Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
Warnings: Rape, torture, suicidal thoughts, insanity, slavery.
Spoils of War
Chapter Two - His Most Loyal
Harry woke only when his captors were ready for him to do so, in what had once been the Great Hall of Hogwarts. It had been changed, refashioned into some kind of throne room, and the thing on the throne could only be Lord Voldemort. His throne rested where the teachers had once been seated, so that anyone on the lower level of the hall was forced to look up to him if they wanted to see him.
The snake-faced man was decked out in resplendent robes, surrounded by several of his most loyal followers including the Malfoys and the Lestrange woman. Harry was at their feet, bound hand and foot, wearing only a thin grey shift. He was on his knees, a position that had his injured knee screaming in protest. He knew, without even having to check for it, that he was wandless.
It didn't matter. He was done fighting.
"Harry Potter," Voldemort crooned at him, his lips quirking in a parody of a grin. "How nice of you to come and see us. Tell me, dear boy, how have you been enjoying your time causing trouble for me and mine?"
Harry opened his mouth to say something sarcastic, but he just… he didn't have it in him, anymore. This was it. The fight was over. "I'm sorry that I didn't succeed," he said finally, truthfully. What did it matter how he answered? He was dead no matter what.
Voldemort laughed, a high and chilling sound. "I just bet that you are," he said through his cackles. "Tell me, once your only support was eliminated, did you really think you had a chance?"
Harry shook his head. "I knew that I didn't," he said tiredly.
"Well, I'm pleased to hear that you aren't entirely deluded, Potter." Voldemort turned his head to one side and said, "Severus, won't you be a dear and read the charges for our audience?"
Harry hadn't heard anything coming from behind him, but when he turned his head ever so slightly he could see them, silent, out of the corner of his eye. It looked like they were just random witches and wizards, not necessarily Death Eaters. It didn't matter, he supposed, who watched him die. He was just amused that he was going to get an actual trial, for whatever that was worth.
Snape's voice rang out from just behind the Dark Lord, where Harry hadn't noticed him while cataloguing the other Death Eaters on the dais. "Harry Potter stands accused of subversive behavior, terrorism, murder, theft, and destruction of property." The Potions Master lowered the scrap of parchment he'd been reading from and fell silent once he'd read the charges.
"Well, Potter? Anything to say to that?" Voldemort sounded almost bored, but Harry wasn't fooled. His scar was burning, and he could tell that the snake-faced bastard was excited by this, his chance to finally kill Harry for the simple crime of living.
"No," Harry said honestly. What could he say, anyway? He'd done all of the above in his efforts to stop Voldemort. If he'd thought it would have done any good, he probably would have done even worse. The Headmaster had entrusted him with this task, and Harry had failed it abysmally.
Just like he'd failed every other task that had ever been put before him.
"No last minute attempt at defending your heinous behavior against the upstanding members of our new society?" Voldemort's eyes widened ever so slightly and he leaned forward. "Potter, I'm surprised at you. That prophecy about you and I should have meant you were stronger than this."
Harry looked down and closed his eyes against a sudden swell of tears. It should have meant a lot of things. It should have meant that he would have a fighting chance when it came down to it, but he'd never had a shot. He swallowed around the lump in his throat and tried not to react when his tears overflowed and splattered against the stone of the floor, making a few of the Death Eaters snicker in amusement at his pain.
"Well, this just pathetic," Voldemort finally said, leaning back with a sigh. "Fine, then. Since you're not going to even try defending yourself, I guess we'll just call it like it is: You're guilty, Potter. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with you yet, but I promise that your days as a free man are over."
Harry looked up at Voldemort. "Free?" he asked quietly, and let out a small, bitter laugh. "Please, Tom, if there's one thing I've never been, it was free."
"Crucio!" Voldemort barked out, and the red stream of light hit Harry dead on. He couldn't have said how long he writhed in pain before Voldemort lifted the curse, a snarl of rage still on his face. "You don't call me by that name, Potter. Not now, not ever!" He jerked his head once, like he was tossing his nonexistent hair, then said, "Take him to the dungeons."
Harry didn't struggle when two of the guards grabbed him by the shoulders and jerked him roughly to his feet, and he didn't bother trying to get his feet under himself as he was dragged through the castle in the direction of the dungeons. His knee actually hurt less when he was dragged as opposed to if he'd tried walking under his own power.
