"Poured Out Like Water"

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor do I own any of the quotes or songs I reference in this fanfic.

"ButI am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people…. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted away within me. My strength is dried up like potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth: you lay me in the dust of death. Dogs have surrounded me: a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet… people stare and gloat over me…. Deliver my life from the sword, my precious life from the dogs. Rescue me from the mouth of the lions; save me from the horns of the wild oxen."~

~Psalms 22; 12-21

"Potter!"

The rough growl jerked him awake from a restless doze, making him jump in surprise. He couldn't stop the groan of pain that came from the back of his throat as the unexpected movement sent ripples of agony through his broken body. Standing above him was the familiar face of the Death Eater who frequently guarded him, a large, burly man with a twisted mouth and sneering ice-cold eyes. The man leered at him.

"Not so high-and-mighty now, are you, Potter?" he laughed coldly, and without warning he brought his foot down on the boy's outstretched right hand. Bone, only recently re-healed, crunched and snapped beneath the unforgiving weight, and Harry's pained scream echoed in the room in which he was held. The Death Eater laughed again and stepped back to see the boy going white from pain, whimpering but unable to do anything to protect himself, tied as he was by his enemy's power. "Get your sorry ass ready—you'll be visited by the Dark Lord soon." With one last sneering smile, and a swift kick to the ribs that caused another pained outcry, the man turned and left, laughing at the agony he had caused.

It was a dark, dank prison in which Harry Potter was being held, where the air itself seemed dead and stifling; the darkness crushed dreams, its slimy, clammy grip squeezing anyone caught in it of life and hope. It was very easy to lose sense of oneself there, where there was no lifeline of human kindness to hold onto. In it, struggling with the agony that was his body, Harry was fighting to remember himself.

How long had he been down here? Two weeks? Three weeks? A month? Time had no meaning in a black hole such as this, with its merciless maw that devoured any innocent soul who passed through. He had not seen the sun in weeks, nor had he seen any life besides Voldemort and his Death Eaters who came to jeer at him. In Voldemort's impenetrable stronghold, they knew Harry was as good as dead. The date of the actual dying had not yet been set, but he knew it as well as they.

Voldemort had broken him. Death would naturally follow. In that black room of despair where hope failed, Harry tried to block out the pain of his broken hand, trying to shift and gasping as bones rubbed together. Many of the bones in his body were out of joint slightly from when Voldemort had broken them and then mended them just as easily. At eighteen years of age, Harry did not look like a child, nor even the boy he was—no, after dozens of sessions of torture, Harry was little more than a shadow of his former self, emaciated, covered in dirt and blood, his shaggy black hair tangled and blood matted, his eyes sunken and dead. He had little strength after Voldemort's torture, and he had long since given up speaking. So he lay there in the dark and waited for something to give.

He groaned again as pain lanced up his fingers. He did not care about pride here—he screamed his pain and agony, cried until his throat was raw and throbbing. The Death Eaters delighted in his creams, and Voldemort goaded him further into pain and loss, laughing until their voices were raised in some twisted duet.

Everything in this place was twisted, perverted, made so confusing and dark that the earth seemed upside down, like a morbid retelling of Alice in Wonderland. Shadows became a refuge, light was something to fear. There was no such things as warmth there in the depths of this cesspool of despair—all that existed for Harry was the cold, slimy stone, the awful stench of decay and the wetness that pervaded the air. He lost himself in mental wanderings through some far-away corner of his mind where he was safe.

Safe, that is, until Voldemort's torture forced him back out, where he was confronted again and again with the ruin that was himself. Life was laughed at, death was something to welcome. He was taunted, belittled, ridiculed, and assured that those professed to be his friends had abandoned him.

And he had begun to believe it, even if he knew in his moments of complete clarity that that was exactly what Voldemort wanted. The Dark Lord wanted the boy completely crushed, utterly unrecognizable, before life was finally ended, so he could boast that he destroyed everything Harry Potter had been and jeer in his enemy's anguish.

That thought would have made Harry fight even more fiercely to defeat Voldemort before, but he barely remembered that old side of him. It had been starved and beaten and screamed out of him. Was he even still human? Did it even really matter?

The end was there, so close he could taste it, and if he could remember how to cry he would have.

0000000

"Ah, Harry," came a familiar silky voice a short while later, and Harry immediately curled into a fetal position, desperate to protect himself from what he knew to be a monster. Mentally, he had retreated into himself like he usually did before Voldemort's arrival, hunkered down in a maze of World War I- style trenches until the Dark Lord forced him out again. Before then, however, he seemed physically as vacant as a feral child, nothing more than a cornered animal driven by instinct. The Death Eaters who had followed Voldemort in laughed seeing him on the floor, reveling in the power they felt proud to hold. They were monsters, every single one of them, twisted by the evil that they lived in.

