Harry Potter and the Battle for Hogwarts

Chapter One: Slipping Slowly Into Madness

Harry buried his face in his pillow, trying to shut out everything around him. Maybe if he kept his face there long enough he'd suffocate to death and it'd all end. No more worrying, no more suffering, no more fear. And they'd be together again. Maybe this time he'd be able to make himself do it. But no. One oxygen-deprived minute later and he realised that he wasn't quite that desperate just yet.

In general, life in Privet Drive had improved since he'd come home for the summer. In fact, Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia and Dudley had been astonishingly nice to him lately. They noticed when he entered a room. He hadn't been shouted at, accused of something or insulted once by them yet. He even got away with (deliberately) breaking one of Aunt Petunia's best fine china plates, a crime she normally would have skinned him alive for (he wasn't quite sure why he'd broken the plate. Maybe just to see if he could get away with it). Not that this changed behaviour showed an increased level of affection for Harry on their part. They just didn't want the Order of the Phoenix coming round and turning them all into slugs.

Aunt Marge, however, was another matter altogether. She had arrived for two days that morning and, unlike the others, had not been warned by four wizards (including one with a heavily mutilated face) to make sure that Harry was happy. And since the Dursleys would no sooner tell her about Harry's magical powers than eat rat poison, there was no way to explain to her why she suddenly had to be nice to him. Therefore, with her, it was business as usual. And business was blooming.

But for once in his life he barely noticed. His very existance at the moment seemed strangely ethereal, as though he were walking in a dream he wanted to wake up from but couldn't. He felt as though he had taken a heavy blow to the head and was still recovering from it. And there was a part of him that felt like a blank space. Something was missing; something that had been stolen from him and, with it, his ability to care that he had this inexorable feeling or overbearing aunt.

He hadn't even been particuarly affected by the Daily Prophet that morning. Voldemort had finally launched his first public attack on the wizarding world since he had returned to power just over a year ago. The whole of the front page was dedicated to it.

AURORS DIE AS DARK YEARS BEGIN AGAIN

Ever since the Ministry confessed three weeks ago that, despite all their assurances to the contrary, He Who Must Not Be Named has indeed returned, the wizarding community had been waiting in fear and apprehension for the Dark Years of his last quest for power to begin again. And the wait is now over.

His first target: St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.

At approximately one fifteen this morning, staff at the hospital discovered the bodies of three patients and a member of staff, all in the same ward. When Ministry officials arrived, it was to find the Dark Mark hovering over the building, plainly identifying the cause of death.

Both the Ministry and the hospital have declined comment, but it is rumoured that two of the victims were Frank and Alice Longbottom, two well-known and well-respected ex-aurors, who had been in St Mungo's for twelve years after being tortured into insanity by You-Know-Who's followers.

The reason for their sudden murders is unknown, but it is possible that their killers are the same wizards who put them in the hospital in the first place - Rodolphus, Bellatrix and Rabastan Lestrange, all of whom escaped from Azkaban in January.

Harry knew that this news should have had a bigger effect on him but it hadn't. His mind was too numb already to allow much through. There was just one thing, however, that did somehow manage to have a vague impact on him.

Neville. Poor, blundering Neville, who had made so much magical progress and been so uncharacteristically brave last year. He had done so well, and what was his reward? To lose his parents. He and Harry now had something else in common.

But apart from that, Harry was completely unfazed. The ethereal feeling and dazedness could not be taken away, because that part of him that was missing could not be put back. That part of him was Sirius.

Harry would wake in the middle of the night after reliving that night again - his conversation with Kreacher in the fireplace, the journey to the Department of Mysteries, the Death Eaters, the battle and then Sirius falling into the veil and not coming out the other side. No death-bed scene. No chance to say goodbye. No body, even. Perhaps that was why it seemed so unreal, because there was no visible proof that he had died.

Death was now the main topic on Harry's mind. He had so many questions that couldn't be answered by any human being. Not even Nearly Headless Nick or the other ghosts could answer them. How did the veil kill him? What happened to his body? Did Sirius actually die or was he just wiped out like writing in sand being washed over by the tide? Where was he? Was he anywhere at all?

The questions zipped around his head like Fillibuster Fireworks. And his attempts to answer them just went round and round in circles until he cried out in frustration and buried his face in his pillow again.

There were, however, some questions that he did know the answers to:

Was he just not meant to have anyone even remotely like family?

No.

Was Sirius's death his own fault?

Yes.

Was everyone else he cared about in danger of the same fate as Sirius?

Yes.

To be continued...

A/N: First chapter! Please, please, please review! And be as detailed as possible. I'm not going to be posting any more until I have at least five reviews. I'll be putting this on my own website later but I want to know how to make it as good as possible before I do. Thanks.