Note: At the beginning, this story will use a fair amount of J.K.R's words. Don't worry, I am only doing that to establish the story. Once we get to Hogwarts everything will change.

Disclaimer: I wish I owned Harry Potter and Hetalia, but I don't. They belong to their respective owners.

Also, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE GIVE ME CONSTRUCTIVE CRITISISM! I want to make this story enjoyable for you guys!

It was Frank's bad leg that woke him; it was paining him worse than ever in his old age. He got up and limped downstairs into the kitchen with the idea of refilling his hot-water bottle to ease the stiffness in his knee. Standing at the sink, filling the kettle, he looked up at the Riddle House and saw lights glimmering in it's upper windows. Frank knew at once what was going on. The boys had broken into the house again, and judging by be flickering quality of light, they had started a fire. He picked up his walking stick, which was propped against the wall, and set off into the night.

The front door of the Riddle House bore no sign of being forced, nor did any of the windows. Frank limped around to the back of the house until he reached a door almost completely hidden by ivy, took out the old house key, put it into the lock, and let himself into the kitchen. Frank had not entered it for many years; nevertheless, although it was very dark, he remembered where the door into the hall was, and he groped his was toward it.

He reached the hall, which was a little lighter owing to the large mullioned windows on either side of the front door, and started to climb the stairs.

On the landing, Frank turned right, and saw at once where the intruders were: At the very end of the passage a door stood ajar, and a flickering light shone through the gap, casting a long sliver of gold across the black floor. Frank edged closer and closer, grasping his walking stick firmly. Several feet from the entrance, he was able to see a narrow slice of the room beyond.

The fire, he now saw, had been lit in the grate. This surprised him. Then he stopped moving and listened intently, for a man's voice spoke from within the room; it sounded cold and high-pitched, but there was no mistaking it was a man's voice. Something about that voice made the sparse hairs on Frank's neck stand up. "Move me closer to him, Wormtail."

Frank turned his right ear towards the door, the better to hear. There came the dull scraping sound of a heavy chair being dragged across the floor. Frank caught a glimpse of a small man, his back to the door, pushing the chair into place. He was wearing a long black cloak, and there was a bald patch at the back of his head. Then he went out of sight again.

"Arthur Kirkland..." said the cold voice. "M-My Lord," came a voice that was timid and fearful. That small hunched man's voice, thought Frank. "Silence, Wormtail. It is rude to interrupt your master, you must know this by now. Unless, you need a reminder?"

"N-n-no, M-My Lord."

"Good, good. Now, once again, Arthur Kirkland, the Nation of England."

Frank inserted a gnarled finger into his ear and rotated it. Owing, no doubt, to the buildup of earwax, he had heard the icy voice say "the nation of England," which made no sense at all. He must have said from the nation of England.

"What do you want with me, Voldemort? Or am I just another killing 'experiment'. Am I just another person for you to kill when you are bored?" Frank stopped trying to clear his ear. It was obvious these people were criminals, holding a victim hostage. He moved a bit to the side, trying to get a fuller view of the room. Against the wall, he saw a man bound to a chair with way too much chain.

"In a way, you are a killing experiment. However, this one is not for fun. I need your immortality. Don't deny it, you cannot die, and believe me, I will do whatever it takes to get that power from you."

Frank was astonished. Not only was this man a criminal, he was a murderer, and on top of even that, he was mad as could be. Immortality? That was a foolish thought. No one lived forever, it was impossible.

The man who Frank now recognized as Arthur spoke. "No way in bloody hell! Even if you drank my blood like a unicorn's, you wouldn't be able to take my immortality away!"

"Is that so, England? Well, what's to say that I won't try, hm?" A think white stick could be seen just rising above the arm of the chair. The man in the chair gave a shout, and a jet of green light that surpassed even the eyes of his prisoner shot out of the end of the white stick, and the man bound to the chair slumped, lifeless.

And then Frank heard movement behind him in the dark passageway. He turned to look, and found himself paralyzed with fright.

Something was slithering toward him along the dark corridor floor, and as it drew nearer to the sliver of firelight, he realized with a thrill if terror that it was a gigantic snake, at least twelve feet long. What was he to do? The only means of escape was into the room where someone had just been murdered by light, yet if he stayed where he was, the snake would surely kill him — But before he had made his decision, the snake was level with him, and then, miraculously, it was passing. There was sweat on Frank's forehead now, and the hand on the walking stick was trembling. Inside the room, the cold voice was hissing, and Frank was visited by a strange idea, an impossible idea. . . . This man could talk to snakes.

"Nagini has interesting news, Wormtail," the man in the chair said, switching abruptly back to English.

"In-indeed, My Lord?" said Wormtail.

"Indeed, yes," said the voice. "According to Nagini, there is an old Muggle standing right outside this room, listening to every word we say."

Frank didn't have a chance to hide himself. There were footsteps, and then the door of the room was flung wide open.

A short, balding man with graying hair, a pointed nose, and small, watery eyes stood before Frank, a mixture of fear and alarm in his face.

"Invite him inside, Wormtail. Where are your manners?" Wormtail beckoned Frank into the room, and taking a firmer grip upon his walking stick, limped over the threshold.

"You heard everything, Muggle?" said the cold voice from the armchair.

"What's that you're calling me?" said Frank defiantly, for now he was inside the room, now that the time had come for some sort of action, he felt braver."

"I am calling you a Muggle," said the voice coolly. "It means that you are not a wizard."

"I don't know what you mean by wizard," Frank said, his voice growing steadier. "All I know is I've heard enough to interest the police tonight, I have. You've done murder! Turn 'round and face me like a man, why don't you?"

"But I am not a man, Muggle," said the cold voice, barely audible now over the crackling of the flames. "I am much, much more than a man. And soon, I will become even more than I am now. However . . . why not? I will face you. . . . Worntail, come turn my chair around."

The servant gave a whimper.

"You heard me, Wormtail."

Slowly, with his face screwed up, as though he would rather have done anything than approach his master and the hearth rug where the snake lay, the small man walked forward and began to turn the chair.

And then the chair was facing Frank, and he saw what was sitting in it. He walking stick fell it the floor with a clatter. He opened his mouth and let out a scream. He was screaming so loudly that he never heard the words the thing in the chair spoke as it raised a wand. There was a flash of green light, a rushing sound, and Frank Bryce crumpled. He was dead before he hit the floor. Unlike Arthur, he did not wake up. Arthur raised his head, revived, and said in a scratchy voice, "In the end, Voldemort, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."

Two hundred miles away, the boy called Harry Potter woke with a start.

Twenty minutes earlier, 196 people across the world woke up or stopped their day terrified, knowing one of their own was being tortured.