The dungeons, too, had been remodeled, Harry found. They'd once been classrooms and the Slytherin common room, but now they were proper dungeons. The Slytherin common room had been altered so that each of the dorms housed four or five small cells, most of which were unoccupied. Harry was taken to a completely empty block and thrown into the cell, hard enough that he smacked into the opposite wall.
He landed on the floor with a thud and didn't bother trying to move, even though it was cold and hard. He felt something wet land on him and realized that he'd just been spit on. Harry didn't even move to wipe it off. Why bother? Worse things were going to be done to him, he was sure, unless he was very luck and Voldemort killed him quickly.
The hope that he would be lucky for the first time in his life was almost painful, yet Harry couldn't manage to suppress it.
The door to his cell clanged shut, and only then did Harry move. He stood and looked around his tiny cell, taking it all in with a glance. There was a pot where he was probably supposed to go to the bathroom, and a tiny little cot that would have looked uninviting had Harry not spent most of his childhood living in a cupboard under the stairs. At least this cot came with a blanket, as thin as it was.
Harry walked over to the tiny cot with its flat mattress and curled up on it, his leg still throbbing from his earlier injury and his back now sore from connecting with the wall as hard as he had. He let his eyes slip closed and hoped that whatever was going to happen to him, however bad it was, he hoped that it was over soon.
You can do this Harry. The voice, oddly familiar, came from nowhere and everywhere, and Harry's eyes jerked open. He didn't see anyone, though, so he closed his eyes and tried to drift off to sleep.
Eventually, it worked.
ooOOooOOoo
He listened to the voices outside of his cell for what felt like forever before realizing with a start that those voices didn't belong to his normal keepers. They were talking about something, though Harry couldn't quite manage to make it out. He thought maybe he heard something that should have caught his attention, but he couldn't be bothered enough to care. What did it matter? He was going to die here.
Eventually, his cell door slammed open and the two unfamiliar Death Eaters entered. "On your feet, Potter," one of them commanded. He was young, maybe younger than Harry, and his voice shook as he gave the order.
Harry looked him over and considered for only a moment trying to get out, trying to run. He gave the thought up before his mental self could even get through the door to his cell, and instead stood as he'd been commanded. His knee had improved while he'd been in his cell, so it didn't hurt much anymore. It still wasn't completely better, but at least the pain had faded to a dull ache.
"Do we need to drag you, or will you walk?" the second Death Eater asked. He seemed almost bored, unlike his nervous companion.
"I'll walk," Harry said. He didn't protest when the chains were attached to his arms and legs once more, though he did try to jerk his head away when a heavy metal collar was fastened around his throat. It did no good, and soon enough Harry was leashed like an animal, each of the two guards holding an end of the double leash.
Part of Harry was humiliated, was screaming at him for just taking this treatment and not fighting it, but that part was dulled by the exhaustion that held Harry in its grip. What did it matter if he were chained like a dog? Hopefully he'd be dead soon and it wouldn't matter.
And maybe… just maybe… if they left him alone with the collar on, Harry wasn't certain but he thought that maybe he could find a way to get the collar stuck on something. Then he would strangle to death, and then it would all just be finished.
The thought was almost enough to make him smile. He was ready for this to be over. He'd done his best, and now there was nothing more to do.
He realized where they were going only a few minutes before they got there, by simple virtue of the fact that he wasn't paying attention. They were headed back to the Great Hall, and Harry hoped that it was for his execution. He was so tired, and he just wanted to rest.
The room was crowded, packed, maybe more than it had been the day he'd first been brought in, though Harry couldn't be sure given that he'd never gotten a good look at the crowd. They certainly weren't silent like the last crowd had been, muttering and whispering as soon as they caught sight of Harry, bound in chains that were almost bigger than he was.
"Hello again, Potter," Voldemort said, sounding almost friendly.
"Voldemort," Harry said. Part of him ached to address the Dark Lord by his birth name, but what good would it do? It would just get him hurt more, and Harry was so very tired of being hurt.
"I see that you can be taught," Voldemort said with a nod. "That's good to know, Harry, because I was worried that I would have to put you down if you couldn't learn one simple lesson."
