1Title: Sehnen Nach Der Dunkelheit

Author: Gold-Snitcher

Chapter One: Time By the Drop

Pairing: SS/HP

Warning: slash. Dark themes.

Summary: Voldemort is dead but that doesn't mean that his followers are all gone. Harry is abducted by Death Eaters and tortured with a strange spell. When the Order finally frees him from his small prison, Harry must embark on the difficult task of healing. With Severus' constant prodding and snarking to fuel his determination to get better, and despite the clear set-backs that resulted from the torture, Harry must still contend with the remaining Death Eaters who are still fixated on him, and a chaotic clash of emotions that just might send him over the edge.

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoat Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

------------------------------

The boy tells time by the falling water, each drop the only measurement that seems at all constant in his world.

Yet, the falling of the water, each drop, splish splash, echoing in the darkness, is not at all constant. Or at least he can't be sure. He's fairly certain that time no longer has a meaning. He can't tell whether he's spent an hour or a century in the darkness, but he knows that it has been long enough that he has given up keeping track of the drops.

When he is worried, or panic sinks its teeth into him, he counts again.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

And consistency is restored.

He cannot see the drops as they fall. He's not even certain if it is water.

Sometimes, when he is very frightened, it is not water at all that falls, but blood.

He doesn't like to think about it. He'd much rather tell time by falling water than by blood.

He's not certain if the men will come again. They've come twelve times already, or maybe fifteen, he can't be sure, their visits leave him disoriented, and he isn't certain, but he wonders if the men also visit him when he's sleeping.

He was frightened every time they came, not certain of anything except that the masks were familiar and that they were evil. He didn't know what they would do to him. If he believed in the gods he'd been praying to since the men first came, he would thank them now for the fact that the men had not raped him.

The first time they had cast the spell the pain had been beyond that of the cruciatus. He hadn't thought that that was possible. The Cruciatus was supposed to be the epitome of a pain spell and yet, of this one thing, he is certain. As certain as he is that the water (or blood?) will fall again and make that soggy splashing sound that echoed off the walls.

Every cell in his body had instinctually revolted against the incoming spell; the agony had spread through his body. It started small and built. Pain reached every part of him. Every part. Rippling through his cells until there was nowhere to retreat to. Every piece of him was being burned, consumed, ripped apart.

He'd never heard of this spell before. It sounded German. He hadn't known there were German spells but now that he thought about it, it made sense.

When the man had spoken the words, Harry had wanted to laugh. It sounded so ungraceful, so crude. He wondered what the words meant but his thoughts were interrupted by the pain. He was surprised when the men left not long after. He wondered why they did not stay to savour his writhing form, contorted in pain.

And then the ecstasy had set in.

It was unbelievable and he'd never felt anything like it. Nothing mattered anymore. Not the darkness. Not the fact that he was stripped to his boxers. Not the fact that he was alone and cold and scared. Not the fact that the Death Eaters could do anything they wanted to him. Nothing mattered. He was unbelievably alive and aroused and all of the rest receded. It was more peaceful and perfect than the imperius.

The only time the door was opened was when they came to him. Food was slipped in through a space under the door that opened from the other side. He'd kicked and bitten and clawed and hissed but against five well-built Death Eaters, wandless and starving, he didn't stand a chance. There was no way out.

When they cast the spell the second time, he wondered if it would have the same after-shocks.

He hoped that it would.

He had smiled when he realised that the after-shocks, as he called them, were a part of the spell.

The men came at different intervals to cast it on him. He fought hard every time but so far he had had no success.

He had succumbed and drank down the cold broth and nibbled at the crusty bread that had been left for him.

He was starving.

He was cold.

He wondered about the war and what was happening. He wondered if Dumbledore and the Order knew that he was missing, they must, surely. They would have been expecting him at Hogwarts. He should have been there by now, most definitely. Had it been hours? Days?

Years? He wasn't sure.

He started counting.

One.

Two.

Three.

He hoped it wasn't blood.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Boots again. They were coming for him.

He hoped they would cast the spell. He liked the spell. The pain was worth it for those moments when nothing mattered.

Twelve.

Thirteen.

"Knock knock, Potter. Ready for another go?"

The sound of unlocking spells. And then a key turning in the old and heavy door.

The light was blinding.

Eighteen.

Nineteen.

Twenty.

He wondered if Severus was worried about him.

…………………………….

