Voldemort sneered. "Here we are, Harry. Albus Dumbledore cannot save you here. Your mother cannot save you here. They are all beyond entering these wards."
Harry Potter did not answer. He lay on the ground of the cell, bruised and bloodied, green eyes closed tightly.
The red-eyed man glared at the lump on the ground. "Look at me, boy!"
Harry placed his hands, palms down, on the ground and slowly pushed himself to a sitting position. He then raised his uncovered green eyes to meet the red ones above him.
Voldemort froze, seeing a defiance inside the boy's eyes that he hadn't expected.
"You still have fight left in you, boy? So be it. I'll put you back for longer."
To the utter surprise of the snake-faced man, if he could even be surprised anymore, the boy laughed. Actually laughed.
Spitting blood and what looked like a stray tooth, the boy's eyes twinkled in mirth. "You think you can torture me by starving me? By leaving me alone in a cell? By not providing me with sunlight, with enough water? By forcing me to embarrass myself by going to the bathroom where I am kept? By beating and kicking me? You say you understand me, Riddle, but did you ever bother to read anything about the ten years before I came to Hogwarts? Ask the neighbors about the freak who lived at number four Privet Drive?"
Harry laughed again, the noise twinged with regret this time, regret and hate that was obviously not directed at the man in front of him.
"You ask, Riddle, why I am still defiant. Why I still laugh at you. Why you do not frighten me."
Voldemort tilted his head, curious. "Then tell me, Harry. Tell me why. Tell me which variable I missed."
"Riddle, in trying to protect me from your followers and from the rich Purebloods, Albus Dumbledore stuck me in a home with my aunt and her husband, with the Muggles you so despise. I lived in a cupboard that was much smaller than my cell. I relieved myself in a bucket in the corner. I ate a few times a month. The little water I was able to drink was often what dripped in that little hole in the corner after it rained. I lay there, alone and friendless, healing from injuries my uncle had provided me with, with no hope. I didn't know I was a wizard, knew nothing but my cupboard.
"So you see, Riddle, you do not frighten me. My uncle does not frighten me anymore, even. And if you intend to keep me here for nearly ten years, then perhaps you can do as they did. But here, I have something else. I have hope. Hope that I can escape… and the knowledge that there is a world out there beyond this.
"Tom? Do your worst."