Harry's head jerked up, his eyes widening. That sounded like… like Voldemort wasn't planning on killing him. No, no, that couldn't be right. Harry was so tired, so finished with this life. Voldemort couldn't want to keep him alive!
"Since you can be trained, Potter, I've decided that I'm going to let you be… re-educated by some of my best and brightest Death Eaters. And you should be pleased, because you'll be serving a need that's long gone unfilled in them!"
Harry thought that maybe, just maybe he might know where this was going. He wanted to hope that he was wrong, but things never went the way he hoped.
Voldemort leaned forward in his seat. "They've worked so hard for so long, due in large part to the fact that you and your ridiculous friends refused to give up the fight, that I've simply got to reward them." Voldemort laughed, a polite little thing that sounded ridiculous coming from him. "You just don't understand how difficult it is to reward my followers, given how much money they all already have." He fell silent then, and raised a brow at Harry as though waiting for a response.
"I'm sorry for your difficulties," Harry said finally when it became clear that Voldemort wasn't going to go on until he got an answer from Harry. Part of him wanted to beg, but part of him was too tired to do so. And a very, very small part of him refused to beg the monster in front of him for anything.
Voldemort nodded once. "I can't tell you how pleased I am to hear you say that, since I'm going to reward my Death Eaters with the opportunity in assisting you with your re-education."
Harry's eyes widened in horror as his hope was crushed, fear breaking through his exhaustion and making him try to scramble backwards. The two guards holding him were ready for the attempt, though, and all Harry managed to do was hurt his neck. "Please," Harry started, then cut off. What good had begging ever done him?
"Bellatrix has been so very good for me lately, haven't you, darling?" Voldemort practically crooned to the wild haired witch standing on his right side.
Immediately the woman straightened. "I try my hardest, my lord," she said, her voice breathy and her eyes sparking. "Please, please let me have a chance at teaching the boy his place," she begged, resting both of her hands on the arm of Voldemort's throne.
Voldemort reached out and petted her hair with an indulgent smile. "As though I'd give him to any other before I gave him to you, Bella." He nodded at Harry. "Take him, please. But do remember that I want him alive. It wouldn't do to kill the Boy Who Lived, after all. What would they call him then?"
Harry tried to pull away again, but Bella took both of his leashes from the two guards and jerked on them with all of her strength, which turned out to be considerable. Harry dropped to his knees and clutched at his throat, trying to get the collar off.
Instead of it doing him any good, it only made things worse, as Bellatrix was apparently strong enough to drag Harry along on the ground. She didn't give Harry a chance to get back onto his feet, and didn't even try to help him when they came to a flight of stairs. Harry's body thudded against the stairs as she dragged him up. Finally, mercifully, his head cracked against one of the steps and everything went black.
ooOOooOOoo
Harry returned to consciousness on a chair, tied securely in place, colder than he'd thought he'd ever been in his life. It took him a few seconds to realize why, but it hit him all at once: he was naked. Horrified, Harry started to struggle, to try and break free of the ropes holding him in place, but he couldn't quite manage it.
He opened his mouth to cry for help, but realized suddenly that it didn't matter. He could call for all of the help he wanted; nobody was going to come. He was a prisoner here, at least until Voldemort and his Death Eaters tired of him.
All he could do is hope that it was over quickly.
He heard the creak of a door opening, heard footsteps approach his chair from behind. He tried to crane his head around to see who was coming in, but he couldn't manage it. "Poor little Potter," Bellatrix's disgusting voice crooned.
Harry shuddered. "Please don't," he said. "Please don't hurt me."
"Hurt you?" Bellatrix cackled. "No, no, pretty little Potter, I'm not going to hurt you," she said. She slipped around to his front, trailing a hand over his naked flesh as she did so. "I'm going to have so much fun with you, actually. I'm going to give you the things that all boys want, and you're going to enjoy it so very much."
Harry shuddered and felt bile rising in his throat. He tried to pull away, but the bindings on him were tight enough that he couldn't do anything at all, much less move away.
