The sound of a door slamming across the cavernous expanse of the room was all it took to open the eyes of the assumed unconscious prisoner. With a sigh that had a lot more to do with boredom than it did with pain, two eyes opened to regard the currently upside down chamber laid out in front of him. It seemed ironic, honestly, that the young wizard found himself here, in this place, again after so many years.
At nineteen, Harry Potter had been dragged kicking and screaming and cursing up a storm back to the castle that had been the beginnings of his magical education. More importantly however, was the fact that he was now hanging by broken ankles against the massive stone visage of one Salizar Slytherin. Deep in the bowels of what used to be known as Hogwarts – now named the Dark Tower or some such ego boosting bullshit – was the Chamber of Secrets, where Harry had quite literally been hanging about for the last few days.
Feh. Chamber of Secrets, the magically inclined certainly have a flair for the dramatic.
Of course, such thoughts weren't very helpful at moments like these, but one must keep their spirits up. Tilting slightly at the waist – as much as the board he'd been lashed to would allow in any case – Harry glanced at the iron spike driven through his ankles. The small amount of basilisk venom that had coursed through his veins since his second year of school was slowly working its magic, he knew. The slightly altered angle of the spike was proof enough that the corrosive substance was working steadily towards his freedom.
There was a mild note of alarm however, quickly and mercilessly shoved to the wayside, as he observed the gangrenous hint the flesh around the spike seemed to be taking on. It worried him only in the sense that it nullified the next to nothing odds he'd given himself for being able to escape after this fools errand was over with. If the flesh was dead, none of the advanced medical spells or techniques Harry was capable of would even attempt to work.
"Whatever will be… will be." His voice travelled no further than his own ears, distorted to a bizarre caricature of itself both by his missing teeth and the shredded remains of his tongue. Since he hadn't uttered a syllable of any language beyond the pitiful mewling and whimpers of pain that his interrogators' had expected, he was mildly surprised to hear what amounted to his voice now. 'But,' Harry thought, 'you have to give it to them, Death Eater torture methods are effective.'
At first, Harry had sneered around the blood filling his mouth once he'd bypassed the pain from having his tongue forcibly removed. After all, if one couldn't talk, one couldn't tell right? But no, The Death Eaters had carefully left his right hand free of any crippling or even mild pain. The mundane clipboard nailed to the wall next to his hand with a magically fresh piece of paper and auto-fill Quill present and easily reachable despite his confines had left him no doubt to the effectiveness of the techniques used against him. Even after his years of training, even with his supreme ability to divorce the mind from the body, there had been moments where he'd nearly cracked and wrote whatever the hell they pleased just to make it stop.
Despite the pain that his slowly dying body attempted to make him feel, Harry knew he couldn't crack. There were of course, various different reasons for this, ranging from his petty need to flip off his interrogators with every visit, to the vital secrets he truly did possess. For instance, if any of the assembled Death Eaters ever discovered that he was actually Harry Potter, the pain would end. Oh sure, he'd be subjected to a few extra rounds of hexing, but Voldemort would not be pleased by anyone attempting to take their place as Harry's executioner.
Not to mention the whole prophecy thing.
In retrospect, it was kind of amusing to think about the prophecy. Good ol' Tommy boy had known about it for slightly longer than Harry had been alive, but hadn't known the whole thing. Albus Dumbledore had known about it just as long as Tom, and had been in possession of the entirety of the blasted thing. Harry himself had been kept in the dark until after his godfather had died – a fact which had led to an irrevocable rift between Dumbledore and himself – in what the Headmaster had deemed an, 'attempt at letting Harry live a normal life.'
Such sentiments were, quite frankly, bullshit. It was because of his supposed normal upbringing that a good third of landmass covering the earth resembled Resident Evil games. Inferi were absolutely everywhere. Great Britain, Harry's birthplace was entirely over run. It was over two years ago that the last transmission from even the muggle strongholds had been detected. Of course, Britain was the first to fall. After the island, the undead spread like a disease. Self sustaining Necro wards were carved into the hearts of the creatures by the hundreds and dropped into unsuspecting cities and rural areas.
