Authors note:
As the title says, betrayal can go either way. Read to find out. Oh, and there might be a slight trigger warning at the start here y'know depression and stuff. Not anything graphic or really bad though.
Disclaimer: Jk Rowling owns HP, not me...
Enjoy!
Finding out about the betrayals weighed heavily on Harry. He had a hard time seeing the fun in things and had hardly, if at all, laughed since the obliviate's were gone. His thoughts kept circling back to depressing subjects like how his best friends were only that for the money.
During one particularly dip, Harry had been found by Amun after a couple hours of searching, sitting straight and staring at nothing, silent tears streaming down his face. Amun had sat himself down next to Harry and slung his arm around him.
On another occasion, Harry had just stopped eating in the middle of a meal, sitting there with his spoon still in his hand on its way to his mouth. It had taken five minutes and some rather loud noises to get him back to semi-functional.
This went on for a while, until Sarah couldn't bear to see his self-destructive behavior anymore. She had took him by the shoulder and lightly steered him to the infirmary, where she had sat him down and had had a very frank conversation with him. It took her a while to break though the walls Harry had built up around his hurt, but in the end he did end up confiding in her. After that, even he had to admit he felt better. He was still not "ok", but that was all right, as he had never really been "ok" to start with.
Sure, it still hurt, but Harry had, with help of his Occlumency, been able to reduce the trauma and depression he was going though drastically. By now he was in a stage in which he was looking at his life analytically, without attaching feelings to his thoughts.
When he thought about it for longer, he silently berated himself for not noticing before that something was amiss in his head. There had literally been gaps in his memory and he still blindly followed Dumbledore, never once questioning his all-knowingness.
Because of his... condition, the normal schedule had been temporary abandoned and as supposed to that he had long talks and rest during the day as well as much time for sleep and alone-time. It was during one of the group talks that Harry changed his game-plan drastically.
'All right. When I go back in time, I will essentially have three choices. We already know what the Order wants me to do, but let's look at what I want to do. I can either stay light, go grey, or go dark. I know the goals of the light- integration of Muggles into Wizarding society, a ban on all things dark, and a general hatred against Voldemort, the death eaters and dark creatures-, the goals of the gray -independence, the smallest amount of interference from the government possible, and being able to choose for yourself what you do- and the goals of the dark -having dark creatures generally accepted in society, having all magic legal, and complete separation from the Muggles or even extermination of Muggles-.
Because I think that Muggles are dangerous and attack what they don't understand, the light is -technically speaking- not even an option at this point. That leaves gray and dark. I generally agree with the dark, but that is the domain of Voldemort, and I won't bow to anyone. That means gray, right? That is against the wishes of the Order...'
'Well,' Samjeer spoke up, 'technically you could even go dark- it's not like we're not teaching you some extremely illegal stuff here. And though Voldemort is a well-known figure in the dark, it's just like with Dumbledore. There are also light families not aligned with him. So to be dark doesn't mean to bow down to Voldemort's whims. Think of Knockturn Alley. Almost all of the creatures inhabiting it are dark, but there is definitely not an excessive amount of Death Eaters living there. If you go dark what most likely will happen is a Death Eater approaching you and asking you to join, just like Dumbledore does to non-aligned light wizards. You don't have to say yes, but you do have to make sure you hold something above someone's head so that they can't force you to- and as you will have knowledge if the future, you will, believe me-.
Harry blinked. 'Ok... I understand. I won't make a choice though- not until I'm back there and I can assess the situation for myself. And what exactly do you mean with you're teaching me all kinds of illegal stuff?'
Samjeer stared at him. 'Harry... I'm teaching you blood magic.'
'... yes?'
'That's seen as one of the most illegal magics out there.'
'Harry blinked. 'But it's just like normal magic! It can both harm and protect, and a whole other wack of things as well.'
'Harry,' Sarah said 'do you even know what it means for magic to be dark, light or gray?'
Harry shook his head. 'Not really... but dark magic is harmful and light magic not... right?'
Sarah gave him an exasperated eye roll. 'Merlin, what do people teach you kids there days?' It had been a running joke to call Harry a "kid" of "young".
'No,' she proceeded, 'not at all. Dark magic is all about putting emotions in your magic- that's why it's addictive and makes people insane. Grey magic is neutral. You don't need to do anything in particular to make the spell work except the right wand movements and intent behind your magic. Light magic is chaos magic, which it's why it's not addictive but people do go insane doing it.'
'Chaos magic?'
'For really strong light magic you have to let go of your mind and magic to a certain extent. It's a rather otherworldly experience, like taking a step back from your own perspective in life. The only thing you focus on is the spell you're going and the flow of your magic. It's not really addictive, but you become slightly insane when you overuse it, just like with dark magic. Light magic can be really harmful as well. Think about the cruciatus versus the obliviate. With the crucio you have to want the other to feel pain, thus it asks for strong emotion behind it, making it a dark spell. With the obliviate you have to let your magic warp the others mind, letting go of your emotions and magic and focusing purely on making the other forget, thus making it a light spell, even though if incorrectly used it can turn you into a vegetable just like the cruciatus can.'