She continued to pet him, almost like one might pet a dog, then she leaned forward and studied his naked lap. "Hmm," she said. "Maybe you're not a boy after all?" She touched him, then, grabbing his length and playing with it, and Harry's skin crawled at her touch. It was even worse, though, because he could feel himself starting to react. "There we go!" she sang. She pulled her hand back, and Harry's disgust was great enough that whatever reaction she'd started to get from him quickly went away. "Well. That's disappointing," she muttered.
Bellatrix stalked to the other side of the room, grabbing a small vial from a table set up over there. "Pity, really. I'd imagine your Mudblood whore of a girlfriend was pretty disappointed since you seem to have trouble maintaining." Then she laughed again. "Then again, rumor has it that she was smart for a Mudblood. Maybe she knew all about these pretty little potions. Did she have to help you get it up, Potter?'
Harry bit down on the protest that wanted to come. That Hermione had neither been a Mudblood nor a whore, and that he'd never needed potions when he was with her or Ron. Bellatrix was looking to get a rise out of him, and Harry wouldn't give her the satisfaction. Besides, if he didn't open his mouth then he couldn't consume the potion.
Except, as it turned out, he didn't need to consume it. Bellatrix put on a glove and started to smear the potion on Harry's skin, and Harry began to burn. He wished that he didn't remember what happened next. He wished that he didn't remember her skin against his, her eyes boring into him, her mouth tasting him. He was desperate not to remember the number of times he reached completion at her hands, the way she laughed and mocked each and every one.
He remembered all of it, and Harry her more than he'd ever hated anyone else.
When she was finished with him, and she did eventually finish in spite of the fact that it seemed like it would last forever, she entertained herself by holding Harry under the Cruciatus curse. That was fine. The pain, while excruciating, was more bearable than the pleasure he'd received at her hands.
In the end, exhausted and hurting and even more broken than he'd ever been, she finished with him. She doused him with cold water to clean the worst of their fluids off, then levitated his limp body and took him from the dungeon to her suite of rooms.
She smiled ever so sweetly at him, then placed his unresponsive body in her closet. "Since I hear that you're used to sleeping in places like this. Didn't you grow up in one, Potter?"
The door slammed shut before he could respond, but that was fine. Harry didn't have the strength or the energy. The world went black around him, but at least he wasn't hurting anymore.
ooOOooOOoo
"It's okay, Harry," a soft voice whispered to him, and Harry thought he could feel the ghost of gentle hands on his skin, could feel the ghost of soft lips pressed against his own. They were cold and barely there, and when Harry opened his eyes there was nothing there at all.
"It's not," he whispered to the voice he'd heard.
Immediately, another voice said, "It's all going to be fine, Harry. No matter how awful things are right now, they'll get better. We promise, you'll be okay." The second voice was more masculine. Both seemed strangely familiar, but before Harry could start to figure out who they were the closet door was slamming open.
Bellatrix hauled him out of the closet with hands like talons and flung him to the floor. "Thinks he can talk to me like that?" she was muttering, like she didn't even realize that she'd pulled Harry from the closet. "Jumped up little twit! Thinks just because he married my sister he can tell me what to do?"
She pointed her wand at Harry and he didn't even need to think about what curse she would be using as it hit him. He writhed in the agony of the curse, knowing that he was screaming and begging but unable to stop himself from doing so. He wanted it to stop, to be over.
It went on forever. Then it got worse, as another burning started within him and he realized what she was doing. She was using him while torturing him. He couldn't think and the pain was terrible and the pleasure was worse and how could he be enjoying this? He hated her, hated her more than he'd ever hated anyone in his entire life.
The pain continued and continued and Harry knew it would never end and then it did.
It cut off and he was left, spasming and trembling on the floor, Bellatrix standing over him and staring at him with her cold black eyes. "Well. You were certainly more lively that time," she said, adjusting her skirt. "In fact, that was almost fun. We'll have to do it again next time."
Harry opened his mouth to beg, but he couldn't get words out because he couldn't stop trembling. His muscles were still seizing, and he tried to shift, to move, to do something, but he couldn't. He was, instead, thrown back into the closet, and the door was slammed shut behind him.
He lay there in the dark, shuddering and trembling and hurting and wondering how he could survive this. Who could ask him to survive this? He couldn't do it.
"You can," the female voice whispered, and Harry felt a breeze stir his hair. "You can do this Harry. All you have to do is endure."
