Pain.

Voldemort appeared right in his throne room in Malfoy manor, as soon as his materialisation was completed, blood started leaking all over the floor.

Already the death eaters there starting milling about the wounded dark lord.

" My lord, " Bellatrix Lestrange screamed in horror as the man she loved, even more than her own useless husband appeared right in front of her, not tall and proud, but small and bleeding profusely, legs gone and ripped off.

" B-Bella, levitate me to my chambers. There - there are p-p-potions and spells that I can use to save my life. Quickly." he added, throwing in some of his old fearsome authority.

The death eaters stood aside as Bella levitated the dark lord and took him out of the room, it didn't take them long to get to the chambers. Bella helped the man she loved, more one sided love since Voldemort didn't understand the emotion, get undressed and managed to cast some basic pain numbing charms to his grievous injuries.

They didn't work.

5 hours later…

The bath was more like a tank than anything else, but that meant nothing to Lord Voldemort. Only yesterday, he'd almost been at his full strength. The time spent as a bodiless spirit, his resurrection and his recent battle had drained him of a good deal of his magical reserves.

It didn't help matters that he'd lost a good portion of his body mass. The resurrection ritual Voldemort had used had many advantages. In a magical battle, his body was virtually indestructible down to its magical construction, oh, he could still feel pain and agony, but the injuries, even fatal ones that would kill a normal human being, would heal completely.

It was one of the advantages of horcrux making, Voldemort had researched horcruxes when he'd left Hogwarts and his time at Borgin's and Burke's had given him a little more information that Slughorn had neglected to give him.

The people who'd made horcruxes in the past had only made the one, not 2 or 3, but 1. At the time, a part of Riddle had been curious about the reason why, whilst he believed they were weak compared to him. But as he grew older and his experience with the soul fragments continued, he started making theories based on his own observations.

As he made more horcruxes, he became aware that his body was changing and it had absolutely nothing to do with the numerous rituals he was undertaking at the time.

He made a theory that the more horcruxes that were created, the more the body started to mutate and change in ways not documented by magical researchers.

As time passed, he made more observations and as he did he found that his way of thinking and indeed, his personality was changing slightly as well. Oh, he still had his basic characteristics, but he seemed…angrier, more aggressive and took the time to torture his own followers from time to time.

He'd done that before of course, but only during times of failure but as the number of horcruxes increased and the more his body mutated and changed, warped maybe the better word, his aggression and his sanity seemed to be eroding.

There were times Voldemort mused whether or not he should've found a more satisfactory mode of immortality, one that didn't herald gradual instabilities and undesired side effects, but when he was a teenager he'd jumped at the idea of horcruxes.

Murder meant nothing to him.

The lives of people meant nothing the psychotic dark lord in the making.

Even so, soul magic wasn't his most strongest magical ability. In order to practice necromancy, you needed to respect life and souls.

Voldemort respected neither.

Necromancers would've cursed him for that, they knew that souls were sacred and not to be violated in any way, but Voldemort had done just that. Not once, but several times over.

Voldemort was immensely still in his tank like bath as the potion inside it bubbled continuously as it did its work repairing his body.

He was more curious that angry, which explained his current mood, which would've delighted the death eaters, who had to put up and suffer through his volatile mood swings.

He was curious because he couldn't see how Lara Potter had managed to incapacitate him like that without using a wand, an incantation or a potion.

The spells and rituals he'd used to enhance his body - along with the soul containers he'd created over the years - had guaranteed him the ability to rebuild his body with little effort. He'd be out of this wretched bath in no time. But Voldemort wasn't leaving, not until he found out how the Potter bitch did this to him and in such a manner.

It had to be magic, there was no other way. But how ?

His body was a magical construct and he knew positively that magical schools and colleges did not teach their students how to create magically constructed bodies, he knew that. He'd needed to travel for 30 years before he came across the basics of the rituals themselves, let alone the practical's, so how did she do it ?

Voldemort remembered vividly the pain as the bullet from a MUGGLE gun went right through his shoulder. Hydrochloric acid, Potter had said to him, how could hydrochloric acid affect him in his magical body ? It was a non magical substance, it shouldn't affect him.

Not seeing any alternatives, Voldemort stopped thinking about the how she'd managed to critically wound him, so he turned his attention to the girl herself.

