Disclaimer: Nope, not mine. I'd never pair Hermione and Ron together, you know that.
A/N: My reply to the "You've corrupted your purpose" challenge by Detritus, you can find it here:
http://talk.portkey.org/index.php?showtopic=26319 . Hope you'll enjoy it and as usual if you read, review and let me know what you think of it. It is an HP/PoTC crossover.
Thanks to my beta Gingercat for her help.
Corrupted
Chapter Two: Harry Potter, the Heartless Monster
"No, Patrick, let's not go there" the girl said, holding for dear life on her boyfriend's hand. "you know the rumours as well as me" she continued.
"Come on, Charlotte. For being a Gryffindor, you don't seem really brave" he teased her, and kept walking toward the southern limits of Hogsmeade village, toward a cave which had lay unexplored for years.
Rumours were that every time a young couple went there, Harry Potter, once savior of the Wizarding World but by now known by everyone as the Heartless Monster, would appear to them and terrify them.
Everyone now knew of his legend, as well as Voldemort's was known when he was only a teenager, not older than the two now cautiously making their way through the bushes that lined the path to the cave.
For forty years the way he had remained alive even once his heart had been carved out of his chest was told, embellished, made more gruesome and scary.
But few were trembling like leaves when hearing it, and yet, if they ever had the misfortune to run into the Monster, they definitely would cower in fear of what he had become.
Forty years of isolation, mulling about his own rage, his pain for having lost the only thing he really wanted from life, not money, not fame, but only being loved by a certain brown haired witch, had destroyed him, soul and body like-wise.
At first, when he happened to stumble upon happy couples, in his solitary peregrinations, he would just sneer at them, and shout some nasty remark on love's uselessness, on how it would never last, how it was the weak's thing to fall in love.
With time, as his anger and the magic sustaining his life were consuming him, his once handsome face started getting distorted, his clothes now ragged, his own flesh rotting in some places, and his rage would escalate further, as well as his madness. The only thing unchanged were his eyes. Green as emeralds, they never lost their internal light. It changed, though, as time passed, to an evil gleam, reflecting the new viciousness of the former Boy-Who-Lived, now Monster-Who-Scares.
He was alone most of the time, muttering to himself about not worthy enough, backstabbing friends, and amenities like those.
So, now, Patrick and Charlotte, both sixth years at Hogwarts, had finally reached the cave.
It was dark, but with their wands they easily bathed its entrance in light.
"See?" he smirked. "I told you, the cave is perfectly empty and safe, albeit a bit smelly" he said, scrunching his nose in disgust. "Some animal must have died inside, and is now rotting"
Charlotte thought she saw a glimpse of green in the distance inside the cavern, but it was gone in a flash.
Patrick wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her close. She was still scared, and was trembling in his arms, so he planted a kiss on her forehead to try and calm her down.
Then, he thought the best he could do before they faced the long path again to go back, was to kiss her fears away.
He couldn't have made a bigger mistake.
It was merely two seconds after they had started to kiss, their tongues barely touching each other still, that a figure leapt from the darkness, and wrestled them apart.
When Patrick managed to stand up, he was horrified at the sight in front of him.
He had his wand at the ready to protect his girl from whatever beast had attacked them, but upon seeing the wild black long hair, the pure evil in those green eyes, the rotten flesh on various parts of his body, the open gash on his chest, signalling that the legends were true, he was literally heartless, the boy, who was a Gryffindor himself, couldn't help dropping his wand in fear and screaming in terror.
"No one can hear you" he growled, casting the body of the now unconscious girl away gracelessly, probably causing her many scratches as her arm and leg came in contact with the hard soil.
"W-What do you want?" the boy croaked out, his eyes going from his girlfriend to the madman in front of him.
The cold laugh that followed chilled him to his bones.
"What I want, you can't give me" he said. "It was taken from me a long time ago, and never returned" Harry, or what was left of him, said.
Then he lunged for the boy, bringing him face to face with himself. He could see the lad was moments from passing out himself.
"Remember, lad. Never love. Never. It doesn't bring you anything else but pain and anger. There's no good in loving" he growled, and then sent the Hogwarts student flying backwards, hitting his back on a nearby tree, and slumping to the ground, unconscious.
The monster spared a moment to look at the girl, her brown hair bringing back memories he wanted to forget, memories he thought he had stored away forever together with his heart.
With a last ungodly scream and growl, he vanished again, ready to seek his next pair of victims. His mission was clear, and he had dedicated himself to it for many years now. He would stop that insanity that was love, or teenage love to be more precise.
When the young pair slowly woke up, they groggily walked back to the castle, the events of the day firmly embedded in their brains, just to find a worried Headmistress McGonagall that reprimanded them for being so late, and landed both of them in detention.
That was the littlest of their problems, as the nightmares tormented them for months, and they never managed to get within three feet of each other without remembering that fateful day.
Another budding, possibly life-lasting romance, had been cruelly, bluntly, viciously destroyed, to never blossom again.
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