Here's #7! Don't worry, I know it's very similar to 6, but it changes in the next one, I swear. Anyway, I'm not receiving any reviews since chapter 4! Please, I want to know what you think. So, I hope you like it. Oh, and I obviously don't own Harry Potter or any character in the original books. Conner, Alana, Ethan and the Death Eater Caira are mine, though. Enjoy!

Alana looked directly into the scarlet eyes above her. Her great hazel-ish brown ones stared into the ones that seemed to be flooded with blood. Her face now reflected neither fear nor defiance. She simply waited with a neutral mask, waited for something to happen. Silence reigned the room.

"Nothing?" whispered Voldemort.

As a response, Alana, who had her mouth slightly open for breathing purposes, closed it completely.

"Well, then..." Voldemort murmured in rage. "So be it." He raised his wand once more, his face transforming into a horrible expression of fury and evil one can only see in the darkest of nightmares.

Voldemort's mouth was just opening and his wand was just descending when Alana made the decision that could, she thought, mark the difference between life and death.

"NO!" she blew out. It had taken her all her remaining strength to say his single word and cover her face with her hands. The room suddenly fell so quiet, a pin could have been heard softly landing on the floor.

"Fine," croaked Alana. "I'll... I'll tell you."

Voldemort smiled his terrible smile of triumph, and the Death Eaters looked at the girl expectantly. Alana knew her promise to herself, and she repeated it in her mind: Don't say anything, no matter what they do to you. Don't give anything away…

Yet, things had come to a point where, even though she had expected all this from the moment she was captured, they had gotten far too extreme. She had to stop it. This was enough. She simply could not take it anymore.

"Finally, common sense has got to you," Voldemort said mockingly.

No. Alana started to regret her decision. How selfish was this? Her body begged for her to make this stop, her mind to do the right thing. Confusion added to the agony.

An idea came to her suddenly. She took a deep breath, closed and opened her eyes, and forced her head up, staring right at Voldemort.

"I'll tell you," she repeated.

"Yes you will, otherwise I will have your friend to it," Volemort said.

Alana opened her mouth, but nothing came out. The screaming had wasted her voice. She touched her throat, afraid. Voldemort noticed this, and yelled, "Lucius! Can you not see the girl will not speak? Give her voice back so she can be useful, unlike you."

Lucius Malfoy jumped, stepped forward with his wife's wand, pointed it at Alana, and muttered, "Sonorus Reparo." Instantly, Alana felt her voice come back to normal. Her throat no longer ached, though the rest of her body did.

"You never needed my help. You'll... You'll kill Harry Potter in the end. He'll come to you," said Alana.

The entire room gasped at once, and Voldemort looked rather shocked, then wickedly smirked. He raised his hands and yelled, "Of course! Lord Voldemort depends on no one! I need no help! I will kill Harry Potter, for I am truly the greatest sorcerer that ever lived and ever will live!"

A great clamour took over the room, laughs and yells heard; the whole crowd of people that filled the room seeming to have gone in a fit of madness and weird, horrific happiness. Alana lost all breath, started to take small gasps and widened her eyes, terrified by the uproar she had caused. No one looked at her anymore, everyone had apparently forgotten her. The only thing that mattered was the announcement she had just made. Only one other person in the room appeared to be in the exact same condition as Alana.

In an enormous need for another face to look at apart from the snake-like one of Voldemort's, Alana turned her head to where, at the back of the room, looking more desperate and cowardly than ever, stood Draco Malfoy. The breathless, fearful boy exchanged a look with the helpless, weak girl lying on the floor, both seeming to express hatred, seek something unknown and ask for compassion, for each had irremediably changed the future of the other.

Voldemort turned serious again, turned back to Alana, and said, "Let's see if our little guest is telling the truth—"

Alana closed her eyes and tried to empty her mind as much as she could. A blank mind... Nothing to think about...

"—LEGILIMEMS!"

Before her eyes, Alana saw the flipping of a page. Quickly, she forced her thoughts to change; the image changed to her own concentrated face. Then everything blurred, and Alana found herself reliving a product of her own imagination: It was her interpretation of the moment Harry giving himself away to Voldemort, a clip her brain created as she read the shocking chapter of her favourite book.

