The After Life

No Long Goodbyes

And Harry felt sick again.

He closed his eyes, fighting back another surge of bitterness. Against Voldemort, against Dumbledore, against himself and his lot in life. It should have been so much easier, so much more straight forward than this. Harry had analysed it all deeply in the aftermath. Voldemort had been little more than vapour for eleven years. A shadow, a half-ghost, nothing to threaten until he shared a body with Quirrell. Dumbledore should have hunted him, picked him off. It would have been child's play for a wizard like Dumbledore.

But just like with Grindelwald, he showed disinterest bordering on cowardess. And Harry was made to suffer for this passivity.

And it angered him now. Now that reality was settling on him, now that he could see only a bleak, lonely future ahead. Dumbledore had to shoulder much of this blame. He knew about the Horcruxes. For eleven years. Why didn't he go after them, so sure in his assertion that Voldemort would return some day? Why wait, be so reactionary? Was he waiting to see what would happen, in case Voldemort had changed his ways? He had that irksome Defence Against the Dark Arts post to constantly fill, after all. And who would make a more informed Professor than Tom Riddle in such an area?

And speaking of Defence teachers, why the hell didn't he tackle Quirrell himself once he suspected him? Why be all coy, and have Snape keep an eye on him? He should have just unmasked him and dealt with Voldemort personally. Surely that was worthy of his attention. Harry clenched his jaw at the thought. He'd gone after Quirrell as soon as he knew what was afoot, hadn't he. Granted, he thought it was Snape he was after, but he went anyway without a second thought. A boy, taking on a man's fight. And it was a task that nearly killed him and his friends.

Fucking Dumbledore. Passive old coot. Afraid of power because, for one summer when he was seventeen, he thought about subjugating humanity ... okay maybe there was something it that. But still, not all responsibility was quite so grandiose. And he had gone into teaching, shaping the lives of hundreds of children who would pass under his care. Harry could think of fewer roles with more responsibility, more chance of shaping the world in one man's image.

But he hadn't bothered to use his immense power for anything useful. He didn't even kill Grindelwald, just took his wand and shut him up in a prison for Voldemort to find him later. At least Harry had the good sense to actually kill Voldemort, get rid of the evil bastard for good. It had been a clean job, no matter how much the moral ambiguity was now wracking at his senses.

But it needn't have been like that, so long and drawn out, so affecting. Harry thought he might eventually be able to acclimatise to the murder part of it. Maybe compartmentalise it. It was necessary, it had to be done. There was no two ways about it. And if fate, destiny and all that crap deemed that he was the one who had to do it, then he really had little choice, no matter how fucked up it was and to hell with the damage it would do his his body and his psyche. And his chance of a peaceful, happy future.

But there was no need for the complexity of it, if competent people had just stepped up to the plate. It needn't to have even been Dumbledore himself. He could have passed the job on, spread the burden around. Got the Aurors to actually do something useful for a change. Because from where Harry was sat, they were a pretty fucking amateurish bunch.

Pack of tossers.

Look how easy it had been for Voldemort to take over! It was a piece of piss. He didn't even have to try that hard. He didn't even have to show his ugly face until the end. And look how everyone simply accepted it! Magic Is Might, the Muggleborn Register, Umbridge as Minister, scorning and hunting Harry again for a whole bloody year! The most undesirable man in the country.