Harry was the cause of this, he knew it as a certainty and accepted it without qualm. Good ol Tom was given free reign after Harry had told Dumbledore to fuck off after his fifth year. He never returned to Number 4, or Hogwarts until now. After informing Harry of the prophecy and then trying to tell the boy about the greater good, Harry had fled to Hogsmeade and from there to Diagon and Gringotts. He'd left with his fortune liquidated and spent the year completely out of his head with cheap thrills and expensive indulgences.
'After all,' Harry had reasoned at the time, 'if the best the light has to offer is a manipulative old bastard who doesn't give a shit about what I want… then they can all go to hell.'
His attitude and year of extravagant decadence were brought to a crashing halt when he'd discovered a one armed Nymphadora awaiting him in his hotel room somewhere on the upper east side of Manhattan Island. The battered witch and her accompaniment of Hit Wizards casually slew the harem of hookers surrounding Harry before knocking him out.
The door creaked open again, causing Harry to return to the present. His one biological eye oriented slowly and with a great amount of haze in it's field of sight, towards the hulking monstrosity that was the head interrogator. Mazer, the half giant sadist under Voldemort's employ, walked calm and confidently across the room. Pausing for several minutes at a time to grumble through what the massive dimwit thought of as witty banter with his victims, the halfa eventually came to be in front of Harry.
"Well Donny," the mammoth thundered with what was meant to be a friendly tone. "How are you doing today, me lad?" The monstrous man reached up and calmly inspected the rotting flesh around the spike driven through Harry's ankles. Mazer was a cruel monster of a half man, but a good third of the giants work involved keeping his charges alive long enough to extract information. As such, although the claws he claimed as fingers were brutal in their examination, Harry was confident of the treatment they bestowed upon him.
"Hmm, seems you're getting' a touch of the gangrene, doesn't it, lad?" An odd gurgling sound was Harry's only reply, but the beaming smile that accompanied the gurgle was more than enough to bring a smile to Mazers face.
"Ahh, good lad. Never a complaint, not a one. I know the accommodations ain't great, and by the hairy tits of Morganna, it's drafty in this ruddy chamber, but Mazer never hears a neg'o'tive peep from ol' Donny." The Giant continued his ambling speech for several long moments as he applied various creams to the festering flesh around the spike. Once the creams were administered – with a skill that'd make more than few doctors jealous – the half giant settled his bulk down on a oaken stool scaled to proper size.
"Well now, Donny me lad, I think that'll hold ya up a bit. S' on'a personal matters, yeah? You want some water? A bite to eat perhaps?" Harry rolled his eyes in an amused manner, making another gurgle in response before flipping the bird at the giant before him.
"Oh Donovan, now don't be that way. I like to think that we're both gentleman here. I'll give ya the water for free, today, but only because you're such a good sport." The giant bestowed a fearsome smile on Harry before one of his massive paws lowered down to his waist and yanking aside the furry pelt that covered his groin. The half giant, a sadist in the truest sense was already semi erect from the coming humiliation at hand, and the burning need to satisfy his bladder could only help the situation.
With crushing force, Mazer's hand shot forward and gripped Harry's face with crushing force, easily dislocating his jaw and, in all probability, adding another hairline fracture to his pulverized mandible. A grunt of satisfaction ensued as the man carefully aligned his bulbous head with 'Donovan's' mouth.
"Now, I know ya must be thirsty lad, and seeing as how I may not be in a charitable enough mood to slake your thirst next time I do my rounds, I'd advise ya not to spill a drop, okay?" Though the act that was about to occur was vile and disgusting on the basest of levels, Harry felt he might be smiling if his broken jaw would allow it. The exact moment the stream of urine splashed like fire against his still healing stub of a tongue, the giants crushing grip relaxed a tiny bit as Mazer gave himself over to relief for a moment.
A moment was all Harry needed.