Everything seemed quite unclear, for it was the memory of something she had imagined. Voldemort was stroking his wand, the crowd of black-robed Death Eaters behind him. A dark glow engulfed the forest where they stood. The faces of the Death Eaters were all practically the same, their features blurred; only the faces of Bellatrix Lestrange— whose wickedness was much exaggerated— and Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy were recognisable.

Voldemort whispered, "l thought he would come..."

"You weren't wrong," said a voice from somewhere.

Harry walked into the clearing of the forest and, immediately, whispers filled the scene.

"Harry Potter... The Boy Who Lived... Come to die," hissed Voldemort. Harry closed his eyes, Voldemort yelled, wand high, clearly at the top of his lungs, yet nothing was heard. There was a great flash of green light, a strange ringing that reached one's inner ear, Harry's body collapsing, complete silence, a thud, some unknown voice shouting "NO!" repeated times, and then everything was black.

Narcissa Malfoy's voice echoed "He is dead!" into the emptiness. The darkness of the memory changed into a pure, eternal, white room. There was a glimpse of Harry's face, which looked as though he was asleep.

Alana forced the image to change. That part, Voldemort could not see...

Suddenly, the white disappeared and, in its place, appeared two giant hands, holding nothing more or less the Harry's corpse. All was swallowed by black again.

The scream was heard various times in different voices: Hagrid's, Hermione's, Ron's, McGonagalls's... Each seemed more and more distant, until the final "NO!" came with a great force in Alana's own voice.

Quickly, everything transformed again. The back of Alana's head was seen, her front reflected in the mirror facing her. Her face was hidden, but she suddenly looked up, revealing it, crying and splattered with tears. Everything blurred once more and, finally, the whole projection evaporated, bringing Alana back to reality.

She blinked. A single look around assured that Voldemort, along with the Death Eaters, had believed everything.

"Harry Potter..." Voldemort said slowly. "...is to die. Potter will die... I will triumph! The prophecy will be completed in my favour! I will kill Harry Potter, I will gain the power, I am to be—!"

Voldemort exhaled, laughed and stopped, apparently having finished the sentence in his head. He turned to face Alana. He bent down to where her trembling figure laid, his joy making him look more wicked, powerful and frightening than ever before.

"But there must be a catch," he whispered. "A price, a loophole that the little lady hasn't spit out yet."

Alana tried to look confused and innocent. Of course there was a loophole: the fact that Voldemort actually kills himself and that Harry comes back. But maybe... Maybe she didn't have to change anything in the plot-line of the story. Perhaps there was a way she could make Voldemort think that she was giving away precious information because of the torture, while she really was not helping him. There WAS a way, and Alana was pretty sure she had figured it out.

"Alright," she muttered. "There is."

"Liar!" accused Bellatrix Lestrange.

"No, I'm not lying!" Alana defended herself, starting to worry.

"Bellatrix, let the girl speak," commanded Voldemort. Bellatrix bowed and disappeared, head down, into the crowd of Death Eaters.

"I—Harry— Alright, the thing is you have to make Harry come to you. You can't go to him. There's only one way to do that: use his greatest weakness against him. I think you already know what that is..." she said. Voldemort was glaring at her with a hard, serious face, apparently deep in thought.

"Of course..." he hissed, more to himself than to anyone else.

"Still, you've got to be patient. You have to strike at the right moment, otherwise you won't be able to kill him," she continued, with a half-real, half-acted pain in her voice.

"In your memory, we stood on a sort of forest. What was the exact location?" said Voldemort.

"It's in—" Alana had to stop. This time, real tears prevented her from uttering one more word. The mere thought of Hogwarts overwhelmed her. Like a little child, a major longing for it formed in her chest. She wanted to get out of this, to wake up and realise it had been just a bad dream. She wanted to go home.

