Inverted

Summary: It's been two years since the Final Battle, and Harry Potter is no longer alive. Enter a world much darker than when he left it, a world in which Ron and Hermione are just trying to survive, the Order of the Phoenix has died, and Ginny realizes she has an ally within the Death Eaters' circle. Dark, alternate universe, mature content.

Part One

Chapter 1

"I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, and torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage." – Friedrich Nietzsche

Two Years Later

"Tut, tut," a soft voice spoke into his bloodied ear. It penetrated through his consciousness, jerking him out of the fog that blanketed his overloaded senses. "Such a disappointment."

"Crucio," came a whisper from his right, and Ron's body twisted in agony again. It was getting easier to bear, though. The nerve endings that had felt like they were burning him from the inside out now sent dulled pain signals to his mind. It was the only true indication of how long he had been locked in this deceptively warm, bright room. He grunted as the curse held; he tried not to bite down any more on his torn bottom lip. He thought of warm brown eyes and wild, curly brown hair, instead.

"Rest assured, Mr. Weasley, that we will find out where the rest of you are hidden. It has been far too long since your family has forfeited the…privilege of existing in this world," she said, ending her promise with a breathy tinkling laugh that sent chills racing through his spine. The wizard in black to his right flicked his wand lazily, removing the Cruciatus curse from him, and Ron sagged as far down into his own lap as he could. Cords bound his arms to the back of a metal chair, and his ankles had been hooked around the front two legs before being wrapped round with industrial strength Spellotape.

What he would give to stab her straight through her smug, cold eyes with the quill she had made them all write lines with during fifth year. What he would have given just to see Firenze and his herd of centaurs trample her to death in the Forbidden Forest, before everything had started to go wrong. The old wound on his hand began smarting, a relic of his past, but suddenly feeling as fresh as it had been the day he wrote all those lines. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, he reasoned, knowing that's how Hermione would have explained it.

She didn't know where he was. The thought made him sick; that he might not escape this and make it back to her. That she would be alone.

She'll have Ginny, she'll have George, and Mum, and Dad. Bill and Fleur and Percy and Audrey. The least he could do right now was hold it together. Don't break. "Hit me hard, you miserable twat," he said lowly, flashing her a cruel grin.

It almost matched the one she responded with, spreading over her mouth like a slow poison. She hmm'd with a faux sigh of frustration, and then glanced over to the hired muscle twirling his wand. Less than a second later, Ron felt his jaw dislocate as a gloved fist smashed into the side of his face. His chair tipped, and his shoulder took the brunt of his weight as he landed on the hard, tiled floor. Blood began dripping from his ear onto the cold marble.

"Pick him up," Umbridge demanded softly, and suddenly his chair was being hauled up and set upright in its original position. The pain began radiating from his face, and Ron grimaced. He couldn't even smirk defiantly with a dislocated jaw. Bugger.

"Perhaps that will teach you to control your language," she said, as if berating him at Hogwarts again. "You must not use such foul words in the presence of authorities."

The wizard who punched him stepped backwards a few paces to resume his stance in Ron's peripheral vision.

Withdrawing a pink woolen napkin-sized cloth from her cardigan pocket, Umbridge took a seat very properly in another metal chair five feet away from him, and began to wipe down her wand very methodically, paying special attention to the handle and lingering around the wooden inlaid detailing along its length.

"What I am asking you is, doubtless, an old question, Mr. Weasley," she informed him, still polishing her wand and looking as bored as the drone wizard in the corner. "Two years is enough time for your family to find what few stragglers there are left and form another terrorist organization that threatens the regime. And it is my job to find out where they are, how far they have come, and if need be, snuff them out…like feeble little candles," she smiled, Merlin he hated that smile, and folded her cleaning cloth into a tight triangle before tucking it back into her pink cardigan.

Talking through his crooked jaw hurt like hell, but Ron did it anyway. "It's good to see that you don't underestimate us."

Her eyes gleamed. "So it's true?" she whispered. The madness in her was so apparent that Ron knew he would, on some sick level, enjoy this interrogation.

"There has been a Resistance from the moment You-Know-Who slit Harry's throat," he taunted.

Her nose wrinkled. "Impossible, as you know, what with all the pogroms immediately following the Dark Lord's rise to power. I wonder if you are not telling lies, Mr. Weasley?"

And really, this is what Ron wanted all along, because in two years, he had become more than a scared teenager grieving his best friend. He had become very skilled at telling lies. He felt his hand burn as he let an expression of panic and guilt cross his mangled face. And it was enough. She jumped on it.

"That's because it is impossible, isn't it, Mr. Weasley? Who is to say your family even escaped one of the many manhunts and bounties placed on their heads? For all my colleague and I know, you may be the only one left. No family around you, hmm?"

Unconsciously, he felt pained, because as far as he knew, he would never be around his family again. He narrowed his eyes at her, and she smirked triumphantly, knowing she had gotten under his skin but not realizing it wasn't in the way she had intended. "You were always more pliable than your friend Mr. Potter, I'm afraid," she said self-assuredly, standing up and smoothing her corduroy skirt. Ron let his gaze drop down to his knees. Her heels clicked as she stepped in front of him, and he focused on the toes of her shoes, missing the fact that her wand was trained on him until she added, "But I shall need to confirm the Weasleys' deaths with a look inside your mind, you know."

