Twisted

Harry lay on his back on his bed. He felt as though his heart was on a chain and, if it broke, so would the world around him. He very much preferred to keep himself from feeling anything, especially guilt. Even as he thought about it, he heard a voice in his head:

It's you fault, you know it is.

Shaking the thought from his head, he closed his eyes. This proved to no avail. All he saw against his eyelids was red. The color of blood. Harry new what was going to happen now though the thought was not comforting.

As the images of a great battle swept past him, he felt a twinge of something. What was it? He hadn't felt in such a long time that the feeling was faintly unfamiliar, but not completely. It hit him like a tidal wave of realization. He felt sadness. He was sad for them? How could that be?

He had taken their names from them. Without names they seemed more distant, like a familiar far-away sound that he just couldn't quite place. But, it seemed, that didn't work. He still felt sadness for them, for himself.

For months, the images in his mind had been just blurs of sound and color, but now, as he looked at them, they burst into crisp, clear, focus. He saw them, but they were no longer them, they had names.

He saw Hermione being tortured terribly. She had been tortured during the war. They inflicted pain on her until she could no longer move and then killed her. She screamed clearly before she died so that it rang in his head for hours.

Ron was next. A muggle sword killed him outright. Harry would always remember the look upon Ron's face as he looked his murderer in the eye.

Ginny had been kidnapped very near to the beginning and had been found months later. Her body had washed up on the shore of the Hogwarts Lake. She had been strangled.

He heard a voice in his head. It was soft at first...

Murderer, murderer...

...but even as he tried to ignore it, it got louder and louder until even his thoughts were drowned out by its screaming:

Murderer, murderer, murderer!!!

A searing pain in his left arm snapped him out of his reverie. The voice slowly echoed away still repeating its chant.

Oh no, not again.

He got up slowly. He had been lying there so long, his muscles were cramped. Stretching, he put on his dark cloak and gloves. The meeting room was not that far from his room so he was there in almost no time.

Leaping down the last few steps he saw the familiar circle. There was a light shining down to the middle, which meant there was going to be a ceremony.

Oh no.

Harry went to his standard place in the circle looking at all the painfully familiar faces.

He had been there no longer than a few seconds when a dark figure stepped into the middle of the circle and immediately the room shushed. The figure was cloaked in black, which made him seem intimidating.

"You all have been gathered here today to honor one special person that has made a tremendous impact on our lives." He snapped his fingers.

The two people next to Harry grabbed his arms forcibly and hauled him forward. He stood in the center of the circle now. As the hooded figure took him by the shoulders, the other to men backed away to their spots in the shadows.

"We have come here to honor Harry Potter," said the man, pulling back his hood. "my most honorable Death Eater."

Voldemort, with his hood back, now stepped away from Harry so that no shadow could befall him. He was completely bathed in light.

There was only silence. No sound could be heard, but yet Harry could feel them mutely praising him and suddenly, he found that he didn't want the praise. But still he felt nothing.

He was not the Boy Who Lived. He was the boy that killed his friends.

Murderer...