Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, I don't own the lyrics, I really don't own much at all, and I don't make any money writing this rubbish… If I get sued, someone's going to be very disappointed…
Song: Ball and Chain
Band: Social Distortion
A/N: As with all my 'songfics,' there's a lot more than just lyrics telling the story… the story is simply augmented by the lyrics. Social Distortion specializes in rather angsty songs that usually deal with either lost loves or substance abuse, sometimes both in the same song, as this one is. This is as close as they get to a 'tender love song.' I can't think of one song they ever made that I didn't like. They even did an excellent re-make of Johnny Cash's 'Ring of Fire.' The band is highly recommended by me.
-----~-----
It was more than a recurring nightmare. It was history… it was a memory… and it was his greatest failure.
-----~-----
The past…
The battle lasted all afternoon. Harry Potter was cold, tired and hungry. He was cold because it was the middle of February in Northern Scotland. He was tired because of the forced, horrific dreams that had kept him awake for the last three days straight. He was hungry because whenever he tried to eat, his shattered nerves would cause him to expel anything that he tried to put into his stomach.
The end was so close. He thought it would be easy. All the horcruxes were easily taken care of, too easily taken care of. It took only three weeks of searching to find all of them. They even managed to capture Nagini right from under Voldemort's nose. After two months of trying to destroy the cursed things, he half-jokingly mentioned that they should shove the lot of them down Nagini's throat and toss her through the veil in the Department of Mysteries. It was almost comical, the look on Hermione's face when he flippantly joked about it. She frantically placed quill to parchment and furiously scribbled out a long Arithmantic formula. She suddenly sat back in her chair, looking dumbfounded for only a moment, before bursting out into hysterical laughter. She jumped from her seat and crashed into Harry, knocking the wind out of him while calling him 'her genius.' It appeared that they might even be able to start their seventh year at Hogwarts only a month into the new term.
It seemed that the hardest part was over. All that was left to do was kill the weakened Lord Voldemort. Simple, right?
On the day they did exactly what Harry suggested, shoving the lot of them down Nagini's throat and tossing her through the veil, it soon became apparent that Voldemort could tell that the remainder of his horcruxes had been destroyed. Within the hour, Voldemort attacked Hogwarts with everything he had. The final battle had begun.
-----~-----
Well, it's been ten years and a thousand tears,
and look at the mess I'm in.
A broken nose and a broken heart,
An empty bottle of gin.
Well I sit and I pray
in my broken down Chevrolet,
while I'm singin' to myself,
'There's got to be another way.'
-----~-----
The present…
It was in the early morning that Harry awoke with tears still streaming from his blackened eyes. It was that dream again. His head was painfully throbbing as he strained to open his eyes against the light from the sun that was creeping over the horizon. He found himself sitting up against a brick wall in a dirty, rubbish-strewn alley, an alley he was somewhat familiar with, for he had the habit of occasionally waking up there. He was still clutching the bottle of cheap, rotgut booze that he was drinking the night before. He raised the bottle to his lips, but when he saw it was empty, he tossed it further down the alley where it shattered against an overflowing waste bin.
He could only remember fragments of the previous night. The local bimbo at the bar who couldn't take the hint that he wanted to be left alone, the oversized idiot who mistakenly thought that he was the one trying to pick her up, the rather one-sided fight. 'Oh, yeah…I remember now… the sucker punch…' He ran a hand over his face and winced as his fingers touched his nose. He felt the dried blood from his nose crusted around his mouth. Even the weight of his cracked glasses put a painful pressure on it. At least he was sober enough at the time not to pull out his wand and hex the bastard into next month.
He unsteadily got to his feet and made his way out of the alley. The street was relatively quiet, with only a few passing motorists on their way to whatever jobs they had. Harry wasn't employed at the moment, he seemed to have a problem holding a job for more than a few months. Employers didn't seem to take too kindly to his habit of not showing up for a week or so when he went on one of his benders. It was getting a bit harder to find gainful employment of late, it seems his rather sullied reputation preceded him whenever he sobered himself up enough to actually look for a job. His unusual sobriety was usually due to him running out of money. Unlike some women, it was rather difficult getting pissed when one is out of funds.
He walked along the sidewalk to his car, which was still parked near the small tavern he was brooding in the night before. It was an old, beat-up red 1985 Camaro. The car certainly had seen better days, its paint was faded, its tires were bald, it seemed to burn more oil than gas, and it had quite a few scrapes and dents. A few of the dents were there when he bought it, but the majority of them he made during his many periods of binge drinking.
