Disclaimer: If I owned Harry Potter, it wouldn't be a children's book. And I would be a whole lot richer.
Harry giggled coldly as he watched the rabbit dangling from the rafters. Oh, what a shock this would be to Stubbs when he came back up to his room and happened to glance out his window. Of course, stupid Miss Cole would point the accusing finger at him. But no matter. She had no proof, other than the argument the two of them had gotten in last night. It wasn't as if sitting in the time out corner would do anything, anyways.
He smirked as the furry creature swayed in the slight breeze. Stubbs would learn not to argue with him, and that trying to tease him was a moronic waste of time. Admittedly it had smarted a bit when the boy had told him how ugly and homeless his mother had looked when she had dropped him off. What did he know? He would have just been two! He probably didn't even remember anything about his mother.
Harry glanced casually at the clock in the corner of the room. He noted that there were only a couple minutes left until recess was over and the rest of the children came back in. As he left the room, he grabbed a watch off of the bed and pocketed it, planning to add it to his collection.
As he stepped into his own room a few halls away, he heard a door open, followed shortly with a shrill scream. Harry smirked and leaned back on his bed, glancing at the shadowed window.
Smirking right back at him from the faint reflection on the glass was a young boy, with neatly combed black hair and cold dark brown eyes. He looked oddly familiar...
Harry woke with a start. Those were most definitely not his memories. He sat up straight on his bed and rubbed his scar curiously. That wasn't a dream about Voldemort, if it was even a legitimate dream, yet his scar was tingling. He passed it off as one of the curiousities that was Harry James Potter and thought about the dream.
It seemed to have been based in some sort of a Muggle orphanage, Harry remembered. Even though he was sure that it was not himself in it, it had seemed so real. He remembered his calculating fury at the boy named Stubbs, and annoyance and dislike towards whomever Miss Cole was. Harry supposed that the revenge should have bothered him, but he felt like giving that dark haired boy applause.
Still thinking, he turned to his calender to mark off another day before he could returns to Hogwarts. If he hadn't accidently marked on the number, he never would have realized today's date.
"I'm thirteen!" He whispered to himself. It really wasn't that surprising that he forgot, considering how the Dursley's didn't care one penny about unimportant dates, such as their freakish nephew's birthday. In fact, as the date sunk in, his stomach twisted. Today was the day that Aunt Marge was coming to visit.
He vaguely wondered at what would happen if he ran off before she arrived. The Dursley's would rejoice, for sure, but he could imagine what his friends would say. "Harry, you shouldn't joke about things like that! Imagine how Professor Dumbledore would react if you vanished!" Hermione. "Blimey, mate! My mum would flay you alive if you did that, and then she'd go ahead and skin me for good measure!" Ron.
He smiled and sighed. He really knew his friends too well.
He heard a tapping at the window and rushed over to allow the trio of owls into his room. Hedwig, Errol, and a third unfamiliar owl landed on a perch, Errol teetering cautiously off the edge.
Harry picked him up and set him back down on his shoulder as he unfolded what was undoubtedly Ron's letter. When he opened the envelope, a newspaper clipping fell to the ground from inside. With a glance at the owls, he bent down to pick it up. He read the Prophet clipping slowly, grinning at the fact that the Weasley's had won the Ministry Galleon drawing and unable to think of a more deserving family. After he read it, he skimmed Ron's exited handwriting and read the postscript.
P.S: I bought you a christmas present, but I was afraid of Errol losing it. You'll just have to wait until next time you come to the Burrow, or Errol finally drops dead and Mum buys a new owl (Whatever comes first, eh?). If neither happens this summer, The twins 'nd I might just have to pull a repeat of last years rescue.
Mum just glared at me as I wrote that. She's scary, sometimes! (read: ALWAYS) Hehe... So I'll just tell you to ignore that one part.
Fred, or maybe it was George, just told me to remind you not to snog Ginny too much in front of our mum. Sorry, Harry.
Ginny just did something to his soup. I don't think he noticed ye- OH BLOODY HELL! Where did Ginny learn that spell? I'd better go before Mum confiscates Errol!
Knowing Ginny, Harry had a very bad idea of what she could have done. He stifled a grin as he moved on to Hedwig's package. Apparently Hedwig was considerably more secure than the Weasley's ancient bird, as the box felt surprisingly heavy.
Hermione's gift was surprisingly free of a long, dull note inside the box. Instead, There was a simple Happy Birthday! note, tucked away with the sugar free treats. All that was left now was a large barn owl carrying an unmarked box.
