Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns any and all things related to the world of Harry Potter. The only thing i can claim would be any OC's or original plot ideas.

Roses are red

Violets are blue

I own nothing

The same as you

AN: Any and all notes about the story being edited will have the details about the changes posted at the end of each chapter for those who want the updates without having to read through the chapter again.

Drip...Drip...Drip. It was the only real source of time anybody had in Azkaban. Drip...Drip...Drip. Judging from his last count he figured that it was almost time for the Dementors to be stopping by for their twice daily torture/meal. Of course he could have been wrong as counting falling drops of water didn't quite make for a good clock. It was during the visits from the Dementors that the memory of how he had ended up here came back to taunt him, much like his cousin Dudley would do growing up as a kid. Of course he couldn't remember exactly how long he had been in this hell hole, but if he had to guess he would have said somewhere in the neighborhood of three years so far.

'Three years too long if you ask me.' The man thought as he stood up to gaze once more, at least until the Dementors returned, out of the ever present window that was one of the few permanent staples of each jail cell in Azkaban. The North Sea the only chance at any color in the lives of the prisoners. Of course even the sea seemed to be in a near permanent depressed state.

Dementors…Most people believe that Dementors feed on your happy thoughts, however, the truth was the exact opposite. They fed off of your worst fears and memories, while suppressing your happy memories. This is why a Patronus Charm, created from happy thoughts, repels them. The problem is that over time your happy memories stay repressed and all you are left with is misery…and despair. This effects most people in a few different ways. There are those who hold out hope that they may one day gain their freedom once more, and are terrorized by their thoughts repeatedly until they end up going insane or die. Then there are the Bellatrix Lestrange's, who embrace the dark, the pain, and the suffering of their past and become evil, still insane of course but evil regardless. Then there was Harry Potter. He was the rare mix of both categories. It wasn't so much of a hope to be set free, but a fierce determination to see that it happened. On the other hand, reliving the worst memories of your life over and over again still leaves a taint on your mind and soul for those who have lived a life of misery.

You see Harry wasn't the typical criminal, in fact he truly shouldn't have even been here in the first place. His memories, while evil in nature, were of acts done by others. Now after years in Azkaban, all he was left with were memories full of death, murder, and betrayal, all of his happier memories having long sense fled to the depths of his sub-consciousness. It took the better part of a year before he started to give in to the taunting laughs that would dance around in his head as he revisited over and over the memories of those he had trusted, but who had ultimately betrayed him. As a matter of fact, he could feel the air growing colder as the Dementors approached and he knew he was about to relive them all again. All of a sudden memories of how he ended up in this hell hole started to flash before his eyes.

Harry stood over the lifeless body of Voldemort, still holding his phoenix feather wand and the Elder Wand. There were bodies littering the ground, most stunned or bound but a few dead; and while people were cheering, there were a few who were giving him weird looks.

The scene changed…

Harry stood outside of Dumbledore's tomb, in his hand were the Elder Wand and Voldemort's old yew wand. He slipped both into the casket, one as a sign of respect and the other as a sign of his defeat of Voldemort, whom Harry believed Dumbledore held a great part in. He resealed the tomb, never telling anyone, not even Ron and Hermione, which would turn out to be a blessing in disguise, about what he did. To him it was a secret to be kept between him and Dumbledore.

Once more the scene changed…

Harry was once more seated in the old hard-backed chair in courtroom ten. The only difference from this time and the one before his fifth year was the fact the chains indeed did have his arms bound. A large majority of the 'Voldemort era' ministry were still in office, as it seems the wizarding world never grew tired enough to actually fix the problems that caused the last two wars. Although, it was clever of Tom to not mark most of the Ministry workers so they were all missing the Dark Mark even though most of them still supported his views.

It was Minister Thickneese who spoke up. "Harry James Potter, you are here being charged with breaking into Gringotts, illegal use of apparition for the period of almost a year, The practice of dark magic, theft of property from an Ancient House, one count of murder (how they could try to pin killing Voldemort on him confused Harry greatly), and evading arrest for the better part of a year. How do you plead?"

Harry was stunned. He had just spent the last 16 years of his life, sacrificing everything he had along the way, to save a world who were just going to throw him to the dogs the moment their arse's are no longer in danger. "Not guilty of course!" he replied heatedly. "Everything I have done in the last year has been because it was necessary to stop Voldemort, not because I found it fun or something I wanted to do!"