Harry smiled and leaned into the soft touch on his cheek that he could only just feel, and continued smiling as he drifted off to sleep.
ooOOooOOoo
Harry woke to voices again. "You get out of my rooms!"
"I can't, Bellatrix," a dark, masculine voice said. Snape. "I'm here on our Lord's orders. I need to examine the boy."
"He's mine!" Harry heard her shriek in rage and throw something, not that he had the faintest idea as to what she'd thrown. He heard it shatter against the wall, though, and heard a thump as she flung something else at the door to the closet. "He's mine, Severus, and you can't have him!"
"Yes, Bellatrix, I know that he's yours, but I must examine him!" Snape's voice was growing more irritated, as it approached the level of Neville right before he blew something up in a potions class. Harry could have told Bellatrix to just let it go, but he figured she probably wouldn't listen.
Also, he didn't care.
He heard Bellatrix shriek, heard her shout something in Latin, and heard Snape respond in kind. The flashes and bangs from just outside the closet door implied that they were duelling, and Harry tried to curl in tighter on himself but couldn't quite manage it. His limbs were still twitching terribly and he couldn't quite get them to move properly.
Eventually, the sound from outside the closet ceased and the door cracked open. "Potter," Snape said neutrally, and scooped Harry into his arms as though it were the most natural thing in the world. Bellatrix was unconscious on the floor, a slight bit of drool coming from her mouth as she let out a loud snore. "Let's get you checked out."
Harry stayed still as he was examined, drank the potions that Snape fed to him obediently. Even if they were going to hurt him, Harry found that he didn't care. It didn't matter. If Snape wanted him dead, there was nothing he could do about it. And there was nothing he wanted to do about it, to be honest. In fact…
"Please," Harry tried, now that his voice was working. "Professor Snape, please."
Snape stared down at him, his expression unreadable. "The treatment isn't going to undo the damage Bellatrix has done, but it will help with it. I'd tell you to try and avoid anymore exposure to the curse, but honestly I doubt that's possible."
"The Headmaster trusted you," Harry tried. "Said you were a good man. Please, Professor, won't you just kill me?"
Snape lowered his head, and when he raised it again his eyes were cold. "That the old fool trusted me was his mistake," he said coldly. "I am not a good man, and have not been one for an incredibly long time. Killing you would serve no point, Mr. Potter." He set Harry back in his closet easily, and as he closed the door he added, "And for the record, I have not been a Professor in years."
The door slammed shut and Harry heard Bellatrix's shrieking as she woke up. Harry curled in on himself, making himself as small as he possibly could, and was pathetically grateful for the ability to do so, even if he hated Snape for not killing him.
He felt a hand in his hair again, and another on his back, both gentle and soft and kind. "It's okay, Harry, we've got you," the woman's voice whispered, and Harry realized suddenly. Hermione. He was hearing Hermione. She'd stayed with him.
"Never leaving you, mate," the man said, and Harry could have cried because that was Ron. They were still with him, even if they were dead.
He wanted to be strong for them, but he couldn't stop the pathetic sob that tore itself from his throat when he realized that Ron and Hermione were still there.
Immediately, their wispy presences pressed closer to him and he heard them both murmuring soft soothing things to him, gentle whispers of love and affection, promises that none of what was happening was his fault, and Harry let himself go.
He cried himself to sleep, secure in the knowledge that, at the very least, he wasn't alone. Ron and Hermione were with him.
ooOOooOOoo
Harry couldn't have said how long he spent in Bellatrix Lestrange's care before the summons came. It was on a relatively quiet day, or at least Harry thought it had all been in the same day. It was so hard to tell. His closet was dark, and Bellatrix didn't feed him on any kind of regular schedule, so figuring out how long he'd been with her was almost impossible. Figuring out the amount of time between her uses of him was equally difficult, and Harry had given up trying.
It didn't matter. The point was that Bellatrix herself put him in a flimsy little robe that really wasn't much of a robe at all and barely covered anything Harry might have wanted covered, and drug him to the Great Hall, or Voldemort's audience room, once more.