Harry Potter sat alone in a compartment on the Hogwarts Express.

He drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the seat and looked out the window. Hermione and

Ron had left, both bound for the prefects meeting in the front car. Harry wasn't going, Harry wasn't a prefect. Dumbledore had asked him, sent him a message saying that he had been chosen as Head Boy, but all Harry wanted was to disappear. He'd done his job, after all, Voldemort was dead and what he wanted now was quiet and peace and a sense of normalcy.

Of course, he could have none of that and nobody knew it better than Harry himself. He had even begun to accept the fact that he would always attract attention, but still, receiving the Head Boy position seemed fake, like he only got it because of his name, because of his fulfilment of the prophecy, because of his scar that had faded, a pale, white jagged line on his forehead.

So Harry had respectfully declined.

He watched the scenery fly passed him, raising a hand and idly tracing his reflection in the glass. He dismissed the sound of the compartment door opening; after all, it was likely some younger student looking for a free compartment. When the door quickly closed again, he almost believed that this were true, but felt the chill in his body, that strange reaction that he could never explain whenever something dark was nearby. Ron had often joked about it, saying he was allergic to dark magic.

Harry's hand flew to his robe pocket for his wand but the man casually threw a disarming spell at him, followed quickly by a binding charm that locked his magic from him, eliminating the possibility if his wandless magic, and he was left, alone and defenceless.

"What do you want?" he asked calmly, his mind already working on a way to get out and get away.

The man was tall, a head or two above Harry. His shoulders were broad and his cloak expensive. Harry knew that the moustache he sported was fake and cursed it for effectively hiding a good deal of the man's face. "Mr. Potter," the man greeted cordially, bowing his head slightly.

Harry wondered why no one had noticed the man on the train. After all, adults didn't ride with them. But then again, the students probably thought this could be their new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, they were due for yet another replacement. "It's a great honour to meet you," the man said, and sounded almost sincere about it.

"Who are you?" Harry asked, though it seemed unlikely he would get an answer, at least not an honest one.

"Who I am is hardly important," the man dismissed, almost conversationally, and Harry sat up straighter in his seat as the man drew out his wand. "I think the important thing is that, at this moment, we are alone."

The man turned and, with a deft flick of his wand, cast a rather strong locking and silencing charm on the compartment. Turning back to Harry, he adjusted his robes and settled comfortably on the seat opposite where Harry was situated, lowering his wand and carefully placing it beside him. "I have a proposition for you, Mr. Potter."

"What?" Harry asked hesitantly. He was trying to buy time; desperate to come up with some way of escape. Or maybe the meeting would end and Ron and Hermione would return to the cabin, and realise that something was happening. All he needed was time. Time was life.

"The way I see it, you have two options. One, I can cast Avada Kedavra on you," he was toying with his wand as if to hint of the possibility of this. Harry watched this and tried to appear unconcerned, but in reality, he was starting to panic. Why was no one coming? "Or, you can drink this lovely little potion," he gripped his wand in one hand, and removed a small bottle from his pocket with the other, extending his arm a bit to show it to Harry.

"So what's the proposition?" Harry asked, not completely surprised when his voice sounded confident. It was habit, now, hiding his emotions as much as he hid his thoughts. Severus' strict teaching of both occlumency and legilimency had ingrained both these things into him.

"Drink the potion."

"That's not a proposition," Harry retorted.

"Yes it is. Now, since I haven't already cast Avada Kedavra on you, you can probably guess

which option I would prefer." Harry looked at the potion warily. Harry had enough negative interactions with various potions that he almost felt inclined to choose Avada Kedavra, after all, he'd deflected that once, hadn't he? But potions … there was no way around them.

"What's in the potion?" Harry asked, reluctantly. There seemed nothing else he could do. The silencing spell on the compartment meant he could scream until he lost his voice, and no one would come.

"It's mildly soporific. You'll have a nice little nap for a bit. Not too traumatising?" the man teased, but to Harry, the idea of becoming unconscious in the presence of a man like this was intolerable. "Tick, tock, Harry," the man sing-songed.

A few moments of frantic indecision as he ran-through possible reactions, possible escapes. None of them seemed plausible.

Harry swallowed thickly and reached for the potion.

……………………

Harry awoke, sprawled on a cold stone floor, and was immediately and violently ill. He blinked blearily to try to ascertain his surroundings but all he could see was darkness, and straining his eyes was making him feel worse.

