The End of the War: Part Two

Warning!  This story does not currently, but will eventually, contain yaoi/slash pairings.  This means male/male.  This story will also eventually contain eroticism, please pay attention to the age when reading.    On a further note, the pairings are going to be Snape/Harry possibly some Draco/Harry.  If any of this does not interest you, please do not even bother reading.  Also, there are likely spoilers, as I have read the first 6 books, and that is reflected in my stories.  You’ve been told, if you’re still here, enjoy.

These characters don't belong to me, more's the pity, they belong to J.K. Rowling, lucky her.


The End of the War
Part Two: The Feelings Not Gone

People say that revenge doesn’t make the anger and hurt go away.  People say that only you can get rid of those feelings, by understanding them, by accepting them, by forgiveness.

Personally, I think they’re full of shit.  I’m sure, for example, that the pain in my heart would be gone if they’d let me kill him.  If they had let me destroy the one who had destroyed so many people who had been important to me.  If they had let me destroy the one who had destroyed me.  Hermione had taken my wand, and Ron was physically holding me away from him though.  The traitor, the coward who ran behind others so he could live.

Severus Snape.

“Let me kill him!” I snarled, frantically clawing at Ron, trying to get away.

“Harry!  Stop this madness, our orders were to capture him alive, not to kill him!”  Ron’s voice was in my ear, loud, insistent, I wanted to shut it out.  For six years I’d been looking for Snape, and now I was told I couldn’t kill him?  They were mad, not me.

“Killed trying to resist, it’s understandable, these things happen!” I considered hitting Ron, but although my anger was so close to the surface that I was literally seeing red, I didn’t want to hurt Ron.  He was my best friend.

“Except he’s no longer resisting Harry,” Hermione’s patient, calm voice said from behind Ron.  She was near Snape now, looking at him.  “Harry, what did you do to him?”  She asked, and I glared.  Maybe at her, maybe at Ron, at this point I wasn’t sure who I was looking at.

“Nothing!  I haven’t killed him yet!  Give me a moment and I will!”

“’Mione, this isn’t working,” Ron said as he pinned my flailing right arm behind me.

“Ron, I’m warning you,” I growled at him, my anger starting to focus on something, or rather someone, else.

“What?” he said mildly, “you’ll hurt me?  Well, that’s not new.  Lucky for me I’ve got tough skin these days.”  For a second I paused, remembering why Ron was partly scaled all across his chest, but then cursed as he used that chance to force my other arm behind me.  I considered biting him.  “Don’t do it mate, I’m not worth it,” Ron said with a smile.  I was still considering it.

“I’d feel safer if we just apperated to the hospital, I’m not sure what Harry did, but it could be bad.”  Ron nodded and I screamed in frustration.  I felt like my heart was on fire with anguish, and I wanted to lash out, but couldn’t.

Before I could voice my frustrations again, we were in Hermione’s Hospital for the Mentally Anguished.  The magical dampening spells cast on the building left me feeling slightly dumb, as they always did, and my will to fight disappeared like it was never there.  I sagged against Ron feeling frustrated, but not certain I really cared anymore.

“That’s right Harry, you’re tired and need a lie down,” Ron said soothingly.  I shook my head at him.

“I hate you,” I mumbled, and Ron chuckled.

“I know, it’ll all be better in the morning,” he said cheerfully.  I couldn’t argue, as it usually was, but I was still annoyed.  I simply couldn’t give a damn about it at the moment.

He let me go and I got one glance at the unconscious Severus Snape before I was out of the entrance hall, and I felt my will to kill him surge within me again.  To his benefit he was out of sight before I had a chance to really focus on him, or I might have tried to kill him again.  As it was, the rage surged then died in a matter of seconds, leaving me feeling even more exhausted than before.

*

Hermione had spent years after the way developing and creating this hospital.  She said it was a shame that St. Mungo’s delt with the physical aspects of magical people’s ailments, but not the mental.  Many people argued with her about it, I mean there’s no real cure for crazy people, right?  Not even a magical cure.  Even Ron argued with her about it.  I didn’t, I thought she was on to something.  Something that I didn’t think about before.  Muggles had mental hospitals, why not magical people as well?

She thought the same, and reminded people that Legilimancy was originally a form of “mind healing” technique.  No one bought this, not even me.  She set about quoting from several books about it for months, publishing articles in all kinds of magazines, and even got a spot in The Daily Prophet.  She held a fund raiser for it, and asked for help.  At first, not very many people did.

With the first batch of money she made, much of it was from me back then, she bought a building near St. Mungo’s, but not too near.  She got all the rights and such, and then posted an add for healers, no experience necessary.  The turn out was amazing.  She may not have seemed to have a very popular idea, but plenty of people were willing to profit.  She calmly explained the purpose of the hospital, and let everyone know that no one would be paid to work here.  Almost everyone left, it was no wonder.

From the five that stayed to learn more, four are still working at the hospital, the fifth trains people in, what Hermione calls, the proper form of Occlumancy and Legilimancy.

Not very many people thought she’d get very far, but as time went on, and the hospital grew, and patients got better, Hermione’s Hospital for the Mentally Anguished became the top place to take people who were mentally sick.  St. Mungo’s sends patients to us, and HHMA, as it became known as, sends people to them.

All of the people who work here is now employed, complete with paychecks.

It was a real struggle at first, between Hermione’s pregnancy and her hospital, to get everything running smoothly, but was done, and now it’s not only seen as a respectable hospital, it’s talked about openly.