He fished around in his pocket and pulled out his keys. He looked down at the five keys and the single gold band on the key ring. Ignition, trunk, his Gringott's key, the key to his motel room and… that key. He still had the key to the house that he had once shared with his ex-wife. Of course, by this time, she probably had the locks changed, but he still kept it as a reminder. The gold band was, of course, his wedding ring, the reminder of his continued failure in life. The marriage had lasted less than two years, and to be honest with himself, he was surprised it had lasted that long.
He unlocked the door and sat heavily in the driver's seat. He fit the key in the ignition and gave his wrist a twist. The car let out a pained whine, then said no more. All the idiot lights on the dashboard went dark. He turned the key again. Not even a 'click.' He thought he smelled a faint odor of burnt wiring.
'Oh, Merlin, not again!' he thought angrily as he bounced his fist against the steering column. On top of his 'bought and paid for' hangover, his nose, and the constant, nagging depression, now he has a car that's nothing more than an oversized paperweight. He certainly didn't have enough money to get it fixed. At least, not until his employment situation made an upswing, anyway, but what were the chances of getting a job with no means of transportation? He didn't want to use apparation. He had too many close calls. The last thing he needed was to be discovered.
He pulled his wand out of his leather jacket and looked it over, running his fingers along the scarred and pitted holly wood. He hadn't done much magic in the years he's been on the run. He was too afraid that he would be discovered, either by the 'good' guys or the 'bad guys.' Either would be a disaster for him, but the throbbing pain in his nose wasn't going to fix itself, and he certainly didn't have the money to see a doctor, so with a quickly and inconspicuously muttered 'Episky,' he felt his nose twitch and straighten and the pain immediately calmed to just a slight tenderness. He didn't even bother cleaning himself up, the less magic he used, the better.
He leaned back into the comfortable leather seat and stared out of the cracked windshield, watching the sun rising over the water. The view was pleasant… a small, Cape Cod bay, ringed by a thin stretch of beach and surrounded by quaint old houses. There were a multitude of small to mid-sized boats bobbing lazily in the water.
How he ended up in Massachusetts was a mystery to him. He had traveled around the world for the first two years of his self-imposed exile from Europe. He visited South Africa, India, and then Australia and Japan. He spent a few months in Brazil before he toured the United States. He hated the people in California, but he was surprised to find he loved Las Vegas, although the heat and aridness of the climate there forced him to move on to places that didn't average 115F. in the summer.
He spent close to a full year in the deep woods of Montana, and almost decided to stay there until his careless use of magic nearly got him caught. He considered himself lucky that his alarm wards worked, much to his surprise. When the apparition wards went off, he barely made it out of his hovel undetected. With the help of his invisibility cloak, he managed to hide from a black-cloaked figure who stormed into the shack that he was living in. Obviously, they were tracking him down. Maybe Voldemort discovered the full prophesy somehow, or maybe he was just obsessed with Harry's death. He decided then to avoid using his magic whenever possible. He couldn't remember the last time he cast a simple 'Lumos.'
Feeling the exhaustion creeping up on him, he flipped the lever beside his seat, dropping the backrest a bit before closing his eyes. He soon drifted back into sleep.
-----~-----
The past…
Harry had been in fights before, but he never experienced the sheer horror of a full-scale battle. Sure, he'd seen death. The clean, almost antiseptic death of Cedric and Dumbledore. Traumatic, to be sure, but the simplicity and ease of the Avada Kedavra curse was nothing like what came to pass at the Battle of Hogwarts.
It's always so easy to be brave when you're not ankle-deep in gore. People don't realize how hard it is to think when you're standing beside a pile of corpses, some of which you were conversing with the day before. People think that battle is like what you see in the muggle movies, the hero gets shot in the arm and bravely carries on, wiping out scores of enemies while never seeming to run out of ammunition. They never realize how just a bit of pain could stop you in your tracks, derail whatever train of thought you were following.
He knew that the Death Eaters also suffered a massive, staggering amount of losses. After Voldemort sent the Dementors to 'soften up' the Order a bit, he sent the horde of his freshly recruited Death Eaters. At first, it was a slaughter, wave after wave of the green Death Eaters, many of whom Harry recognized as being former Hogwarts students from Slytherin House, were used as nothing but fodder.