He promptly passed out.

When he awoke the second time he was still on the cold floor, still blind, still feeling nauseous, but he managed not to sick up again. That he was alive, he found, was not such a reassuring thought. Finding that he was not quite well enough to move, he set his mind to reasoning.

Why was he being held captive? Why was he alive? If it was revenge, wouldn't a swift, preferably public death have been better? If that was the case, he should have been dragged out into the corridors of the Express and promptly dispatched under the horrified eyes of his peers.

Was it because of Severus? He had been exposed as a spy near the end of the war; it was a necessary step in order to protect Harry. And it was no secret after that that Severus and Harry got along quite well. They had worked together on strategies and were often seen together on the battlefield.

He lay there and wracked his brain for all possible explanations and then, upon the realisation that moving no longer produced an urge to vomit or made the world spin, and after concluding that he could not be certain as to his captor's motivation without further information, Harry pulled himself onto his knees and then, with a great amount of determination and difficulty, he managed to stumble to his feet.

In the darkness, Harry groped about in a pitiful attempt to ascertain his surroundings. He stumbled forward until his hand pressed into a cold wall, feeling little pock-marks and indentations beneath his fingers, he wondered if it were stone or concrete, and could not be quite sure. If it were concrete, it certainly had been worn rough with age. He scratched his fingers against it, trying to assure himself that this was reality, thus keeping his urge to panic at bay. This was, after all, not the first time he had been taken into the custody of dark wizards. Feeling part of the wall crumbling beneath his nervous fingers, Harry guessed that it must be stone. Which implied that he was in an older building, and raised the likelihood that he was also in a wizarding neighbourhood, since wizards tended to group together.

He walked along the perimeter of his cell, one hand pressed to the wall, both for balance and guidance. Not four steps later, his foot came into contact with something, and there was the distinct sound of splashing.

Harry crouched to his feet, hands groping and he found a small bowl which, upon closer inspection, contained water. Beside the bowl was a loaf of bread that Harry immediately picked up and clutched close to him as he rose and continued to explore.

A few further steps and he felt reeds beneath his feet and a tattered and musty pillow. He settled himself onto his makeshift bed, still clutching the bread loaf, and trying to get his thoughts in order. An odd sort of panic wanted to claw its way out of him. He was sitting, alone, in the dark, practically naked, locked in a small cell by Death Eaters who had taken his wand. With a frown, Harry flicked his wrist and called 'Lumos' furious with himself for not thinking of it before. Nothing happened. He rubbed at his wrist absentmindedly, as he became aware of a general ache that covered his entire body. Why couldn't he cast wandless magic, the spell used on the train was only temporary and it must have worn off already?

Again the panic threatened him and it took a moment to get himself under control. After a moment, he began to feel a bit like an idiot, sitting on a reed-bed, clutching a piece of bread like his life depended on it. He decided to continue his explorations. After rising to his feet, he attempted to put the loaf on his pillow but found parting with it was rather difficult. It offered a strange sense of security, which he sorely needed. Still, he set it down and continued his circle of his cell.

It was small and empty besides the makeshift bed, the bowl of water and his bread. Tentatively, he found his way back to the reeds and was relieved to find his supplies where he had left them. With a defeated sigh, he lay down on the crunchy reeds and closed his eyes, one hand resting on the top of the loaf. At least here he wouldn't be starved, he thought before he fell asleep.

When Harry woke for a third time he had a small panic attack. He had not been in such squalid conditions since the Dursleys, and there were no good memories attached to that place. Funnily enough, finding the loaf and his bowl of water, meagre though they were, was what affirmed that he was not with his muggle relatives. Funny how he thought being the captive of Death Eaters was somehow better than being with the Dursleys. He pondered this as he took a small rip of bread and nibbled on it.

He was used to the blindness now and, when he had finished his rip of bread, he set about collecting anything in the cell that could be used as some sort of weapon. There wasn't much, a few pebbles and chips of wood which, for a frantic moment, Harry thought might be the remains of his wand, but they were too thick and wedge-shaped, and he relaxed. He also found a few shards of porcelain glass and he tucked his meagre treasures by his bed before he settled down to think.

How long had he been there? The man had said that the soporific would last three to four hours, but Harry had fallen asleep several times after that, and there was no guarantee anyway that the man's estimations were correct. Harry always reacted differently to some potions. Severus had said once that Harry must do it intentionally, just to be contrary.