I often think of this place as mine, although I have no right to do so.  I helped Hermione in any way I could, which often meant I gave a lot of donations, but that wasn’t all I gave.  I helped build, I helped clean, and I helped Ron keep from going crazy with Hermione's food cravings.  The hospital is her’s, but in a way, it belongs to all of us.

As I lay that morning in my bed, the one at the hospital, I couldn’t help but think about the origins of it.  What had started out so small had become so big.  Much like my feelings for Snape.  As a teenager I hated him because I didn’t understand him, he was cruel, sarcastic, vicious, always though he was right, and entirely too secretive.  That became righteous anger when I watched him kill Dumbledore, and blossomed into an obsessive desire to kill him.  Hermione would call it an obsessive-compulsive behavior.  Whatever it was, I’d spent years searching for him, and now here we were, him still alive, and me itching to kill him.  What was wrong with me?

I sighed and sat up.  It was dreadfully obvious that Ron had put me to bed, as I was in pajamas.  If was me that sent me to bed, I either went completely clothed or completely unclothed.  I suppose pajamas were better than everything, at least I wouldn’t have mud in my sheets again.

Slowly I got out of my bed and stretched.  I was used to doing exercises every morning, so I did them right away.  As my body moved and I seemed to be settling back into normal thought patterns, I tried to think of Snape.  His ugly face with its abnormal nose, and the way he stood there in complete shock when I knocked on his door.  How could that man, who had lived the majority of his life in magic worlds, stand there calmly in a large black sweater and a pair of black slacks?  Didn’t he feel strange standing there in bare feet when he’d always had on robes and boots?  How could he live in a house with two floors when he’d spent ten years teaching from a dungeon?

Why the hell couldn’t I feel the anger when I was in Hermione’s hospital?  What spells and enchantments had she put on these walls?

I finished my exercises and headed for the bath.  Hermione always wanted me to try out one of the healers here.  All right, not always, but she did when I talked about Snape.  She said she thought I needed help.  Some kind of help she and Ron couldn’t give me.  I told her to stuff it.  I had lived my whole life relying mostly on myself, on her and Ron later on, but that had been a fight.  I couldn’t imagine seeing a mind healer about my desire to kill Snape.  Especially when I was sure that if I killed him, it would be over with.  I’d no longer want to kill him if he was dead, right?

Dressing was quick, I was out of my room and into the cafeteria within minutes, grabbing a cup of coffee and a bowl of fruit before sitting down at an empty table and waiting for my copy of The Prophet to drop on my table.  It only took a minute, I had paid the owl and was looking at the cover story when Ron sat down across from me.

“Hey mate, how you feeling this morning?”  He took one of my grapes and I glared at him as I set down the paper without seeing what it had said.

“Better than I did last night, that’s for sure,” I said, slapping his hand before he could snatch another grape.

“Told you you’d feel better in the morning.  Hermione chewed my ears out for letting it slip that we might have found Snape last night.  She thinks we should have watched him for a few days before going in to capture him.”

“He needs to die Ron,” I said fiercely, allowing him to take a strawberry.

“I never said I didn’t agree with you Harry, I just don’t think you are the one to do it.  So we turned him in.”  Ron backed up and stood as I tried to register what he had said.

“You did… what?” I asked, feeling my rage surface again.

“We turned him in.  He’s gone, it’s no longer our job, The Ministry’s already dealt with him.”  I was blinded by the fury I felt, and was across the table burying my fists as deeply into Ron as I could.

“How could you do that?  The Ministry’ll kill him!  He’s mine!  I’m the one who is supposed to kill him!” Hands grabbed me and tried to pull me off Ron.  All I could do was strike at anyone who came near.

“He’s dead already Harry,” came Hermione’s soft voice near me.  I couldn’t think who she could mean, so I hit Ron again.  Someone petrified me, but my anger broke the spell and I hit again.

“Harry, I don’t want scales on my arse you asshole!” Ron shouted.

That stunned me and for a moment, I stopped lashing out, just enough time for Ron and Hermione to both encircle me with their arms.  What was going on exactly?

“Who’s dead,” I croaked, feeling my body shake with dread.

“Harry, it’s all over now, don’t you see?” Hermione’s voice was right in my ear, but I almost couldn’t hear her.

“Harry, Snape’s gone, he’s dead.  The Ministry carried out the sentence this morning,” Ron’s voice was stronger than Hermione’s, but I could almost believe he hadn’t spoken.

“No,” I whispered, I was really shaking now, and they both tightened their grips around me.

“Yes Harry,” Hermione whispered, “Snape’s dead.”  I was shaking with anger, my whole body reverberating with it.

“No!  How could you?  He was mine to kill!  Not the Ministry’s!  It was me that should have killed him!”  Hot, angry tears fell down my cheeks as I screamed the words out.

“No Harry, you’re no murderer, you’re a hero, stop talking like that.”  I tried to hit Ron, but between the two of them, I couldn’t do anything.

What was I going to do now?  Killing Snape had been my goal for so long I wasn’t sure what to do now.

“You lie,” I hissed.

“It’s no lie Harry,” Hermione accio’d the Prophet I’d left on the table.  I blinked tears out of my eyes to look at the cover story I hadn’t gotten to look at.  There was Snape’s face, glaring out at the world, with the heading “Notorious Death Eater, Severus Snape, Dies This Morning After Last Night’s Ministry Trial.”  I blinked at it a few times, and then screamed.  Frustration, anger, sheer hatred and loathing came out in that scream.  I dissolved into screaming sobs, I couldn’t take this frustration, I couldn’t deal with it.

How would I live now?  What would I do now that there’s nothing left.  What was I supposed to do with these feelings if there was no way to get rid of them?  What should I do?

Why couldn’t it have been me that had killed Snape?