Leading them was Lord Voldemort himself, a tall, skeletal creature that looked more like a snake than a man, with bone-white skin, a thin lipless mouth, a face with no nose, and eyes that shown as red as the blood he liked to spill. He was evil itself, Beelzebub incarnate, just as conniving and just as deadly. He hissed a laugh, sounding as much like the snake currently wrapped around his shoulders, and dutifully the Death eaters around him silenced immediately, still smirking, their eyes bright with eagerness. They knew what was going to happen.

So did Harry. He pressed himself to the harsh, cold wall of his physical prison, curled into a tight ball, his breathing already heavy and panicked. Voldemort stopped before him, looking down at him with a ghastly smile that deepened the inhumanity of his face. "Now, now, Harry," he admonished him in a low, silky tone, "that is no way to greet your visitors. Won't you speak for us?" He hissed a laugh again when Harry shook his head. "No? No, my pet? You won't speak for us? You must know the penalties for that. Crucio!"

The familiar agony ripped through Harry's body like flame, erupting along the weakened bones that had been recently healed, and he screamed as he writhed on the floor. Naked skin rubbed itself raw against the stone, drawing blood, as on and on it went. When finally Voldemort let the curse end, he fell limply to floor, whimpering his pain.

"Are you ready to speak now, Harry?" the Dark lord asked with a vindictive smile laced with warning. His voice was soft, silky, almost pleasant—and all the more dangerous because of it. In it, it conveyed the cat that had finally cornered its prey. Voldemort's smile widened and with another wave of his wand set Harry under the Cruciatus Curse again, and again the boy's screams echoed in the small space of his confinement. Everything seemed blurred—Voldemort was laughing his pleasure, Nagini's scales rasped against the stone, the Death eaters' laughter was bouncing through the air—

And Harry's mind abruptly snapped to the forefront, forced from his mental shelter, and everything came rushing back to him in a tidal wave, just like it always did. His body seized up under the terrible onslaught he was being put through and his breath hitched in his torn throat. He could feel a dark, sticky wetness running from his nose and into his mouth, and from its coppery taste he realized it was his blood. Voldemort sensed what had happened and lowered his wand so that the spell stopped.

"Back with us, young Harry?" he asked, his crimson eyes bright with excitement. "Good, boy, very good… you know how much I hate to be disappointed."

Bile rose in Harry's throat, burning it like fire. He wished it was fire, wished with every fiber of his being that Voldemort would end his life—

And something that had so far handled the strain broke inside him. Never had he consciously wished for death, never had he begged Voldemort for it, but now he did, and it shattered whatever had so far survived intact. He didn't deserve to live. He had never deserved to live—he had been the cause of so much death, o much pain and suffering.

The Dark Lord sensed his thoughts, saw them through their connection, and exulted in his victory. He came closer. "Do you want tit to end, Harry?" he asked softly, and it was laced with triumph.

Harry squeezed hi eyes shut tightly, feeling his eyes burning, and tears escaped from his hold, although he did not even realize he was crying. "P-Please," he gasped out, his voice a mockery of itself, and he didn't care anymore. Not about anything. "Please…" Everything was hazy, unreal. He thought he saw Voldemort smile, but wasn't sure. He did see the wand pointed at him, realized what was happening, and couldn't help but feel relief.

Suddenly, however, there were outcries, screams of pain, yells of rage, filthy curses spewed from unclean mouths, and Voldemort's crimson eyes disappeared in a flash of light. In the midst of the chaos, Harry felt hands turn him over, heard a sharp intake of breath, a gasp of horror. He couldn't see the face of the person above him, could only see a pair of familiar brown eyes he thought he knew.

"Harry? Oh Merlin…" The person sounded horrified enough, and Harry didn't have the strength to respond even if he'd wanted to. He felt strong arms pick him up as limp as a rag, heard that familiar voice speak again. "Hold on, Harry, hold on… we'll get you some help. You'll be okay…"

He didn't want to be okay. He wanted death, he'd begged for it. It had come so close, and when he realized it had been thwarted, he wanted to rage and weep knowing he would never get it again. Unable to believe it, he wrapped his agony around him like a cloak and lost himself in it. Let whoever it was try and find him, let them try to bring him back out.

He wouldn't let them. They'd have to let him die first.

A/N: Too dark? Hope not. This was the darkest chapter, I think, since I had to set down what had exactly happened to Harry so you can understand the rest of the story. It's not going to be this dark again. Anyway, this will be a H/Hr story eventually, but first Harry's going to have to recover, which is going to take a long time. R&R!