Harry cautiously reached for the strap holding the box to the owl's leg. Not sensing any hostility, he grabbed the box and tugged the parcel off. Sitting on the bed, he used a small penknife to slice the box open. Lifting up the flaps, he reached in and grabbed-
"Bloody hell!" He hissed, yanking his rapidly swelling hand out of the box, inadvertently allowing the deadly scorpion out onto his bed. With a quiet snap, the insect transformed back into a fully grown wizard. Harry groggily yelped and tumbled backwards off of the bed. What... just... His mind fumbled to make coherent sentences as the wizard stepped closer. Harry reached for his wand. The wizard tutted.
"Don't bother, Potter. What are you going to do? Poke me with it? Petrificus totalus." The swish of the wand was almost lazy, just showing off how little Harry could do. "What you are feeling the effects of now, by the way, is pure pit scorpion venom." Harry's eyes widened minutely. "You are about to pay for destroying my Lord!" He hissed at Harry, glaring. He cast what Harry assumed was a powerful locking charm on the door before shielding the room, making access near impossible.
"Get ready to experience true hell." The wizard grabbed Harry by his hair and pulled something out of his pocket. In a flash and an uncomfortable squeezing sensation, they found themselves in a dark cellar.
Harry was released from the Body-Bind Jinx, but it made no real difference. The pain and dizziness from the venom had incapacitated him, and the entire arm was now swollen and slightly numb. He barely noticed as the wizard flicked his wand, causing chains to erupt from the floor and lock him into a spread eagle position flat on the ground. The wizard apparently noticed Harry's glazed look, as he chuckled.
"Oh no, can't have that! You need to be able to feel all of the pain to truly appreciate this." The man flicked his wand at Harry, and a peculiar feeling flew through him. He felt as though every nerve in his body was raw and exposed, and the haze of numbness vanished as his brain went into overdrive. He felt his breath speeding up as he panicked. He had just been poisoned and kidnapped by someone who was most definitely a follower of Voldemort. He was going to die. Crap.
He swallowed as the wizard stared menacingly at him. "Let's begin." He flicked his wand, and Harry felt the chains begin to pull in opposite directions, stretching his limbs. It began as an uncomfortable twinge, then he screamed as he felt every joint in his body dislocate one by one. A fiery pain cascaded throughout his body, and Harry blacked out.
...
"Finally! I thought you'd never get up." The wizard laughed insanely. "Let me demonstrate a technique the Muggle Chinese use. I believe it's called the 'Death of a Thousand Cuts'." With a swish of the man's wand, Hundreds of tiny stinging slices covered Harry's skin. He yelped quickly, but stopped, not wanting to show weakness.
Before he could utter another squeak, however, the ground he was chained to was Transfigured into a pool of salt water. The heavy chains, instead of keeping him at the normal floor level, dragged him down to below the surface and kept on going. Only when he was at about twenty feet under did he stop sinking. In another bright flash of pain, hundreds more deeper cuts criss-crossed across his skin in the salty water. The salt made his skin feel as though it was burning off, and it was all he could do not to inhale in pain. All of a sudden, the cuts healed and he was brought roughly back up to the surface.
He inhaled sharp breaths of air as he found himself once more on solid concrete, chained to the ground. Sopping wet, yes, but still chained to the ground. His tormentor grinned.
"I've got something to attend to, so I'll just leave you here for the night. Promise not to go anywhere?" The man grinned slyly. "Frigidero!"
Harry felt the chilling charm take effect immediately. Icicles began to form in his hair, and his breath fogged up. He began shivering uncontrollably. At another flick of the man's wand, extra chains wrapped around his head and waist.
This'll be fun. He thought sarcastically.
...
Two weeks later, Harry had undergone various other tortures. He remembered each of them distinctly, and each memory drew out various amounts of anger and fury.
He remembered having to hang upside down from the ceiling for two days in chains glowing red hot.
He remembered being forced to drink illegal potions, and then having to wait out the effects.
He remembered being dissected without any sort of painkiller, and then being put back together.
He remembered becoming the world's first human pincushion.
In hindsight, it shocked him that he was really surprised what he was willing to do to escape.
...
Harry was tired. He had given up on any chance of being saved that first day. So when he woke up to find that his chains weren't on one morning, he was naturally suspicious. He pulled himself to his feet, fearful of the snaps and cracks his joints were making.
"Hey, Potter!"
Harry winced at the voice. It scared him that the person who decided if he lives or dies was terminally insane.
"I've got a proposition for you." That did not sound good. Death Eaters didn't make propositions, period.
"There are three doors I am offering to you. The first door is that you accept my proposition, and you can leave and go back to your little friends." Harry stared at him impassively.
"The second door is that you accept my proposition, but decide that you don't want to leave after all." Was he mental!?
"The third door is that you refuse my proposition, and we go back to how we've been the past two and a half weeks."
Silence.
"How would you feel about killing a Muggle?"
A/N: Muahahahha! Review... IF YOU DARE!