Yet, she knew this was nowhere near possible and that she would just go mad—faster, that is— if she kept pitying herself like that. So she snapped herself back in place and out of those depressing thoughts. You're hurting yourself. That's what they want you to do, so they don't have to make an effort. Don't give them the satisfaction…

She suddenly ignited with rage, for they had already done it. They had made her fearful, helpless, weak. They had humiliated her. They had made her more like Malfoy. No, that was not acceptable. No more tears. No more sobs. If this were to be the last moments of her life, she would use them properly. She would not fall like they wanted; she had started to, but she was still on time to rise once more before it was too late.

"It is Hogwarts," she said after a long pause, her voice completely different. Some Death Eaters lost the smile they had been wearing.

"Hogwarts?" Voldemort repeated. He had obviously not expected that answer.

"Yes, Hogwarts. At the end of term, there will be a great battle there. But, again, you must wait. And you have to do something..." she said with a mysterious air.

"Yes? Speak!" Voldemort pressured her.

"I think you'd rather I tell you in private. I don't think your, um... people ought to know about this last part," she said in a superior tone.

It was as if time froze for a few seconds. No Death Eater moved a muscle, their hatred-filled eyes all fixed on Alana.

After a few moments, Voldemort said simply, "Very well."

"Oh, and a specific time during the battle will come, and that's when you must do it. You have to wait until— well, I don't know exactly how to describe it, but you must wait. And don't seek him out— he'll come," she said.

"Anything else?" Voldemort whispered.

Alana glared at him.

"Well, then. Bellatrix, Rowle, Narcissa! Fetch the boys and bring them here, while I go down to have a private little chat with Miss Sages in the cellar," Voldemort commanded. At once, what had seemed statues moved across the room and disappeared into the stairs that led to under the mansion.

"Get up," he spat at Alana. With a look equal to the one he gave her, Alan began to raise her head, from the floor; she had been on the ground this whole time, supporting some of her weight on her left arm in order to be able to look up at Voldemort.

But something was wrong. When she used her arms to try and get up, they fell. They would not support the rest of her weight. All her limbs still trembled in misery. They were almost numb. And now that her mind was only thinking of her body and was not distracted with other thoughts, it struck deeper than ever before. She rubbed her own soothing hand across her legs to try and awaken them for use, and found them, to her surprise and horror, covered with blood. Her arms were in the same state. Her shirt was soaking wet with tears, sweat and even more blood. Feeling around her, her hand sank in the puddle she had created from these components. Alana had not even noticed she had been bleeding and, being covered with the substance all over and barely feeling any part of her body, could not identify where it was coming from.

Finally, the girl rolled up on her side. Only this took a tormenting effort. She was conscious of all the eyes in the room gazing at her. She swallowed before settling on her hands and knees, then carefully using all her strength on a sort of push-up, trying to stand. She placed her hands in front of her, her feet on tiptoe. She slowly moved to a crouching position and clumsily stood up. Her balance would not last long. The room burst with laughter.

Alana lifted her chin. She moved a few steps forward, though her legs shook and they threatened to let her collapse at any moment.

"There," she said. "I won." Those two words silenced, it seemed, the world. Alana kept her expression brave, triumphant and challenging. Voldemort gazed at her with his horrific smile.

"I've won," she repeated. "I've won over you, over all of you especially—" she turned to Voldemort "—over you. You know why—?"

"How dare you speak like that in the Dark Lord's presence? Shut up! Do not utter another wo—" said a short, curly-blond haired Death Eater.

"Caira, let the girl speak while she can," Voldemort interrupted. "I'm sure she has something very... WORTHY OF OUR HEARING to tell." His smile widened.

"I've won over you because I stood up. It cost me, but I did it. And I bet none of you could have done it if you had gone through what I have. I KNOW you're trying to humiliate me. But you know what? I didn't make any mistake. I didn't trip and fall! I was pushed! You see, you forced me to be this weak physically, I didn't mess up! So, I'm not humiliated. I'm not embarrassed. This is not my fault. In fact, I'm proud. I'm more valiant than any of you people. Any of you would have begged for mercy, would have not even tried to get up. I did stand up. And if I fall again, I'll stand again. If you kill me, I'll have died a great death. So laugh. Laugh all you want; I know better."

But nobody, not even Lord Voldemort, smiled.