"Be that as it may," replied Thickneese, "Prosecutor you may present your evidence."

What had followed was the worst two hours of his life as he watched those he counted friends or close acquaintances all but throw him under the Knight Bus to keep their own arse out of prison. Apparently the whole, we were tricked into joining him by forcing us to sign a magical contract to join the group known as Dumbledore's Army against our knowledge. The two most damning and hurtful testimonies came from Ron and Hermione, his supposed best friends. Ron didn't surprise him as much as Hermione, he had done it a few times in the past, but Hermione had always stuck by him and it pained him to see her turn on him now.

It was Ron who went first. "It all started in sixth year..." he went into detail about how Harry and Dumbledore were 'researching Horcruxes', how they had broken into Gringotts, at Harry's insistence of course, to steal a priceless cup from the Lestrange Vault. How Harry had been practicing Dark Magic in preparation for his upcoming fight with Voldemort. He even told them how, just like Voldemort, he could speak to snakes.

By the time they finished with Hermione's testimony, Harry had felt almost as if they would just send him through the Veil. At least then he could once again be with those whom he loved, as it was clear he had nothing left for him in this life. She had told them about how Harry had been housing a piece of Voldemort's soul inside of him, although willfully or not she 'didn't know', and how he had even forced her and Ron to go on their year long run from the ministry saying all she wanted to do was register like everyone else, and never wanted to circumvent the law.

The scene changed one more time…

They had just found him guilty and sentenced him to 100 years in Azkaban, which would then be followed by being sent through the Veil. He watched in horror as the fat toad-like bitch Umbridge took hold of his trusted Holly wand, and snapped it over her knee with a grin on her face that would make the pope himself vomit. He was immediately whisked away by Auror's to be taken straight to his new home in Azkaban. Harry never saw the eleven year old girl, who was visiting her sister Fleur for the trial, who was crying and seething in anger at the injustice they had done to the man she had secretly loved since he had pulled her out of the Black Lake. He also never heard the magical vow she quietly made that one day she would help him get his revenge on everyone who had betrayed him.

Harry recalled the day his so called 'best friends' visited him. They stopped by just long enough to let him know that they were going to 'take care' of his valuable possessions. Apparently Ginny decided to liberate his Marauder's Map while Ron had decided to take his father's invisibility cloak. Hermione figured that since he no longer needed any of the books they had collected over their journey of defeating Voldemort, that she would 'just hang onto them'. After all but laughing in his face they left, never to pay him a visit again.

Thankfully the Dementors had had their fill for now and had left him to his own devices. Harry had only managed to fight the effects of the Dementors for the better part of a month, but once he had given in almost every positive or happy memory he had the Dementors suppressed into almost non-existence. So for the last few years Harry did the only thing he could do, he embraced the pain, he started to enjoy the horrible things he had seen, he started to want more, and most importantly he started to plan.

Seeing as how he had no wand, he was limited on the things he could do to ready himself for the day he managed to make his escape. He had learned that even though being a Horcrux was the reason he could speak to snakes, that knowledge and ability couldn't be 'unlearned' just because the Horcrux was destroyed. The knowledge may have come to him from an outside source, but his body and magic and absorbed the abilities and knowledge that came with it long before he had ever managed to get rid of the soul fragment.

His bucket list was short while he was still stuck in prison. Master Occlumency, practice Legilimency on the guards when possible, learn any wandless magic that he could, and work on his Animagus form. The last part was the most important as it was his ticket out of here depending on how large or how small his form was. So for the past two years, when the Dementors decided to leave him alone, he would meditate and work as hard as he could. After the first month he had figured out what his Animagus form was. Thanks to Voldemort, he had the choice between two animals. His normal form was a large deer of some sort, and the one he received thanks to his years inhabiting a piece of Voldemort was a large snake around ten feet in length. It was some sort of Boa Constrictor or maybe even an Anaconda, he really didn't know enough about snakes to tell the difference.

While it was technically possible to have multiple options when becoming an Animagus, it still held true that you had to make a choice, because your body could only actually learn one form. Knowing that a large deer wouldn't be very helpful at escaping, he set in to learn how to transform into a snake.

