Warnings: Violence, Adult Language, Sexual Situations, Under 18, Contains Slash Sex
Summary: Having been kidnapped and held for two months at the hands of Death Eaters at the end of 5th year, Harry must reconcile his own personal strife and the state of his magic.
Hey, just a head's up: I have 9 chapters written, but I'm releasing them slowly so that I have time to finish, read through, fix, and adjust chapters as I write more.
Just note it's a WIP, albeit an active one.
Let me know if you spot issues, I'm Beta-less. Hopefully you couldn't tell.
All that stuff about not owning JK's stuff because she owns it.
Chapter 2
Harry limped from the fireplace of the inn, catching the barman's eye at once. Before waiting to be asked, the boy announced that he wanted a room and that he would be staying for at least a fortnight-perhaps longer. With a nod, Tom led him up a flight of stairs to a large room at the end of the corridor.
At the host's questions, Harry shook his head no. "I don't need anything but sleep, thank you, Tom." At this, the barman indicated comprehension and left. Harry collapsed onto the bed, turning onto his side and curled his legs up into a fetal position. Something in his chest did not settle properly as he lay down, something not quite physical: misaligned. He felt dizzy and altogether nauseated.
His broad shoulders shuddered as he breathed out, clenching his taut jawline. He struggled a moment, not wanting to breathe in; he stank like what he'd been through. He stank like Terror, and he could smell it on himself. He was afraid to shower, though, for fear that he couldn't wash it away.
All that terror.
In the midst of his thoughts, Potter fell into a feverish sleep. His eyelashes fluttered in his state of unconsciousness, muscles tightening and loosening as his mind took him to places he never wanted to be again. Twice he called out in his sleep: once for his mother to save him, and the second time for Lily to run and let Voldemort have him.
He came to, to soft voices, hushed and worried. He kept his eyes closed, hoping that they would cease-he feared drifting back into his nightmares, but feared waking into them just as greatly. Harry's breaths were laboured and intense. He felt someone touch his face gently, and great anxiety built up within him. His consciousness frothed and the aching that he only thought he felt in his sleep became sharper, harsher, real. So real. The adrenaline and endorphins, which had carried him to this bed, had dissipated and the pain rendered him all but incapacitated. The last two months-or was it three?-had finally caught up to him, here, when he was finally allowed to rest. He had lost a lot of weight, a lot of blood. He tried to move-to pry himself from the bedspread. His position, which had only moments before been a place of relative comfort, became unbearable, unsafe.
"Oh, god. Harry-"
The voices grew louder, developing familiarity and conveying urgency, all at once. He was sure he heard Sirius, and a crooning that sounded like Hermione-or maybe Tonks? His glasses remained a good reach away on the side table-too far. It couldn't be Sirius, couldn't be. His eyes were still unfocused and he had yet to prop himself up fully to see hazily around the room. With his increased movement, the pain intensified. He cried out for just a moment before he stifled it. Someone breathed soothingly, "SSsshhh. We're here now." How embarrassing, to be found like this. To be seen like this.
An arm made its way underneath his knees, while the other supported his back, pulling him up into a sitting position. The cloak-Malfoy's cloak-slid against his raw skin, slipping with the pivoting motion that it took to sit him up. In seconds, the fabric was pulled back over him in some sick gesture of dignity, but too late. Too late.
A girl gasped, and he did his best to pull his legs together tightly, humiliated. The effort pulled against the arms that held him, which held fast, causing a jarring movement that rocked him back into the same position. This motion was abrupt and unsettling, and the pain was intolerable. "Stop, No-nughh-" A spasm of something like pain, something like physical sensation, but rather beyond it, went through his entire diaphragm, and he vomited water and bile and blood away from the arms. He dry-heaved for a moment before his body frame settled. Those arms held him steady while he shuddered.
Something was terribly wrong. This sudden onslaught of dizziness and illness were too much; he had some broken bones, surely. Perhaps some major internal bruising and a minor splinch. His disorientation and overwhelming nausea, however, seemed unrelated to the terror and daze that he would normally have experienced from waking unexpectedly. Some cognizant part of him realized this in snippets of anxious, flighty thoughts that passed like snitches among the over sensitization of what he was able to absorb around him.
A thrumming of motion seemed to occur and the surge of concern became a clamor that his conscious state could not process. He struggled to keep his eyes open, keeping mental tabs on two figures that hovered in the doorway. There were more, surely, but he was not sure he could turn his head. Harry could make out robes, definitely. The bright blue blur atop the head of one confirmed with some certainty that it was Tonks. The other, taller, seemed to be male, with darker hair-perhaps lighter in places. Perhaps Remus? Without his glasses, though, he couldn't be sure.
Someone out of the reach of his peripheral vision pried his mouth open carefully, pouring something down his gullet. He fought, gasping and sputtering for a moment before cold, firm hands massaged his throat-loosening his esophagus and his will for protest.
"Come now, Potter," a drawling reproach met his ears, before he leaned limply against the shoulders that supported him, still pressed against his back. More hands, larger and with a more broad palm, ran across his shoulder blades and upper arms in what was obviously meant to be a soothing manner. However, the foreign contact made him irrationally uncomfortable and he recoiled ineffectively, trapped.
The potion bubbled deep and low, pressing against his insides with animosity. Surely that was not their intent; something must be wrong, here. He squirmed with discomfort, unable to keep from uttering groans of distress. Still, he knew he had to say something to defend himself. His ability to focus drifted away, despite everything in him that screamed to stay awake. "I f-fought it," he slurred against the potion, out of ridiculous concern, even now, that they understand, "They don-don't know anythunghh." Another hush sounded from behind him before he leaned to the side and vomited a second time, the potion burning with an incompatibility that he was too ill to understand. Harry tried to listen to the buzz around him over the rushing in his ears.
"Is it panic?"
"No, it has to be a reaction to the potion, but I cannot say..."
Suddenly, one of the figures-taller than the others-bellowed, "Remus, Nymphadora, please wait for us outside." The voice was unmistakably Dumbledore's, but the gravity of his words gave the boy no comfort. As soon as the door clicked closed, the great wizard raised his wand and uttered unceremoniously, "Assidere."
Harry registered a strange green glow that the white surfaces of the room reflected briefly before his body abruptly convulsed and he curled inwards, balling up his fists. It felt like every bone was breaking at once, as though a great force had boiled his blood and bent his spine in two. The little vision he was afforded was robbed instantly as he squeezed his eyes shut against the agony. An explosive scream erupted within the room, raw and desperate, lasting several long eternities folded neatly into terrible minutes. He wanted the sound to cease, wanted to smash whatever was emitting it, until he realized with a garish, splintering epiphany that it was he. The room became dim once more. There was one awful, horror-stricken gasp from one of the figures left in the room, and it was over.
"Albus, I've never..."
The pain receded slowly from him and he shuddered, body still tense, muscles unable to relax fully. He was unwilling or perhaps unable to open his eyes. The Boy Who Lived strained to remain awake through several convulsions that struck him like aftershocks.
The effort, though, proved to be too much and he lost consciousness altogether.