Harry starre at Sarah for a bit. 'Wow. Yeah I guess... I never though if it that way.'
Sarah sat back, satisfied.
'So people can be dark oriented in their magic, but light in their politics?' Harry questioned.
'Yes' Amun answered 'though that mostly happens when people try to deny their magical inheritance, because the light wants to ban all things dark. What happens more commonly is that light or dark wizards have gray politics, or that grey wizards have light or dark politics, because that doesn't go against their own magic.'
Harry nodded thoughtfully. 'I think I might be dark.' He blurted out.
Amun snorted. 'With the magic you know by now? I would certainly say so yes.'
Samjeer gave Harry a smile. 'It's really not that big of a deal, you know. It's about what you do with that information that matters.'
Harry gave Samjeer a small smile. 'I know.'
From that point onwards Harry generally accepted the idea of being dark, and even cherished the doorways that opened up for him because, even though it was harder for him to do extreme light magic, he had a whole field of dark magic open for him to explore. And honestly, he preferred dark magic above light. It somehow just gave him the creeps now and again.
He slowly learned that not all dark magic was evil magic, just like not all light was good. He learned a light spell, contreo magicae, meant to reduce someone to a squib for a short amount of time. One of the worst things a witch or wizard can think of. He then learned a dark spell, sano, that healed major injuries made by other dark curses.
He also learned how to make use of parseltongue with Parselmagic, as well as how to read and write it, together with many other languages. He learned Ancient Egyptian, Modern and Ancient Greek, Arabian, German, Latin, French, and Mandarin. He also learned non-human languages like Mers (what mer-people spoke) Gobbeldygook (Goblin language) and leaned how to speak directly into other peoples heads using a vampire form of Legilimecy.
He studied how to fight in different heights (he would be back in his two-year-old self, so he needed to know how to utilize that form, as well as many others) and how to fight with injuries.
He leaned how to cast wandlessly and wordlessly as well as how to break the trace on a wand.
He studied mind-magics as well as warding, curse-breaking, enchanting, and way more subjects.
Slowly, he grew older as well. He turned nineteen, then twenty, twenty one... he kept his nineteen year old form though, as that was what he wanted to have as his base form in the past. After having removed the blocks as well (thanks again, Dumbledore), his skin became very pale, he grew until he was about one meter seventy-five, his emerald green eyes turned Avada-Kedavra green and his hair grew straight and pitch black with a blue hue. All in all, he was very happy with his looks.
The change in looks was not everything that changed once the compulsions and blocks came off. He became more cynical and sarcastic, as well as growing less trusting. He had less problems with guilt trips or his "saving-people-thing" and embraced his dark side even more. He also got better at reading in between the lines and at reading people, thereby figuring out that the staff wanted to train him as an assassin. He quite liked that idea, as long as it didn't mean killing off innocents. Therefor, he did get over killing people. He developed a harsher mentality and his humor became more biting. He became colder to those not seen as his friends, though he could act perfectly well as if he was friends with someone.
Though he himself couldn't see the changes that much, at least mentally, for himself, the staff privately congratulated each other on turning him into a trained fighter as well an a strong person. They were more than happy with how he was turning out to be. He was a leader behind the screens, a determined warrior and a master manipulator. They couldn't be more satisfied about it. And sure, they knew their training was slightly unconventional and ok, it was slightly strange to get exited over the fact a twenty-two-year-old could kill without remorse, but at the same time they were about to send that twenty-two-year-old back into a war, so they felt completely justified.
Harry also developed a tactic for when he went back to the past.
Firstly, he would get away for the Dursley's. Filthy bastards, the lot of them. No, he would manipulate them into sending him to an orphanage, preferably Wool's, just to mess with the headmaster.
Then, he would appear cold and aloof to the kids and adults there. He would make sure that they thought it normal that, even though he was only a toddler, he would disappear right after breakfast then return in time for dinner. Of course they presumed that he slept in his room, which wouldn't be that hard to believe as he would have some strong muggle-repellant and confounding wards on his room there.
Meanwhile, he would set up an alias in Knockturn, Elias, to become well known and respected there. As he didn't have the key to his trust vault yet and it would be suspicious if he went up to a Goblin teller asking for a blood test for the Potter vaults, he would put up an account under the name Elias Riddle (just to irritate Voldemort if he was out there and throw a bait to Dumbledore). Maybe he would take an inheritance test as well, see what lordships he owned.
Then, he would set up a network in Knockturn, which wouldn't be to hard as he had a lot of information he shouldn't have had, and become a successful assassin to pay for an apartment in Knockturn, as well as making sure he didn't get out of shape for the war.
After that, he would just wait for Dumbledore to come and visit on his eleventh and go to school. He really didn't know what to do then.
For now though, he went on steadily with his lessons.
Yup... Harry isn't that light anymore. For some reason I've always liked a badass Harry better, preferably a dark, badass Harry. So badass it's going to be. I mean for real... blathering on about how killing is bad and stuff gets really boring really soon. In any case, hope you still enjoy the story and if you do, please vote for it and leave behind a comment.
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