Voldemort was waiting there, tapping his fingers idly against the throne. The room was empty this time, save for Bellatrix, Harry, Voldemort, and Snape. "Something very precious of mine was destroyed yesterday, Potter," Voldemort hissed as soon as Bellatrix had dropped to her knees and prostrated herself before the Dark Lord.
Harry didn't say anything, his eyes wide under the force of Voldemort's anger. It was vicious and painful and it burned. Harry already hurt, but this was making it even worse. He wanted to cry, but he couldn't let himself do it. He couldn't let Voldemort see him break.
"Something precious, that you were searching for when we finally got the last of that pathetic little order of the peacocks, or whatever you called yourselves." Voldemort stood, then, and paced towards Harry, each step slow and measured. "Tell me, Potter, did we successfully get rid of the last of your Order?"
The answer was, of course, yes. The Order had been annihilated, and it hadn't taken long at all. Most of the members hadn't lasted through the first few battles, and towards the end it had only been Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Fred.
Harry didn't say that, though. He was tired, so very tired, and all he wanted was to sleep, but he didn't say a thing.
"Answer me!" Voldemort roared, and when Harry didn't open his mouth, didn't say a single word, the pain started. It was terrible and nothing like the Cruciatus curse. This pain didn't burn, it froze. Harry couldn't even move under the force of the curse, could only stand there with his mouth open in a silent scream.
It cut off as abruptly as it had begun. "Now, Potter, are you willing to be reasonable?" Voldemort asked, his voice soft and almost kind. "I can be reasonable if you can. Wouldn't it be easier to just tell me what I want to know? It's not like I'm asking you who else is left, I'm just asking you if anyone is left. If you answer, you know that I can make your stay here so much more comfortable." Voldemort's voice turned coaxing. "Wouldn't you like to sleep in a nice bed, have a warm meal, rest and be cared for instead of sleeping in that awful closet?"
It sounded wonderful, and Harry couldn't resist the lure of proper rest, of soft beds and warm food. "There's nobody left," he said honestly, his voice thinner than he'd ever heard it, and shakier too. It almost didn't sound like his own, but he knew that it was him because he could feel the words leaving his lips.
"Liar!" Voldemort's shriek was high pitched and painful, but not as painful as the backhand across Harry's face that sent him to the floor. "Obnoxious little twit, trying to lie to me!" Voldemort snarled. His face was a mask of rage, and all Harry could do was curl in on himself and try to protect himself from the pain as it hit.
It did no good. Thankfully, Harry was sick and weak and broken. He passed out to the sound of Snape saying, "My Lord, it will do us no good to kill the boy yet."
ooOOooOOoo
Harry woke up in an oddly soft bed, in a sterile room that it took him a few minutes to recognize as the hospital wing. It was strange to be there and not hear Madam Pomfrey moving around, but instead to see Snape headed his way with a small tray of potions.
"I'm doing what I can to minimize the damage, Potter, but it is severe." Snape tipped several potions down Harry's throat, and Harry didn't bother trying to protest. "You've angered the Dark Lord terribly, Potter, do you understand?"
Harry blinked up at Snape, a strange lassitude taking over. He glanced over the man's shoulder and found himself smiling at Ron, who was making faces at the potions master.
"What on earth is he looking at, Severus?" The voice was unfamiliar, and Harry wanted to look and see who was talking, but honestly he just couldn't be bothered. Not when Ron was coming closer, when he could feel Ron's fingers on his cheek, stroking softly.
"I have not the slightest idea, Narcissa." Snape tipped another potion into Harry's throat, and he took it passively. "The boy is as well as he's going to be. If you'd like to take him now, you can."
"Very well," Narcissa, Mrs. Malfoy, whoever, said. "The Dark Lord is quite sick of seeing your face, Mr. Potter," she said primly. "To that end, you shall spend some time with myself and my husband at Malfoy Manor. We're certain we can make something useful of you, and perhaps even have some fun while we're at it. Bellatrix speaks highly of your ability to entertain, and I find myself intrigued."
Harry opened his mouth to protest, but the words wouldn't come out. He was instead shoved none too gently to his feet and led from the hospital wing. As he left, he felt something pressed into his hand, and while Narcissa wasn't looking at him and was waiting to Floo out of Hogwarts, Harry dared to glance at what turned out to be a scrap of parchment.
It said Endure, and nothing else.