Tonks hadn't even given Harry a moment to process what had occurred before she'd unleashed a hefty stunner on Harry, dropping him to the floor like so much dead weight. When he'd awoken several hours later, he'd been on a GI cot, and was heavily restrained.
"Wotcher, 'Arry." The scarred visage of the once chipper Auror broke into a decidedly eerie grin as burn tissue present on the left side of her face caused the smile she was attempting to perform become something more of a leering grin.
"So glad you could finally join us. Now, you just sit there and be quiet for a minute. You see, you're being abducted and the American government frowns on that sort of thing, so we're having to be quick about it." Harry attempted to roar out his indignities over the whole situation, but the quick use of a silencing spell had left him speechless. Deprived of his ability to protest vocally, the boy-who-lived resigned himself to shooting daggers at the Auror.
"Oh now, don't be to angry with your dear cousin." Noticing the confusion on the boys face, the upbeat metawoman gave a surprisingly bitter laugh.
"Yes yes, you see, Sirius named you Black heir, which makes me, as daughter of Andromeda Tonks, formerly Andromeda Black and sister to one Sirius Black, your bright and happy cousin." Tonks gave him a beaming smile for just one second before delivering a crushing hammer blow to Harry's nose. With a small burst of blood splashing his face and the rakish goatee the boy-who-lived had begun to sport over the last year, Harry reacted with shock and a sharp flushing of pain and anger.
"Don't you even think for a fucking minute you didn't deserve that you little shit!" If anything, the full blown malice in the woman's voice was more of a wake up call than the breaking of his nose had been. His eyes focused slowly on his 'cousin' as Tonks leaned in very close to his face. Time had been hard on the girl, and that was saying something for only a years passing. Apparently, in his absence, she'd lost her shield arm, taken a nasty curse or three to lower half of her face and developed a whole new personality – one far removed from sunshine and lollipops.
Given Harry's temper though, was it any wonder – despite the inner horror he felt at the changes affecting the metamorph – that the minute she was in range, the boy spat a thick, bloody loogy up into her face. After all, sympathy aside, he was Harry Bloody Potter, and the only thing he felt he owed any of these people anymore was a few well aimed bodily excretions. With the loogy out of the way, he only had two left on the list to go. His small victory accomplished despite the silencing charm and full body bind, Harry was beginning to feel smug with himself. Funny how all women seem to have this innate ability to wipe such expressions right off the face of any bloke they so feel like.
Less than a second after the grin began to form on his lips at the look of utter outrage on Tonks' face, it was replaced by a silent squeal of pain and a cross eyed look of agony. Tonks had his balls in a vice grip and, by extension, his full attention.
"Alright Harry. Now you listen to me and you give me more attention than you gave any other motherfucker in the entirety of your miserable, cock sucking life, you hear me?" When Harry failed to give any answer at first, Tonks only squeezed harder.
"I said, do you hear me?"
Harry could only nod.
In that half second of inattention from Mazer, Harry's body rippled in his bonds as the form of his rather unique animagus perversion exploded into action. His broken, near toothless mouth tripled in size, and then nearly quadrupled from there before filling with double rows of razor sharp teeth. Said teeth sank into the too-yielding flesh of the half giants groin and ripped Mazer's 'gianthood' from him without a seconds hesitation.
The bonds that held Harry in a loose, upside down crucifixion disintegrated as the impossible beast he had become reached it's full form. The behemoth interrogator Howled bloody murder and fell back to the ground as what could only be described as the mutated offspring of a manta ray and a merman dropped heavily down to the floor in front of him.
Eyes wide in shock, Mazer did a fair imitation of a crab as he scuttled back and to the left, away from the bizarre creature that his human urinal had become. For his part, Harry could only grin – though in his decidedly off form, grinning was really the only expression he was capable of – as he lifted the massively bloated body of the shadowspore up off the ground with disjointed front limbs. The two wing like extensions above his arms flared and he began to slowly glide toward the 'dismembered' torturer.