Occlumency. Inwardly, he groaned, trying to summon any strength he had left before the onslaught came. Don't break. It was the only thing he could do for Hermione now.

Looking up the length of the wand at her, he assumed a defeated, angry stance, and watched her eyes gleam again with insanity. The wizard in black stood like a column, a silent witness to every lie Ron was planting in his boss's head. Umbridge breathed deeply through her nose; her chest rose as she raised her wand a fraction of an inch. He wasn't ready yet, but she was counting on that.

And then her crony snapped his boots together and stood at more rigid attention, because the door had suddenly opened and a wizard in black robes strode inside, his long, slanting eyes sweeping over the room and narrowing in particular at Umbridge, whose wand was still pointed at Ron. "The Office of Magical Law Enforcement has processed your request for Veritaserum, Ms. Umbridge," he said, withdrawing a small vial with clear liquid out of an inner pocket.

Umbridge's wand hand jerked down, and Ron looked on in amazement as she patted her hair a bit self-consciously as she replied, "Yes, just in time, Mr. Zabini. A much cleaner method to obtaining intelligence, I must say."

Zabini's jaw ticked, as he gave a contemptuous glance at Ron. A stony glare was all Ron could manage to return. Inwardly, he was experiencing true panic. At least Legilimency had a defense. If they forced that potion down his throat, Hermione, his family, they would all be hunted anew.

"…it's been deemed more prudent to administer it myself, as I am the one with primary custody of an extremely controlled substance." And Umbridge was gaping like a fish out of water and the guard in the corner had shifted uncomfortably due to the tension now present in the room.

Dropping his gaze back down to his knees, hoping Hermione would forgive him, he vaguely heard Umbridge haltingly reply that Zabini should do as he deemed fit. "Ron Weasley has been very cooperative thus far, so he shan't give you much trouble." She was icily polite to the very end. Ron could give her that.

"Look at me, blood traitor," said Zabini harshly.

Looking up through the straggly ends of his blood caked hair, Ron gave his best glare and said, "I can hardly swallow since your thug smashed my jaw in, you prat."

"There are ways of making you swallow without too much fuss, Weasley," replied Zabini, uncorking the tiny vial and reaching out to yank Ron's hair backwards. Ron could not stop the hiss of pain as the back of the metal chair dug into the nape of his neck.

"Didn't take you as the kinkier sort, Zabini," he coughed as blood in his mouth began running down his throat. Fred would have been proud. See you soon, wanker.

With a grim look, his new captor held the vial to Ron's closed lips, his slate blue eyes boring into his own meaningfully. Ron held his gaze defiantly, increasing the pressure on his bloody bottom lip. There was no sound from Umbridge, no sound from the man who had punched him repeatedly. He and Zabini stared each other down. The overhead light blinded Ron, throwing Zabini's face into shadow, but the longer he resisted, the more it seemed like the former Slytherin was minutely shaking his head.

"It won't be so bad, Weasley," he drawled, his piercing gaze still riveted on Ron. And there it was again, a small shake of his head. "It's not such a bad tasting potion, you know. Just freezing cold on its way down, that's all." A small drop of the potion spilled out as he completed his sentence.

It was warm.

Ron's eyes widened and Zabini took that chance to pinch his nostrils shut. Struggling to breathe, Ron tried to twist himself out of grip, but the vial was pushing against his mouth even harder than before and his lungs began to burn from the exertion. As he caved and the potion flooded his mouth, Ron furiously tried to spit it out. What was Zabini playing at, giving him something that was obviously not a truth potion? But his head was tugged back even farther over the back of the chair, and Zabini was forcing his mouth shut with his other hand, the empty vial having long been abandoned.

He was going to die. At that moment, he forgot how the man holding his mouth shut had looked that last night at Hogwarts, bringing Ginny towards Kingsley Shacklebolt and exchanging words with the older man, before Disapparating to Merlin knew where. All he could think about was how he was leaving Hermione. She would kill him.

The inevitable swallow occurred, and Ron was held in place to ensure he would not try to throw it back up. It didn't go down cold, but then, did Umbridge or the wizard in black know he had just been poisoned? Zabini stepped back, in his eyes a strange look of triumph and…was that a warning? "Talk," he commanded.

They held each other stares for a few seconds, both knowing Ron couldn't very well talk if he hadn't been put under the potion's effects. And then, it began to dawn on Ron that he was very, very, very daft. He…wouldn't have to talk.

Two years after delivering his missing sister alive, Blaise Zabini had tricked Umbridge out of her career-making interrogation. The warning, the triumphant look in his eyes, his insistence that he administer the potion himself...it made sense.

Somewhere in all of this, Zabini was a big player. Therefore, Ron assumed the dull look of a person under the effects of Veritaserum, and began telling a story. Umbridge tiptoed closer and closer to him as her self-writing quill transcribed every single word that came out of his mouth. Her lips were quivering in excitement as her eyes glowed malevolently.

Ron was in his element. Checkmate.

Author's Notes: Thank you to my beta, marinka! And thanks for the reviews and favorites and follows for this fic. If you've got some time, please review so I know what you guys think so far. I'm still in the middle of introducing some key characters, but don't worry, the action won't stop!