Changing Faith

Changing Faith

Because of him, Sirius had died... Or had he? What exactly does the veil do? However, he most certainly would never see Sirius again, and Harry wasn't about to let anything like that happen again.

Harry had felt he was the cause. He had paid attention to "the stupid manipulation Voldemort gave me," as he called it, believing that Sirius was going to be killed. This turned out true, only once he went to go play the hero and "save" Sirius's life. Because of him, chaos occurred. He didn't feel he could stand to make mistakes any longer.

Because of him, Remus Lupin had been lost from the Order, and he was now against it. The dark creatures of the wizarding world, including werewolves and Dementors, had been summoned to Voldemort, and Harry hadn't bothered to hold Remus in place and keep him at the Order. He was afraid of making a mistake. Now, Remus was working for Voldemort along with most of the other werewolves. They had all been brainwashed into working for the Dark Lord. Harry had looked at the bright side and acknowledged that Remus's old friend Peter Pettigrew was alongside him once more.

Neville had gone to take his revenge on Bellatrix Lestrange. He had gone to kill her. He felt she had gone too far, and he was going to make sure she caused no further harm. However, he only ended up right where his parents were. They weren't dead, but you could hardly call the lives they led living. It was the sort of life others looked upon with pity and sorrow, making them gratitude that they didn't have to live that way--that they seemed to have been better blessed.

He had foreseen everything that occurred. It all really happened. Yet, he didn't change one bit. He stood firm in his opinion that, at one point, he would finally play the hero once more in order to save someone, but that he would once more be proven wrong.

He didn't have any idea of what to do. He had lost his parents, the closest thing he'd ever had to a father, and then he'd lost his father's only friend left who proved trustworthy. It was up to him to do so many things, but he never did them. He had often heard that he shouldn't be afraid of mistakes and that he should learn from them, but these mistakes could cost lives. They already were. You couldn't tell whether or not you'd make a mistake while in Harry's position.

He sunk into a dream of a memory.

"Harry, you must do something!" Hermione said, standing before him as he sat on his bed at Grimmauld Place.

Harry sat still, doing nothing, saying nothing. He stared at his feet with sorrow glittering in his eyes. He had no tears, but his eyes were glassy. Hermione could see it through his glasses.

"Harry!" Hermione said, tears building up in her eyes. "Please!" She sobbed and choked on her tears for a moment. "Will you please listen to me, Harry?"

Harry did nothing and said nothing. He seemed unaware of the fact that his consistent behavior was saddening Hermione, which saddened her further.

"I know that," she said, stopping as she choked again on her tears, "deep down, you know you aren't just playing the hero and taking advantage of your fame. You want to help them! You can't be afraid of making the same mistake over and over! Look what's happening!"

Harry looked up at her. She was right, but he was still afraid to make the same mistake as he had once before. He wasn't just taking advantage of his fame. He was trying to help people. It didn't really help him much, but at the time, she and Ron seemed to think that he had been being arrogant and jealous, trying to have all of the spotlight at once. He had wanted them to not think that. He wanted them to see what he really wanted--why he always went out of his way to show bravery.

"You must help us," she said quietly. "We all need your help!"

"No," Harry said.

He hadn't wanted to say that. He hated the fact that she was so upset. He would let her be a bossy know-it-all any day rather than upset as she was at the time.

She gulped and gave a sob, running out of the room in tears.

What more had he foreseen? He had seen Hermione led to her own death. She hadn't known about the dark creatures being called back to Voldemort. She didn't know that Remus had involuntarily left the Order. Voldemort wanted all of the Muggle-borns dead. He had sent Remus, whom she still believed to be her friend, to find her and talk to her for a bit, finding out any useful information before he killed her.

Terrified by his mishap in the Department of Mysteries, he became terrified by this. If there was one person he didn't want dead, it was Hermione. If he made this mistake, she could well get killed all the same. In shock, he had done nothing. He found that, in times of confusion, staying put was the best solution. However, it was not this time around.

He was still unaltered by this, but his emotions about his mistakes changed drastically. Hermione had died, and there was something he had yet to tell her. He had loved her. She hadn't just been the bossy girl with bushy hair and buck teeth that helped him with his homework assignments and tended to brag about her scores from time to time. She was also a caring and loving friend and was always there to support him. She sometimes could be trusted more than Ron. Some things, he felt, Ron just wouldn't understand. Ron tended to make mean jokes about everyone, even Harry, if he was caught saying or admitting something embarrassing or that Ron didn't quite understand and took the wrong way.

Hermione seemed to be a bit of everything. But she died without knowing what Harry had longed to tell her so badly, and he might die fifty years later or even more, still containing the secret. Dying with a secret in such a manner was dying with a lie to Love, which only those who had been in love or hopeless romantics could really understand. He felt terrible about this, but he didn't have any other option. He wouldn't have been able to do anything about it.

He had even begun praying, in a way. Instead of praying to God, he had been kneeling by his bedside every night ever since Hermione's death to begin talking to an angel that was somewhere in Heaven. That angel's name was Hermione Granger. She would stay there waiting for him to join her, and when he did, she would welcome him, and he would tell her straight to her face that he loved her. He would say it in a hundred different ways until it sounded just right.

The best part about this would be that he wouldn't have to live with mistakes... But for now, he had to make sure he didn't make any more.

He would try his best to ensure that whatever happened, he would live up to his visions.