard thought that he had his mind on other things.

"Harry!" called Hermione again. From the tone of her voice, he guessed that she'd had to say his name multiple times before he'd answered.

"Sorry," said Harry quietly. "Just thinking about..." the trailed off.

Hermione nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I think about that too." She reached up and gave Harry a comforting hug. "I'm sorry," she whispered, then let go before he could say anything, and she quickly walked over to the table where they got lunch, her head down.

Harry sighed and shook his head, thinking as he walked over to get some food for lunch. Ron...who knew if Ron was even alive now? Or did Voldemort kill him after he'd gotten the information that he'd needed? Looking down, Harry wasn't sure what he thought. I should hate him for giving us away! I should want to strangle him! Look at all the deaths he's caused, all of those innocent people!

"A penny for your thoughts?" Harry turned around to see Lupin, who had come back to be the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher in Harry's 6^th year. That year. Had it really only been a few months since they'd gone to Hogwarts at the beginning of the year? Had everything really happened in so short a time?

Harry shrugged. "Thinking."

"About what?" Pressed Lupin, concerned.

"About Ron, I guess," Harry sighed, "Like always. I...I want to hate him, I should hate him, he's evil, he's responsible for the deaths of all those people...almost as much as I am...so why do I hate myself and yet I can't hate him?"

Lupin put an arm around Harry's shoulders. "He was your best friend, Harry. Of course you can't hate him. You knew him too well, you feel like you were the one who was wrong because you cared about Ron for years, and in all that time he was a great friend."

"How could he have done that?" whispered Harry. "What could I have done that..." he trailed off, looking off into the distance.

"It's not your fault, Harry," replied Lupin gently. "It was Ron's decision, and if he felt that way--"

"Hermione said the same thing, and I don't buy it!" burst out Harry, jumping away from the Professor's fatherly arm. "He shouldn't have had to tell me. As a friend, I should have known. My best friend shouldn't have to tell me things like that." Harry stalked off, stabbing the ham that he was getting onto his plate as if he was trying to kill it.

Ron looked down at Pigwidgeon, clenching his fist angrily. "Why him? Who killed him?" Ron's jaw clenched angrily, looking down at the dead owl.

"He had a message from Sirius, and the Death Eaters intercepted it," replied Dumbledore gravely. "They killed him as a message to you."

"I'm sorry, Ron," said Harry quietly, not sure what else to say.

"Now what will I do? I promised Mum I'd send her owls, and other people..."

"You can always use the school birds, Ron," Harry reminded him, knowing that this wasn't the main reason that Ron was upset. Ron would never admit how attached he'd been to the little bird.

"I also told Ginny that when I got a new owl next year, I'd give her Pig." Ron just kept on seeming angry.

"Look, since it's my fault he's dead, he was carrying a message from me, I'll get you a new owl if you want--" Harry stopped, amazed at the rage in his friend's eyes.

"NO!" screamed Ron. "We don't need your charity, Harry Potter! You don't have to prove how rich you are!"

Ron stormed off in rage, muttering angrily, as Harry just watched in shock, not quite believing what had just happened. Ron had come back later, to apologize, saying that he'd just been upset about Pig. Harry had believed him.

There were tears streaming down Harry's face as he thought about all the instances where he should have seen how his friend felt, but was just too blind. I should have seen. I should have known that it wasn't just the shock, and that there was something wrong. I should have known.

That litany had kept going on, over and over, in Harry's head, since he'd been betrayed. I should have known, I should have known, I should have known. There was no escape from his own thoughts.

Harry ate lunch alone, avoiding Hermione. She was right, he knew: he shouldn't be sulking the way he was, he should be doing something to help. Something to stop Voldemort.

Don't be silly, the Ministry is taking care of that, Harry thought to himself, trying to find reason. Dumbledore's there, he won't mess things up.

So you're going to let other people do what you should be doing? Like a coward? Another voice broke into Harry's mind, arguing. It had been like this for a while, with two voices in Harry's head yelling at each other. Harry wondered sometimes if he wasn't going crazy, or if he had already been crazy. Maybe he was at St. Mungo's, and all of this was just part of his insane imagination.

Wouldn't that be nice? None of this real, no dead, no Voldemort...

"Harry?" asked a voice. He looked up, and Hermione was there again. "You're crying."

Harry wiped away his tears. "No I'm not," he replied, standing up. Seeing the pleading expression on his friend's face, he sighed. "Alright, maybe I am. Just...stuff. You know, wondering..."

"About Ron?" Hermione's voice was quiet, painful, just as it always was when she brought up her former boyfriend.

"No, about...what you said. Kind of. I should be doing something, dammit!" Harry hit his head against the wall in frustration.

"Harry, you're not old enough. Leave it to the Aurors. You can't be expected to do anything."

"It's my fault." As always, Harry's answer was short and self-blaming.

"Your fault that Voldemort got into power? Harry, even you can't be so...so...Harry, there is no way that those events could be interpreted as your fault!" Hermione seemed shocked.

"Can't it? Whose blood did he use to rise?" The expression on Harry's voice couldn't quite be interpreted; a bit of anger, a bit of self-hate, and many unknown emotions.

"Harry, if it wasn't you he would have chosen somebody else!" cried Hermione, astonished. "How can you blame yourself for so much? Your guilt is irrational, and you know it."

Harry spun around. "Maybe it seems that way to you, but I need to do something. I can't just sit here like a coward." With that, Harry ran out. Hermione followed him quickly, running after him, calling for him to come back, knowing that the wizard wouldn't listen.

Potter grabbed his wand and some cloaks. "Accio Firebolt!" he whispered the incantation, and his broom flew through the air and into his arms. He mounted it, and turned to see his friend running into the room.

"Harry don't!" she screamed. She was too late, though, because Harry flew out of the cave, out into the world where he was certainly not safe, and everyone was out to kill him. How can he think that he'll survive? Hermione cried to herself. Anybody would turn him in at first sight; he was doomed, all because he was feeling guilty. The girl tried to fight down her own feelings of guilt, but first Ron, and now Harry was doing something foolish because she couldn't help them.

"Please don't die, Harry," she whispered, following his form with her eyes until he was out of sight. "Please don't die."