In Your Mind's Eye.

Chapter One - The Beginning.

(Disclaimer: this story and its characters belong to J.K.Rowling.)

I'm republishing this. I still hate it because I wrote it when I was 14 but I also haven't got time to change anything about it so there you go! Also fuck JK Rowling.

Song: Run by Awolnation.

There was a strange surrealness to being awake at five am in the morning.

Mist covered the wet grass, and the tops of the dark trees like a blanket. The lake seemed eerily still, glassy in its appearance. Everything was in absolute silence.

Harry Potter hadn't slept. He couldn't even close his eyes, and kept them forcibly open, staring at the sleepy castle of Hogwarts. After all that had happened, it was almost ironic that even now he couldn't seem to rest.

He watched the birds swoop low over the Forbidden Forest, and lowered his eyes. Suddenly, he hated the quiet, the freezing temperature of the early air, everything, and he turned from the window. He rubbed his wrist, where the ghost of owl talons pricked. His first morning at Hogwarts had been just like this; staring out of the window while everything was still and calm...except then he had company...
A pair of amber eyes haunted his closed eyelids. Eyes that he would never forget.

Harry hardly made it to the bathroom before he threw up.

Ten minutes later, shivering as he lay on top of his Gryffindor sheets, he told himself, for the hundredth time, that coming back to Hogwarts for an eighth year was a mistake.
The School Governors had offered it to everyone, and exclusive thing for just their year, but many had decided not to, either because they'd had enough O.W.Ls to get on with their life, or they just didn't feel safe at Hogwarts just yet.

Harry had missed his seventh year, as many did, when the Death Eaters were in control. So, he had convinced himself, this would help. Somehow.

Everything was just too familiar. Full of reminders. And he just didn't seem to be able to stomach memories at the moment.

Today was his first day, and he knew it would be the worst.

After a while, he couldn't stand it any longer, and dragged himself down the stairs, and into the empty common room.

Sitting on the sofa near the fire, Harry watched as slowly, people trickled into the room, adjusting the crooked collars of their robes and yawning. Even though he knew most of them, he still felt their gazes burning into him like hot irons. He could imagine what they were thinking- exactly what the Weasleys and Hermione and every over god forsaken person told him. You're a hero. You saved the wizarding world. You can relax, live a normal life.

They were wrong. He was not a hero. He was a murderer.

He felt two light thumps as both Ron and Hermione sat next to him, and forced himself to look at them. Bile rose in his throat again, his heart racing, but he managed a smile.

Ron grinned at him, and stretched out his legs, ginger hair still a victim of bed head,
"Alright, Harry?"

Harry quickly glanced away, into the dying embers of the fire next to them, and said,
"Yeah."

There were many people who he couldn't seem to look at without blanching, and Ron was one of them. Harry had let him down too.

Hermione had started to neaten Ron's hair by the time Harry turned back, humming cheerfully, as if there was nothing better in the world,
"I can't believe we're back at Hogwarts. It just feels so unreal!" She said brightly, "I can't wait to get back in the swing of things. Imagine; a normal year. No drama."