The place was dark, dirty and smelled of rotten fish. Or rotten eggs. All in all, it didn't matter in the end, since the general situation was a horrible one, even without the disgusting stench. Harry had no idea how long he'd been in the room alone. All he knew was that he was ravenously hungry, and that his head was aching badly. And that his wand was missing.

At first, he had tried to escape, but only found out that the room was about the same size the cupboard under the stairs at the Dursley's place had been. The smell, however, was by far worse than everything he'd ever experienced so far and made things more uncomfortable. But what really made him anxious was the fact that a door was non-existent. Sure, he could not see very well in the dark, but even without any source of light he was able to search for a door along the walls. Nothing was there.

"Hello?" he asked no-one in particular. "Is anybody there? Hello?"

Nothing.

"Hello? HEY!". He sank back on the ground and sat there for minutes. Or hours. How could he tell the difference? Only a vast amount of time later he came up with the idea to go through his pockets. This, however, would not help much either, since all of his stuff was missing. He'd heard of such things happening when he was a kid and lived with the Dursleys. Kidnapping. When he was eight years old the newspapers wrote about a little kid which was kidnapped in some rural town near London. They found the boy two years later, healthy but a bit disturbed.

Harry could not help but think about it. Two years? Firstly, he would never survive two years in this room with no food and no water, and secondly he was sixteen years old. Who would kidnap a sixteen-year-old boy only for letting him starve to death in a dark room? Plus, how or when did he come here anyway?

"That's a very good question", thought Harry. He had no memories about him being kidnapped. Actually, he had no memories about the past few days at all. He tried to think really hard about it. Nothing.

"Okay, let's think this through", Harry said to himself.

"Really? You begin with talking to yourself again. Not very mature, isn't it?" said a voice inside his head.

"Oh shut up", Harry answered. "It's not like anybody can hear it – or wants to hear it."

"Whatever you say", the voice said.

"I was at Grimmauld Place. That's a fact. And then I went to sleep, because … because I was angry with Sirius. And then-"

He stopped. Sirius. His godfather had already been gone when Harry had woken up in the morning after their argument the previous day. He had been looking for him (or, technically, he had been pretending to not look for him) for a few minutes before he angrily went into the kitchen and made himself some toast. Sirius had left without leaving him a note.

Harry furiously threw one of his shoes against a wall. "Right", he said. "Well, at least I can remember that."

"Don't be too hard on him!"

"He left!"

"But he never wanted to!"

"He should not have done it!"

"He had to go. What would Dumbledore have done if Sirius would have refused to go on that mission?"

"He could have sent someone else!" Harry said to himself.

The voice did not answer.

"That's not good. That's not good at all" Harry murmured. He had no memories of what happened after he ate some toast alone in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place. He stood up and closed his eyes. There must be something that he could do, he told himself. Anything. He could not only sit there and wait till he finally starved to death! "What would Hermione do?" he asked himself.

"Who is Hermione?" asked a voice curiously.

Harry spun around and opened his eyes. Too abruptly, as things turned out, as the bright light, which was suddenly lightening the room, hurt his eyes and he had to close them again.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Who are you?" asked the voice in return.

"Forget it!" Harry said.

He made an attempt to open his eyes again but only saw a vague shape of a person in a doorway. "A door!" he thought. "There is a way out!"

"Hey!" Harry said to the person. "HEY! Let me leave!"

The person said nothing at first. Harry began to stumble in the direction of the door. His eyes gradually became adjusted to the bright light. The person – a young, tall woman with light brown hair wearing a lilac coloured dress and a bright red hat – still stood there and watched his attempts to leave the room.

"Leave? Where do you wanna go?"

"That's none of your business."

Harry pushed the woman aside and stumbled out of his dark prison. This room, however, was not better than the one before, although it was well-lit. Expensive looking carpets and a thick layer of dust covered the wooden floor. An old work desk, a bookshelf and a picture of an grumpy looking house-elf were the only furniture and the air smelled of oriental scent. Harry looked for a door but was again disappointed.

"What are you looking for? I mean, you look like you are looking for something. Ah, I wouldn't touch this thingy if I were you!"

Harry let his hand, which was about to touch the picture of the grumpy elf sink again. "What?" Harry asked.

"He doesn't like it if somebody touches his stuff."

"He? Who is he? AND WHO ARE YOU?" Harry shouted. "WHY AM I HERE? WHERE AM I? AND WHERE IS MY DAMN WAND?"

"Whoa, calm down, honey!" the woman said. "How the hell would I know?"

"W-what?" Harry murmured. "What do you mean!" he asked her threateningly.

"I mean", she said, "that I have no idea how you managed to get trapped in here. I was just supposed to let you out again."