Harry's animagus form was, for the most part, immaterial. The injuries he'd sustained that had crippled his human body and had been, up to a moment ago, killing him slowly meant nothing to a body that didn't even technically exist. As the quivering, eyeless, creature continued to stalk the blubbering half giant, the man who had become Donovan was keeping careful watch on the door across the chamber from him. Although the shadowspore didn't have eyes, it had a rather keen perception that originated from some part of it's body. Honestly, Harry had no clue where that part was. Every moment he spent in this shape caused the living, breathing Harry it displaced endless amounts of pain.
The shadowspore was not a fast creature by any definition of the word, but it was utterly unaffected by any form of attack that Harry had encountered as of yet, so even as Mazer swung massive fists at the creature that would be his executioner, they simply passed through his body as if through a cloying mist. However, when one of those fists got to close to Cheshire grin that was the shadowspores mouth, those gleaming teeth snapped open and shut, rending the arm with no difficulty.
…Mmmaazer…
The god awful tones of the other worldly creature was enough to shatter the half giants ear drums, and in the moment of absolute disorientation this caused. Harry finished the job. With a particularly strong fluttering of his odd wings, Harry pushed in close – the mouth expanding… and expanding, until it literally passed through the floor – and devoured the Giant whole… or, mostly whole anyway. As soon as the task was finished, Harry banished the body as quickly as he'd called it on.
Once again brought back to the limitations of a body that had been tortured and crippled and abused, it took several long moments of simply laying on the cold stone floor before Harry felt up to lifting his head. Other than the streaks of blood where the giant had scuttled his dickless self about, there was no evidence of the murder that had taken place. Using his one unharmed arm left, harry pulled himself into a spot of shadow as quickly as he could. There would be pain shortly, and Harry didn't want to be sitting exposed in the middle of the floor as he thrashed about.
The pain, when it came, was enough to bring fourth disturbing gurgled sounds of varying intensity as the leftover substance of other tore through him with all the subtlety of a freight train.
Harry had listened. While chained to a cot in a magically expanded ambulance that roared across the eastern seaboard, Tonks had told him a horror story of what his absence had wrought on the magical world in Britain and various other associated areas. Without their savior, the people had no hope. With no hope, the resistance against Voldemort had swiftly crumbled. Dumbledore was dead as a doornail, Remus was just the same. None of the Weasleys had been heard from in several months. The aurors were disbanded, Hogwarts had fallen under an assault and become the power base for the Dark Lord himself. In short, the whole fucking island had gone tits up in less than a year.
Apparently, this was all his fault.
"So… what you're telling me… is that there's no one left to fight him? The ministry's in exile..?" It was all a lot to take in, and Harry was still confused on the fine points.
"But what about you Tonks? Obviously, you and these guys are still fighting." Tonks had only taken a moment to offer a soft sigh in answer.
"I'm here on the last order of Dumbledore. I was to track you down, and these gentleman and myself are to train you. Because Harry, like it or not, you're the fuckin' chosen one. Get me?" Harry groaned, but he was careful to keep it under his breath. Tonks had gotten a bit trigger happy since the last time he'd seen her – understandably, he supposed, what with her recent marriage and widowing in the period of a week, the rape and torture, yeah, all that – and he was worried that if he voiced a complaint, he might get another thing to complain about.
"So what are you supposed to be training me to do? I mean, fight, obviously, but, if the whole place's gone to shit, I really doubt a squad of five is gonna be enough to bring me up to speed in a few months." Tonks only grinned for a moment before patting his shoulder.
"Harry m'boy, I never said there was a time limit. We've got the resources to drag this out as long as we have to. We aren't taking you back until you're ready. But before the training begins, we've got a special stop to make." The Malicious grin on the ex-aurors face was enough to give Harry pause, but before he could gather the courage to continue asking questions the Ambulance lurched to a halt and Harry was ordered out with the rest of the crew.
Blinking in the sudden sunlight, Harry's eyes took a moment to adjust to his surroundings, but what he saw gave him pause. He was standing in front of a massive medical complex. This wasn't what had him so concerned, however. What did, was the fact that it was apparently dedicated to plastic surgery.