There were bruises on his wrists, he noted absently, so he must have been visited at some point while he was asleep. For a moment, Harry wondered why on earth he had not woken, since he had been trained to be a light sleeper, both by his nightmares and visions, but also because of his responsibilities in his childhood. His keepers must have cast a spell on him, he assumed, and again a prickle of anger and helplessness washed over him.

Another thought occurred to him. Was the room truly this dark or was he blind? Frantic, Harry groped to touch his eyes. Though proving that they were still in their rightful place hardly confirmed that the room was simply dark. It was the ultimate form of helplessness. Harry had never been overly strong physically. His strength lay in his magic, which was unrivalled. But it was already clear that something was stopping him from using it. He was alone, practically naked, possibly blind, without his wand, without the use of wandless magic. His panic overwhelmed him and he rose to his knees and vomited.

It took a while for him to recollect himself and he sat back, leaning against the wall, and closed his eyes and focussed on his breathing. He wasn't sure how long he sat like that before he became aware of slight vibrations in the wall on which his back was pressed.

He blinked his eyes open and pressed his hand against the cold stone. He wasn't imagining it, there were definite vibrations, and now he could hear faint voices. People were coming. Harry wondered how best to handle the situation. Perhaps he should pretend to be asleep and then, when the invisible door to his cell was opened, he could bolt up and out. But then, he still had no magic, and there were several voices, which meant several people, likely wizards. However far he ran, he had no idea of where he was, or the layout of the house.

Suddenly there was light, bright and blinding, and Harry raised his hands to cover his eyes. He heard footsteps, and then rough hands grabbed at him, and Harry hissed and kicked and struggled against the firm grip, feeling the fingers pressing into his skin, knowing there would be dark bruises.

"Don't hit him," a voice ordered, and Harry tried to squint passed the blinding brightness to see. There were four hulking shapes, two of which were bent over him as he struggled. A moment later, and he was slammed quite firmly against the stone wall, a wand pointing directly at his throat. He managed to knock it away before the man who stood by the door cast a spell on him that Harry didn't quite hear. In an instant, Harry was overwhelmed by a disinterested exhaustion.

Harry's body slumped forward against the man who held him, and he was dragged back into a sprawl on the floor. A moment of whispers which Harry couldn't make out, and then a spell, and his body exploded. Every cell woke-up with pure raw sensation, like a slow electrical wave that rose and rose until it surpassed the agony of the cruciatus. And Harry wasn't screaming because it hurt so much that his throat had constricted, and he was taking tiny hiccuping gasps of air, and the world was tilting dangerously on its axis and oh God he just wanted to die. Please, let him die.

And then a shift. Exquisite and shocking. Pain became pleasure and he was sprawled on the floor, quivering from the soles of his feet to the back of his head in what could only be ecstasy. His keepers were speaking, but he could only make-out disjointed snippets of speech. "Healer …infection … fever … dosage … weak." Someone was ill in this clean bright room. Someone began to groan. Harry's keepers left, closing the door and taking the bright light with them.

Harry lay on the ground, still coming down from his high, spent and shivering, and back in the darkness. He managed to twist onto his side and was ill again. He wanted to move back to his bed but did not have the strength, so he flopped onto his back once more, and closed his eyes. "I have made my bed in darkness," he mumbled. And then began to laugh dangerously.

After a while, he put his head down and wept.

----------------------------------------

TBC

Please let me know what you thought of this chapter. For clarification, the first portion was present time, and the rest of this chapter was a flashback to how Harry got there. Please review, I really appreciate them.

IMPORTANT NOTE: For anyone who is interested in other works of mine, I have begun posting at I post under the same name (minus the hyphen though) and currently have two works-in-progress posted there (this piece is one of them). I have begun posting there because there are fewer restrictions imposed on the writers and it's a much saner environment. But, rest-assured, I will continue to update here as well and will not be stopping any of the fics posted here. I must tell you, though, that I've started back at uni so you might not see an update until next week. But I definitey will update one fo the other works here within the next two weeks (I'm really trying to make the next post be for Absolute Pitch but my bloody floppy is not cooperating. I shall retry it, but I may end-up having to begin the chapter from scratch – please be patient, I know I usually updated Life in monthly instalments and I was trying to do at least that with Absolute Pitch but there has been utter chaos in my life lately. Thanks for being so understanding.)