"You were supposed to let me out? What?"

"Yes, Mack told me that he brought some prisoner to his house and he wanted me to go and see what's going on. And here am I". The woman smiled and pointed to her chest.

"And who are you? And who is Mack? And who is he?"

"I", said the woman, "am Ella." She rushed to his said, took his hand and shook it eagerly with a big grin on her face. He noticed that both of her eyes had an odd, light orange colour. "And Mack is Mack. And we should go", she added after there was a loud noise in another part of the house.

"No. No, wait", here said and tried to free his hand from her grip as she tried to drag him to the other side of the room. "Where do you want to go?"

"Huh? I want to get out of here, of course, donkey! Believe me, honey, you don't wanna be here when he comes home."

At a certain point she pushed against the wall and suddenly a door opened. "Hurry up!" Ella said and dragged him out of the room. "There! There is the front door. Run and wait for me outside. Make sure to hide somewhere, I'll find you!"

Harry slowly ran in the direction she'd shown him, a few times turning his head. Ella was gone and he had no idea where she was, so he had no choice but to push his way through another two dark and dusty rooms full of carpets and pictures. When he opened what he hoped was the front door he heard Ella's from behind, followed by a crashing sound.

"NO! RUN!"

Harry didn't need to be told twice. He ran outside. Actually, he did not stop running. He ran and ran and ran and didn't even look at his surroundings. If he had bothered to take a look around he would have noticed that this place clearly was not located in England. Suddenly, there were frightening noises in the air. The bursting of wood and loud howling. However, there was no woman screaming, which Harry classified as a good sign.

The sun began to set when he decided to stop running. Harry was out of breath, was sweating and he had a stich in his side. But he was alive. And alone. And he was freezing. That was the first time he turned around to the direction where he came from. The sudden realisation that he was in a dark forest struck his mind. Suddenly, there was noise behind him! Harry turned, intuitively reaching for his wand before he realised that it wasn't there anymore. "Shit! Shit, shit, shit", Harry thought. He grabbed a big, grey stone from the ground.

"What are you planning to do? Slay a werewolf with a tiny stone?", the creepy voice said.

"Shut up!" Harry said out loud.

"What did you say?"

Harry jumped with fright. He turned round and saw – Ella. The joyful woman stood there, grinning like a madman.

"I found your wand, honey. But I'm afraid that we have to go. He saw me and he sure as hell knows that you're gone as well. Soooo, we have to hurry to get back to Mack."

"I've asked you before: Who is Mack?" said Harry impolitely.

"And I've told you before: Mack is Mack. So, let's go Honey."

And with this she turned around and went away. Harry had no option but to follow her as she hurried through the forest. "Wait", he called out. "You still haven't told me where we're going to!"

"You don't have to know. But I think it would be better for you to shut up. There are a vast amount of werewolves, trolls and ice giants living in these parts of the forest."

"Werewolves? But, it's not even full moon yet!"

"For some werewolves the phases of the moon are irrelevant. They kill who they want and when they want. Their isolated and uncontrolled life has made them bloodthirsty and dangerous. He is a werewolf, you know."

"W-who? This thing in the house?" Harry asked.

"Yep. He's some kind of a werewolf-boss. But I don't really know. Mack calls him Ragnar. He is believed to be a member of Voldemorts team, but nobody really knows. He hunts alone. And apparently", Ella added, "he likes the colour purple. His bedroom was full with purple carpets and raddled curtains."

"Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure. I mean, why would a man decorate his house with purple –"

"No, I mean, are you sure that he is a Death Eater?"

Ella stopped abruptly. "I never said he is a Death Eater" she said and turned. "And I never said that I was completely sure about him. People talk, honey. That's all I can say about this. And if you don't move a little bit faster, you might get the chance to ask him your questions personally."

"HEY? WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? HE IS WAITING FOR YOU!"

Ella turned around. There was a little black girl dressed in a light blue dress standing on giant rock a few meters in front of them. Harry thought the rock beneath her feat made her look even tinier. "COME ON", she shouted, waved and then turned around and jumped off the rock.

Ella sighed. "Valentine. She's a lovely, charming, little sweetie," she said to Harry. "but so impatient."

She sighed again and stood there motionless for a few seconds. "Do you know why he kidnapped you?"

"No", Harry said, somehow happy he could answer her question honestly.

"Okay", she murmured. "Here's your wand, by the way." She gave it back to him and wanted to go, when she suddenly stopped again. "Oh, I forgot to ask, what's your name, dear?"

"Err – Harry."

"Okay, Harry", Ella announced dramatically. "Come on, Mack wants to meet you!"