Harry was once again lying in a pool of blood, his own blood. Who would have thought that Harry would die this way?
Authored by "not-prgnant-thnk-GOD", A Sad Story
is a Harry Potter Fan Fic in which Harry is severely abused by Uncle Vernon and meets a girl in a similar situation. It is not clear exactly at what point in the series timeline it takes place. (Probably post-Order of the Phoenix given the time it was written, but it's hard to tell.)
There's a dramatic reading which was later adapted into a Sims movie.
This story provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: The entire premise depends on Uncle Vernon and one of his neighbours being this.
- Adaptational Villainy: While Vernon was abusive towards Harry in canon, he was never as violent or cruel as he gets portrayed here.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Vernon shoots Hedwig dead mere hours after Harry comes home for the summer.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Uncle Vernon and Maria's father. Voldemort only gets one casual mention and doesn't appear at all.
- Bloodier and Gorier: Harry and Maria both wind up in a pool of their own blood on multiple occasions.
- Crazy-Prepared: Uncle Vernon has a huge number of spare padlocks and a silenced one-handed shotgun.
- Downer Ending: Harry is beaten to death by Uncle Vernon and falls "lifeless in his lovers arms".
- Dropped a Bridge on Her: Poor Hedwig gets shot by Vernon early on.
- Evil Gloating: Vernon's immortal line, "It's too late, my dear", said as Harry bleeds to death from the beatings.
- Flashback: To when Hedwig was killed and Uncle Vernon started beating Harry, only hours after he arrived back from school.
- G-Rated Sex: There is no clear indication that Maria and Harry were having sex until the ending, when Maria reveals that she is pregnant.
- Gray Rain of Depression: Maria knew there was something wrong with Harry, and it immediately starts raining very hard as soon as she leaves her house to go to him. And then he quickly dies, of course.
- Hammerspace: Where Uncle Vernon seems to keep his shotgun, and padlocks, given there’s no way a man of his girth could conceal them in his pockets.
- Hollywood Silencer: Vernon’s shotgun has one.
- Improbable Use of a Weapon: By the text itself, Uncle Vernon must have been holding Hedwig's cage with one of his hands after Harry gave it to him, and then pulled out the shotgun with the other and shot her inside the cage. This is the same cage he's still holding with his hand, while he is wielding a (presumably) heavy shotgun with the other without blowng his cage-holding hand off or missing and hitting Harry. He also manages to do all this in less than a second.
- Just in Time: Subverted. The Weasleys stand there crying in shock while Harry dies.
- Kick Them While They Are Down: Uncle Vernon beats Harry for not responding to his calls, and orders him to respond when he speaks to him. When Harry does, he cuts him off in mid-sentence and kicks him again, and tells him that he didn't say that he could speak...even though he just told him to do so.
- Last-Name Basis: Vernon calls Potter, his own nephew, by his surname.
- Love at First Sight: Harry and Maria fall in love immediately upon meeting each other.He took her to the garden shed where he first laid eyes on her. Her face was bruised and bleeding, like the rest of her body. She was the most beautiful thing that Harry had ever seen.
- Morton's Fork: Harry gets beaten by Uncle Vernon for not answering Vernon fast enough. Then, when he tries to answer, he gets beaten for speaking without permission.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: In the end, Harry dies after Vernon gives him a particularly terrible beating.
- Someone to Remember Him By: Harry dies just after Maria reveals that she is pregnant.
- Spoiler Title: The title gives away how the story plays out, with Harry ultimately dying.
- Teen Pregnancy: At the end, it's revealed that Maria is pregnant with Harry's child. Both parties are presumably somewhere in their mid-teens.
- Too Dumb to Live: Harry doesn't even try to do anything about his (or his girlfriend's) abuse, even though (at least earlier on) he was free to go as he pleased and could have easily said something to someone. He ultimately dies.
