Chapter One

"The First Night"

The first thing Harry noticed when he woke up was the roaring fire burning beside him, the smoke as the fire tried- and failed- to banish the darkness surrounding his small campsite. The darkness simply had to be magical in nature; there was no other way the light from the fire would be so smothered.

The second, third, and fourth things he noticed were the sleeping bodies beside him. He saw Hermione's bushy hair, as well as Ron's stark red. Alongside them, he saw Draco's (formerly) pristine white hair; now muddled and dirtied with nature.

He thought back to what he last remembered, trying to grasp at any reason for the blonde boy to be in such a position with Harry's friends. He remembered the previous night, what led them here:

The screams rang out from all around as Harry began to regain consciousness. The tent he was currently laying in was quickly filling with an acrid smoke. He got to his feet and began running, attempting to find his friends. Occasionally, he would see a shock of red hair, but it would never belong to Ron.

Finally, he found them. They were hiding behind a tree with some of the others who were too young to defend against whatever had happened. Hermione had immediately run over to hug him when she saw him, and Ron had given him a summary of what had happened.

The death eaters had attacked! The one time Harry was able to actually escape from stress, Voldemort's minions just had to ruin it. Harry was almost ready to join in the fight, before they heard whimpers and screams from deeper inside the woods.

The Trio had run headfirst into the woods, as they were known to do. They came upon a grisly scene. Draco was on the ground, a large burn on the side of his face. The Trio was just about to begin basic healing charms, before everything went black...

Looking over to the blonde bully, Harry could see no sign of the burns which had so scarred him before. Seeing as there was nothing he could do for Draco, he began checking his friends for any injuries. Aside from a few bumps and bruises they all seemed to be in perfect health. Not being able to do anything more for the group, Harry decided to take stock of the situation.

He reached into his pocket, searching for his wand. Only air was there to greet his searching palm, sending a new wave of panic through him. He dug through the ground where he was asleep, to no avail; his wand was gone. After taking several deep breaths to calm himself, he decided to look around. He needed to know where he was.

30 minutes later

Harry was going mad; there was simply no other explanation. Every possible direction he traveled, he would always end up back at the fire. He could move about 20 metres in any direction, but he would always find himself facing the fire again.

To make things worse, something was nearby. He could never catch a glimpse of what it was, aside from a sliver of cloth rapidly leaving his field of view occasionally, but he could hear it. It was breathing very close to him, what seemed to be directly behind his ear almost.

Harry decided, to prevent himself going more insane than he already was, he would wait for the others to wake up. Course of action decided, he sat back down and began to wait.

30 minutes later

Finally, the others had begun to stir. As Harry had half-expected and half-feared, they also were bereft of their wands. Draco and Ron were handling the loss of the precious tool the worst by far, having very rarely been in a situation without it since they had gotten them.

Draco was going on and on about how they had kidnapped him, how his father would hear about this, all his usual threats. This finally culminated in a shouting match with Ron, who was annoyed with Draco's shouting and accusations.

Hermione and Harry fared quite a bit better at the loss of their wand, each having had experience with solving problems without magic. While the others were losing their minds, these two were examining their predicament.

Hermione probed and examined the magic keeping them in place, but to no avail. The magic was like nothing she had ever seen- or read about- before in her life. She resolved to remedy that as soon as they escaped.

'For now,' she thought grimly, 'we have to play along with whatever the person who trapped us here wants.'

She quickly called everyone back to the fire to discuss her prognosis. Everyone looked discouraged and scared at the thought of being at the mercy of whoever had trapped them, but the Trio quickly rebounded and began to toss ideas out to each other; ideas on what to do and who might have trapped them.

Draco had originally sneered at the thought of cooperating with the Trio, and went off to examine the wards himself. When he came back, his face was even paler than usual. The words that left his lips left everyone nervous:

"These wards are not what they appear to be," he started, attempting to sound braver than he felt. He tried to speak like a professor, to distance himself from the reality that ensnared him, "they seem to match ancient- and very, very dark- magics. The tenetur in sempiternum ritual most closely matches what I saw."

Of course, everyone was listening now. No matter the personal feelings between the Trio and Draco. he was undoubtedly the most well versed in Dark Magic between the four of them. Hermione was sitting at rapt attention, looking like she wished she could be taking notes. Harry was not quite so studious, but he was paying close attention. Even Ron was listening in, uncharacteristically quiet and astute.

"This is one of the most evil pieces of magic to exist since the times of Merlin," Draco continued, "and it is just that. Evil. Even the darkest of the dark families was hesitant to use it, and very few families even know of its' existence today; much less how to cast it! I do not know the specifics myself, but it involves an incredible amount of violence or cruelty- it is only proven to have been cast 8 times since it was first dreamt up." Now, he cleared his throat and began to give the bad news, "The ritual is designed to forever bind a soul to a powerful creature, known only as the Entity by wizards. He is a powerful eldritch being. That is all we know. Scholars and Grand Wizards of history have theorized that the Entity keeps the souls for eternity, not even letting death free his victims, but that is unproven. No one who has ever been the target of this ritual has come back, alive or otherwise."

It took a while for that to sink in for the trio. The emotions on the face of the Trio ranged from disbelief- In Ron's case,- to morbid curiousity for Hermione.

They had very little time to process, however, before blackness clawed at the edges of their vision and they all blacked out again.

Unknown amount of time later, Entity's Autohaven Wreckers, Wrecker's Yard

Harry woke up with a start, pulling himself off of the ground. Gone was the comforting campfire, now replaced with the foul odor of gasoline and death. A thick fog blanketed the area, reducing visibility significantly. The others were nowhere to be seen. He took a breath and steadied himself before he began to sneak around and look for his friends... and Draco.