She was dangerous, that was beyond a doubt. The questions raced through his mind, how did she develop her powers in such a manner, when young witches and wizards required a magical focus ?

How did she know so much about muggle science ?

Well, that particular question wasn't so difficult to answer, at least from his perspective, he'd studied muggle science briefly after he'd left Hogwarts and started travelling the globe in search of long lost magical arts to aid him in his quest for power and immortality.

Lara Potter could easily have done the same, although she used muggle means to kill and incapacitate her enemies whilst occasionally using magic.

The dark mark on Wormtails' forearm had enabled him to overhear the interrogation before, angrily, he'd put an end to the cowardly little bastard once and for all.

The knowledge it had been Lara Potter who'd killed some of his followers had been a surprise. Now, on the other hand, he realised he'd underestimated the girl, just like Dumbledore did.

His…sources in the Order of the phoenix had told him the girl lived by herself in a manor house and that the wards were unlike anything even the goblins possessed.

That worried him, wizard wards were far from perfect, they could be breached by any witch or wizard with a phenomenal grasp of ward casting and curse breaking.

Goblin wards on the other hand were far more…..difficult. It would take a massive amount of raw magical energy and knowledge to break down even the smallest ward, never mind the goblin vaults in Gringotts.

Goblin magic was just too powerful and it worked on different principles to human magic.

Voldemort leaned back in the potion bath, the mix was just keeping him alive and it was helping his rapidly regenerating magical core regenerate his body and repairing the worst of the damage, but there were drawbacks.

That meant no meetings with the death eaters, which he was far from happy about.

The Dark Lord was far from stupid, he knew that the death eaters, the purebloods that followed him, were far from the refined and cultured popinjays they portrayed at Gala's and at balls at the ministry or in their manors.

The Death eaters were a far from perfect organisation, the time spent alone and ghostlike was a reminder of that. None bothered to find or help him, Pettigrew only did it out of fear, not loyalty. They were incredibly short sighted, relying more on brutality and raw power than brains or power.

There were exceptions - Bellatrix Lestrange, his most loyal follower, who was excellent at keeping the others in line with her formidable magical ability that enabled her to duel most wizards below Dumbledore's level and the fact her reputation was such that she only needed to pull out and bare her wand for silence to fall.

But even so, even with Lestrange, Voldemort hated proxies. To rely on them would mean revealing most of his most cherished and well thought out battle plans and strategies. There was also the idea that the death eaters would misinterpret an order, a time, an important aspect of the plan and make a mistake that would shatter the scheme like a pane of glass.

Voldemort shifted slightly, wincing in agony as his regenerating body protested.

He was now wondering about the best and most practical method to deal with Lara Potter. He knew Dumbledore and knew the old man would just poke and prod and stick that abnormally broken nose in.

That was when it occurred to him.

Dumbledore would try and put stress in in the Ministry and try and get Lara as his ward, or maybe one of his devoted followers.

If that was going to happen, why not do the same thing with one of his own followers…?

Mind racing, Voldemort ran through the whole plan in his brain and went over the pros and the cons.

Order of the Phoenix Headquarters.

" The recent skirmish in Diagon alley has concerned the ministry, especially since the girl who lived was involved. Fudge has ordered her to be arrested on sight." Tonks reported.

" What are the aurors orders once the girl has been arrested ?" Lupin asked.

Tonks looked at her boyfriend, " She's to be sent to Azkaban, without a trial."

Moody snorted. " Doubt that would happen, gal knows how to look after herself. Even so, I'm amazed that Fudge thinks the aurors can deal with the girl, especially since we know she can stop us from casting spells."

Dumbledore nodded thoughtfully, that was a subject that he was still trying to understand.

" We can forget the girls manor, its clear she's spending time with her parents. They were seen in the alley with her."

McGonagall spoke up, " That means the ministry will target them."

" precisely."

" I will speak to the wizengamot tomorrow at the meeting. The idea is that we overturn this ridiculous emancipation and hand her to the Potters."

" Why ?" Ron rudely asked, " Why not bring her to live with m - us ?" he asked, quickly changing his mistake.

Dumbledore sighed, wondering why he needed such an idiot in his own order, " Because then the Potters will be overjoyed and then they will rejoin in gratitude."

It was a well thought out plan. But it would end in misery.