Hate Is a Powerful Thing

"Why am I so different?
Why can't I be like everybody else?
While everyone is playing,
I am hiding from myself.
Why can't I love?
Why can't I kiss?
I want to touch,
and know tenderness.
Why can't I laugh?
Why can't I smile?
I wanted to be like everybody else;
At least once in a while"
-J. L. Chapin "Unanswered Questions

Prologue: Surrounding Darkness

The room was dark, so dark that you couldn't see your hand even if you put it right in front of your face. He didn't like it at first, because he loved the outdoors. He loved to see the sun and smell the air, but now everything was different. He liked being in the dark. This way he didn't have to look at his own face and the feeling of guilt wouldn't be there, although, he still felt guilty all the time. The days blended together and he had no idea what the date was.

Was it a Monday? A Friday? Was it still July or was it August? Did he miss his birthday? The questions flew around in his mind, but he didn't really care about the answer.

Soon enough everyone would be at school and find out that he was missing, then they would come to find him, but did he want to go back? He didn't know. Seeing those faces again, the faces of his friends, fellow students and teacher would be too hard for him, because he would always see the pity in there eyes, even if they tried to hide it, it would still be there. He didn't want anyone's pity, he didn't deserve it, he was a killer, a murderer, and their pity was wasted on him.

Why couldn't they all see that he was a murderer? That he killed that poor boy Cedric. He didn't say the curse that killed him, but he had told Cedric to take the cup with him. He was noble and was going to share the victory with Cedric, but his nobility got Cedric killed. Damn his Gryffindor nobility. If he had listened to that damned sorting hat none of this would have happened. He wouldn't have been noble and asked Cedric to take the cup with him, Cedric would still be there, and he would have probably be the only one to died.

He actually wanted to die now, so that all the pain would stop and he would be with his parents, like he always wanted to be, but no he was still among the living, and innocent lives weren't being destroyed all because of him.

The worst thing was that no one saw him as a murderer. No one would punish him for being the murderer he was, no one except his Uncle. His Uncle saw him for who he really was, a freak. He was a freak and a murderer and not worthy of any of the things that were given to him through out the years.

His Uncle was the one who put him in this dark room. It was actually his old room, before his Uncle boarded up the window so that no light could come into the room from the outside. Then his Uncle locked up the door from the outside so that he could go out into the rest of the house. In the beginning there was a small amount of light that came under the door, and he could see a couple of things around the room, but after a week his Uncle found out and put something underneath the door so that the light didn't come in any more.

The only time he ever saw any light was when his Uncle gave him his daily food, which consisted of a single cup of water and four slices of bread, with a small slices of meat, and when it was time for his 'punishment'. His 'punishment' was always the same. His Uncle would come into the room and turn on the light. His room was extremely bare, the only thing in his room was the bed and a single blanket, which was old and very thin, the light, which was only turned on during his 'punishment', was bare as well.

When his Uncle came into the room he would always find him sitting in the same corner of the room curled up into a ball staring into nothing. The boy only wore a pair of his cousins old sweat pants, which hung off him, they are ridiculously big on the boy, and even his glasses were taken away from him.

His Uncle would come into the room, usually drunk, and beat him repeatedly, until he was satisfied that the boy was properly punished. The beatings consisted mostly of his Uncle's favorite belt to his back, which would leave scars, like he didn't have enough scars already. Sometimes his Uncle would like to burn him with a cigarette.

His Uncle had recently taking up smoking just so that he could put out each cigarette on the boy's arms. He had long forgotten what it felt like not to be in pain, and now he was even numb to the burns of the cigarettes, which pissed his Uncle off even more. Every time the boy forgot to wince in pain, so had his Uncle would be satisfied, his Uncle would get mad and start kicking and hitting him. He knew that he had multiple burses, a broken right arm and wrist, two broken ribs, and a twisted ankle from what his Uncle had done to him, but his Uncle was only harming him physically. The mental harm was someone else's department.

That area belonged to a dark wizard named Voldemort. Every night, that he exactly spelt, he would dream of Voldemort and whatever torture he was giving out that night. He would watch as each innocent life was destroyed and lost to the monster, which he helped bring back to life.

It wasn't enough that he watched the torture of the innocents. No! He had to feel it as well, so it was just another torture session for him, as Voldemort would use the pain curse on yet another innocent Muggle he would feel it as well, maybe not to its full potential, but he would fell it nonetheless.

This was the way it was, night after night, for nearly two months.

This is what it was like being him, being the Boy Who Lived, being Harry Potter, the freak, the murderer, the one who brought back Voldemort.

This is what it was like, being a Gryffindor, with his nobility.

This is what it was like, being the savior of the wizarding world.

He knew he deserved every single blow his Uncle gave him, but somewhere in the back of his mind he wanted something more, something better. He wanted to be loved, like he was never loved as a child. He wanted to be happy, like he hadn't been happy since his second year at Hogwarts. He wanted friends and guardians who actually cared for him, because if his friends actually cared he wouldn't have gone back to his relative that summer, he would have had a happy summer, and not one full of pain and torture, but then again he was a murderer, and this is what he deserved.

His friend must of known that and that is why he was still there at his relatives, and that was the reason why he didn't deserved them as friends. They were all too good for him, this freak.

He knew he deserved this, but he also knew that if he didn't get out of this house soon that he would die, and death was too good for him. He was making plans to get out, to run away. To leave the wizarding world behind and go, but little did he know that someone else was planning his escape, one that he wouldn't want, one that the wizarding world would regret years and years from now.