It wasn't until after the giants attacked when Voldemort sent in his more experienced Death Eaters. That was when it started to get messy. He saw a cutting hex from Neville Longbottom lop off Bellatrix LaStrange's leg. She bled to death in less than a minute. Lucius Malfoy had his head turned into a fine, red mist from a well placed, close range Reductor cast by Fred Weasley, who was disturbingly thrilled with his accomplishment. Harry couldn't blame him for his apparent glee at the senior Malfoy's cranial explosion, after all, it was Lucius that cast the AK at his brother, George. The highlight, if you could call it that, was when Hermione cast a simple stunner at Antonin Dolohov, who in turn collapsed onto one of the centaur's stray poisoned arrows, the tip of which was protruding from the ground beneath him. Although it was inadvertent, that was the first, and last time Hermione had actually killed anyone. It was kind of a poetic justice, seeing that it was Dolohov that cast the strange, purple-flame curse that nearly killed her in the battle at the Department of Mysteries.
-----~-----
Well, I've searched, and I've searched
to find the perfect life.
A brand new car, and a brand new suit…
I even got me a little wife,
but wherever I have gone
I was sure to find myself there.
You can run all your life,
but not go anywhere.
-----~-----
The present…
Harry was only asleep for a few hours when a white car with a thick, blue stripe running across its side pulled up to the rear of his car. The words 'Raven's Cove Police' were stenciled upon the car's front fender.
A few moments later, a tall woman with short brown hair and a pleasant, youthful face cautiously approached. The muggle police officer scanned the inside of the car through the large, rear hatchback window. When she looked at the person sitting behind the wheel, a light of recognition lit in her eyes and she visibly relaxed.
He woke up just before she made it to his door. He looked up at her as she approached and said, "Well, good morning, Jenna, or is it 'Officer Evans?'"
A wan smile appeared on her face as she softly said, "It's 'Officer MacGregor,' you know that I took back my maiden name when we…" She noticed the dried blood that covered his lower face and stained his white tee, "Oh, Jim, not again!" She let out a sigh, "Another rough night, I see."
She leaned into the open window while pulling a handkerchief out of the breast pocket of her uniform. He was a little embarrassed of how he probably smelled as if he spent the night drunk in an alley. In fact, he was sure that he smelled as if he spent the night drunk in an alley. She moistened the cloth in her mouth and gingerly began to clean the mess from his face. She saw him wince when she accidentally brushed his nose as she worked. He obviously didn't do a very thorough job of fixing his nose.
"It's probably broken, you should get that looked at."
Harry just nodded and said, "I'll get it taken care of."
He watched as she stood back up and folded her arms over her chest while she looked him over. He could tell by the look on her face that, while she disapproved of his behavior and his current condition, she still cared a great deal for him. A small smile tugged at his lips, but quickly faded when she asked, "So, what caused you to get plastered out of your mind and into a fight this time?"
Harry's smile disappeared and he dropped his gaze to his lap. He didn't reply, but he didn't have to, she knew the answer already.
She shook her head sadly, "How long has it been, Jim? Ten years? Ten years and you still grieve for her? How did you expect me, or anyone for that matter, to compete with someone who has held your heart for this long?"
He just shrugged and said, "I'm sorry, Jenna, but I never expected you to compete. Why did you feel the need to? She's dead… it's not as if I could have left you to run back into her arms."
"It was bad enough when you called her name out during those night terrors of yours, but how did you think I felt when you'd call out her name while we…"
"I'm sorry," interrupted Harry. He didn't want to hear the same old argument again. "Well, it was good seeing you again, Jenna. We should do lunch sometime. You know where to find me."
"Ok, Jim… you take care of yourself," She looked him in the eye with the same, sad expression that she wore for the most of their failed marriage and softly said, "and try to be careful, I know it's never your fault, but I can't keep bailing you out of jail when trouble finds you."
Harry heard her let out a pained sigh as she walked back to her cruiser. He chanced a glance back through his side-view mirror, only to see her still standing beside her car. She had her head hung and he saw her wipe her eyes on the sleeve of her uniform.
The break-up was a lot tougher on her than it was for him. She felt as if she failed him, she couldn't 'fix' him. The sad truth was that he really didn't want to be fixed. He wanted to keep the vile memories, he was resplendent in the horrid nightmares. He felt he deserved the punishment for his own failure, not just for the loss of Hermione, but for the entire Wizarding world. He felt that he abandoned them when they needed him most, even though he knew that if he had stayed in Britain, he would be dead by now. He believed, more often than not, that he probably would have been better off dying beside Hermione. A lot people would have been spared a lot of heartache.
His mind traveled back to that horrid night. Yes, he would have been much better off dying beside Hermione.
-----~-----
Take away, take away,
Take away this ball and chain.
Well I'm lonely and I'm tired,
and I can't take any more pain.
Take away, take away,
never to return again,
Take away, take away,
Take away…
Take away this ball and chain.
-----~-----
A/N: Stay tuned for Part II…