5 minutes later

After 5 minutes of finding nothing but broken down generators and reasons to get tetanus shots, Harry heard a sound that chilled him to the bone. Hermione screamed in pain loud enough for him to hear. He saw a red outline of his bushy-haired friend in his vision, behind a few walls.

Too emotional to wonder about the outline, he charged directly for her. He was able to make the distance in record time, going 100 meters in one minute. What he saw there would forever scar his mind.

Hermione, one of his best friends, was hanging from a rusty, bloodied meat hook through her shoulder. She was desperately attempting to hold back sharp appendages that aimed to rip her apart.

Moving faster than even he thought possible, Harry lifted her feet to slide her up and off the hook. All Hermione could to was whimper as she tried- and failed- to tell Harry what had happened to her. as he aided her walking into a building. Just as he god her sitting down, Draco came into view holding a red box with a white cross embellished on the front.

Harry was never more glad to see the blonde boy in his life. Harry could have kissed him, he was so elated. Ignoring the steadily pounding heartbeat in his ears as adrenaline, he rushed forward and took the kit. Draco handed it over without a fight, knowing that Harry could use the Muggle medicine with more precision than he could.

Harry, having had a small amount of experience patching up his own wounds, set to work on Hermione. He handed her a stick that was on the ground to bite on as he doused a cotton ball in alcohol. He whispered an apology to her before he dabbed at the large wound on her shoulder. She screamed loudly as the burning fluid made contact with her arm.

Harry was about to begin bandaging the wound, when something happened that made him freeze in his tracks. He heard the revving of a chainsaw, at the entrance of the building the three of them were in. He barely had time to shout 'Run' to Draco, before his world exploded in pain.

The teeth of the saw tore through his body as he screamed. A deep gash formed in his side, before he fell to the floor. Draco was nowhere to be seen, the first aid kit laying discarded on the floor. Harry looked into the eyes of the thing that had done this to him, before immediately regretting the decision.

The thing was a man, or at least used to be. He was truly the definition of grotesque. The left side of his face was connected to his shoulder with extra skin, and he was hunched over in an unnatural posture. On one hand, he held a large bloodied hammer, while the other held the object of Harry's demise, a wickedly sharp and lethal-looking chainsaw.

The thing grabbed Harry and tossed him over one shoulder. It began walking down the staircase in the room they were in, bringing Harry to the thing he last wanted to see in the world. Four rusted meat hooks, arranged around a pillar in the center. Harry redoubled his efforts to escape as It lumbered over to the closest hook. Harry only had time to scream before he was introduced to a whole new meaning of pain. It only looked to make sure that Harry was secured firmly before heading back up the stairs.

Harry fruitlessly attempted to squirm and struggle off of the hook as the same sharp appendages that he had just rescued Hermione from grew around him. He dug his hands into the leading appendage, cutting his palms as he desperately tried to keep himself from being impaled.

The thing that had put him there returned rather quickly, this time carrying Hermione. Harry begged and pleaded with the thing, but It gave no quarter. It put Hermione on the hook to the right of Harry, drawing forth a scream that tore his heart in twain. Satisfied with it's work, the thing left again, likely to hunt down Draco.

As soon as it left, Harry was privy to the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. A certain stubborn redhead, quietly coming out of one of the red closets in the room. Ron quickly came over to Harry and began removing him from the hook in much the same way Harry had done for Hermione.

The Entity would not even let them have this one moment of mercy, as the thing came back down the stairs with Draco in tow. He immediately dropped Draco onto the floor as It's hammer landed with a sickening crunch on Ron's side. Still, Ron was able to begin limping away before a second deafening blow brought him to the ground.

At this point, Hermione could hold on no longer. Her arms gave out as the talons impaled her body. Harry felt a scream of primal fear and rage bubbling in his throat as he saw her body being devoured by a swirling vortex of malice.

The thing that had caused them so much pain was currently in the process of putting Ron on the hook opposite Harry. As the redhead's pain was renewed, the thing grabbed Draco.

At the moment the hook impaled Draco, Harry felt nothing but sympathy and empathy. Not even a hint of their former animosity was in his mind as Draco began trying to prevent himself from getting impaled by the evil that had taken Hermione.

The talons redoubled their strength, and none of the three remaining was any match for it. Pain exploded from every inch of their bodies as the three were consumed.

Unknown amount of time later, back at the Bonfire

The four of them awoke with screams and pain. They immediately looked each other over, and all inhibitions were dropped as they unabashedly sobbed over the remnants of their pain. Even Draco was not attempting to be tough.

They all slowly began to realize that they were miraculously devoid of any remnants of their wounds. With shuddering breaths, they examined their surroundings for any sign of the unholy abomination that had murdered them all.

Besides that persistent heavy breathing from just out of reach, they found nothing regarding him. What they did find, however, was a table of basic food. Beef jerky and water, along with a few slices of bread for all of them. None of them were very hungry after their encounter, but they did sip the water after deciding that it would not make much sense for it to be poisoned. Whatever had them here obviously wanted them to suffer, and poison would be too quick.

Slowly, after hours of jumping at every sound, they grew tired. Harry volunteered to take first watch as the others went to sleep, and they all agreed gratefully. They laid down beside the fire and drifted off to sleep, unsure of what the next day might bring. Escape was the furthest thing from their minds right now; all that was left was a gladness to be alive and a fear for what the future might bring.