During the first few months, he had managed to sort through all of his memories, which was a prerequisite to learning Occlumency, as you needed an organized mind before you could protect it. He had also learned he could do summoning and banishing charms wandlessly although that was the limit on his wandless magic, and he would have to work harder for them to be of any use. He had been unable to recover most of his positive memories since they had likely been all but destroyed by now thanks to the Dementors. He did discover one while reliving his farce of a trail for what seemed like the millionth time.

He had been studying the memory, more specifically the crowds, to learn who had agreed with him and who had been against him. Sadly, it seemed pretty much everyone believed him to be guilty, he did notice that a few people he knew weren't in attendance. Harry was just about finished with his studying of his court case when he spotted someone who did seem to be on his side. Of course he remembered her, although she had been three to four years older than the last time he had seen her. It had warmed his heart, albeit slightly, that she was crying for him. What really shocked him was when he heard her whisper her vow to help him get his revenge, and then the brief white flash, that went unnoticed, of magic accepting her vow.

It seemed that when he finally managed to escape from here he would need to take a trip to France. Thanks to magic herself, he knew that he would have one person he could count on.

A year after he started his quest for revenge, he had finally created impressive Occlumency shields. He was able to block out a bit of the effects of the Dementors, not enough to spare him from his nightmares, but enough to keep his sanity and drive for revenge. He had also started getting the hang of Legilimency, he was able to slip into the weaker minded Aurors undetected, but not those who had basic shields up. He had also managed partial transformation during his animagus training. He was now very proficient at wandless summoning and banishing charms.

After another six months, he was getting very close to completing his first full transformation. His Occlumency shields and barriers were now getting superb, he was probably now one of the top Occlumens in the country. His skills at Legilimency had also greatly improved. He was now able to slip inside of any of the guards minds completely unnoticed. Of course this had the added benefit of gaining knowledge of the outside world. From what he could gather, wizarding Britain had pretty much went back to the way it had been before Voldemort had taken over. It seems the wizarding world had wizened up some, although from what he could tell, pure-blood bigotry still reigned supreme in England.

Harry had continued to master his Occlumency and Legilimency training for the next six months, he was soon able to almost completely block out the effects of the Dementors and he was even able to keep up passive Legilimency scans that would alert him when he was being lied too. He had also perfected the two wandless spells he could use, although he had not been able to get any others to work, although he was able to sustain a very powerful aura.

It was only a week ago when he had finally managed to fully transform into what he assumed was a twelve foot Python. He was dark green, almost black, with slightly lighter green patterns all down the length of him. He was pretty awesome looking if he had to say so. He had spent the last week, making sure he had perfected his transformation and could now change back and forth at ease. It had been weird at first getting used to slithering on the ground and 'tasting' his surroundings with his forked tongue.

Harry was currently sitting in his cell getting ready to make his break for it. He had managed to learn that it was mid-June from one of the guards the other day, so he now knew he had been in this hell hole for just over 37 months. He was going to make his break during the middle of the night, the same as Sirius had done before him. But for now he had some time, and he was going to use it to get as much sleep as he could because he had a long journey left ahead of him.

Harry awoke to total darkness outside. If he had to guess it was after 2am. The perfect time for him to make his escape. He transformed and, sticking to the shadows, made his way from the top floor, maximum security section of Azkaban, down to the bottom floor, lower security cells. It was these cells that had he would make his escape from. Slowly, so as to not wake the occupant of cell number 13, he slythered his way across the floor, raising his head up and between the bars on number 13's small window. The bars were spaced just far enough apart he was able to slip all the way between them and out onto the rocky ground outside of the prison.

He knew his first stop had to be to get his hands on a wand, and he knew where two wands just happened to lay hidden. He made his way to the shoreline, headed in the direction of Hogwarts. He would need to get far away from the prison and as fast as he could. He figured he only had around six hours before the guards discovered him missing. He never looked back at the prison as he swam across the North Sea, headed for the mainland. The only thing he had on his mind was the revenge he was going to enact on the wizarding world, and how he wouldn't rest until he had crushed them underfoot.

Edited: December 19, 2013

AN: I made a few small changes to the story to help with the flow and clarity of the story. I have also made it so that Harry was in Azkaban for three years instead of two. The only other change to this chapter was the Animagus form. I wanted to go with a larger and not poisonous snake for his form and have made him a Python/Constrictor instead of a Black Mamba.