Yo. Well what do you know? A longer chapter for this fic for once. Shocking, isn't it? Thank you to all readers so far, and an extra thanks to Gweniegrl18 for the idea on how SS got the counter. Still can't believe I didn't think of it earlier. This chapter will have descriptions of torture in it. I personally don't think it's too descriptive, but that depends, really. And to my buddy (you know who you are), I'm not sure how bad it'll be for you to handle. The scene is marked with *s both at the beginning and end, so feel free to skip it if you (or anyone else reading) needs to.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of its characters...
"My Lord, I have it. Dumbledore has given me the counter to the tracer."
For a moment, Marvolo couldn't believe those words. It hadn't been very long since he had given Severus the order to find the counter, and he honestly hadn't expected the spy to get it so quickly. After all, getting information from Dumbledore was harder than pulling teeth. "How did you obtain it so quickly?" he asked instead, honestly curious.
"Felix Felicis," Severus replied, actually a little irritated that he hadn't thought of it before. It seemed like such an obvious solution now! It would have saved him days of stress as well, along with forcing himself to be friendly and socialize. Oh, the humanity.
The Dark Lord, of course, recognized the potion's name immediately. "Ah, Liquid Luck. It was easy then?"
"Yes, my Lord. It barely took ten minutes."
Marvolo raised a brow, actually intrigued. That was quite quick, wasn't it? "What did you do?"
"Lemon drops and vodka. Calming Draughts, which his candy is always spiked with, do not mix very well with any alcohol, vodka, in particular."
The Dark Lord chuckled lowly in understanding. "So the old man got himself drunk, and then fell unconscious faster than usual because of the way his spiked candies mixed with his drink. And all this occurred in ten minutes."
"It is a very fast acting reaction," Severus explained. "I used a spell to keep his eyes open, then slid into his mind, found the memory of the counter, Obliviated him, and planted new memories. He will not recall I was there in the first place. I left no signs," he added, "for I ensured to wipe the memories of the portraits too, with the spell you invented, and his phoenix was not there at the time. However-"
"Yes, my spy?"
"Dumbledore placed more than just the tracer on the boy."
Marvolo paused, hands moving to grip the edge of his desk. "What did you find?" he demanded to know. He realized immediately that is wasn't a good sign at all when he saw Severus hesitate. Severus never hesitated. "What did you find?" he repeated, his tone lower than before.
"...A magic dampener, my Lord."
The mahogany beneath the Dark Lord's hands cracked loudly. "What!?" he questioned in a hiss. "Is the old fool insane!? Is he trying to kill his saviour!?" He couldn't believe it! What kind of idiot would place a magical dampener on a child!? It would be better to simply hit them with the Killing Curse and save the trouble of a slow, painful death as their magical core weakened with each passing day.
...No wonder Harry's injuries had stopped healing properly on their own. He no longer had enough magic to help himself.
Severus was honestly just as shocked as his Lord. He may not like the boy, but Dumbledore was setting him up for a cruel, painful death. It was more than a little appalling. He couldn't understand it.
Marvolo meanwhile, was already searching his mental files for information on how to remove the dampener. While a few phrases in Latin would be enough to counter the tracers, the same couldn't be said for the dampener. They were beyond rare, and could only be cast by extremely powerful wizards. Unfortunately, once cast, they couldn't be removed by anyone other than a Goblin, and they charged a hefty price for it too.
"My Lord?"
The older man pulled himself out of his thoughts. "You have done good work, Severus. You will not inform anyone of what we have discussed here today."
"Yes, thank you, my Lord."
"Good. You are dismissed."
Severus bowed, and without further ado, left the room, leaving the Dark Lord alone with his thoughts once more.
Marvolo wasn't sure what the old coot was playing at with all this, but he was not pleased at all. Harry was his Horcrux, and therefor, his to protect...right? Since the teen had no care for Dumbledore or the Light, there was no reason to kill him, and besides, doing so would only destroy his soul piece anyway, which he certainly wished to avoid.
Still, now that he had the counter to the trackers, there was no reason for Harry to remain with those filthy relatives any longer. He would get him tonight, and wait a day to see if the tracers remained removed. If they did, then he would take the teen to Gringotts and have that damn magical dampener removed, no matter the cost...
It was really getting late now, and no matter what he tried, Harry couldn't fall asleep. He'd pretty much always had trouble going to sleep, but it wasn't usually this bad. Already he had counted to a thousand, sung seven songs in his head, and recited the first chapter of Quidditch Through the Ages, and even after all that, he was still awake. ...How annoying.
The Dursleys had been more irritating than usual today, everyone feeling rather on edge, though no one was sure why. Harry had tried to keep himself out of their way by staying in his room and reading the books Voldemort had left him, but that had been hard to do with the way his relatives had kept calling for him to do some chore or another.
The raven haired teen was finally beginning to nod off, when a sudden commotion from downstairs had him jerking awake again. "Dammit!" he hissed. "Can't they keep it down!? It's fucking late!" Exasperated, he shut his eyes again, and tried to lull himself into sleep once more.
Then he heard the scream.
His eyes snapped open, and he automatically reached for his wand, before abruptly remembering it was still locked up in the cupboard under the stairs along with his trunk and broom. He knew it was Aunt Petunia who had screamed, but he wasn't sure why. She screamed a fair bit, really, though the loudest had to be that time she'd seen that mouse. Harry remembered it because it was the only time she had been pleased Hedwig was in the house, for his owl had killed it before eating it.
Still, Harry had a feeling that wasn't it this time, and wondered if it was the Order coming to get him, even if they hadn't said anything as such just yet. Though, hadn't they done the same thing last summer? Then again, the previous time they had been smart enough to get the Dursleys out of the house first.
Cautiously, aware he wasn't armed, Harry slid out of bed and padded over to the door. It was unlocked, he knew, so he slowly, quietly, pushed it open, and stepped outside the room. He peered towards his aunt and uncle's room, and saw the door was open. Dudley's bedroom door also stood ajar.
From his place at the top of the stairs, Harry wasn't really able to see much of anything, but noted the sitting room light was on. That wasn't all that odd, especially since Dudley always stayed up quite late over summers. Maybe the family was just watching a scary movie?
Dudley and Aunt Petunia were quite fond of them, though Uncle Vernon hated them, and if they ever watched them together (not counting Harry himself, of course), they left the lights on for his uncle's benefit, since it always resulted in him being utterly terrified and having nightmares.
Despite the situation, Harry cracked a smile, only sobering when he heard his aunt scream again. This scream though, was followed by a very familiar chuckle, and now the teen had a feeling he knew what was happening.
He slowly descended the stairs and moved to the entrance to the living room, leaning up against the doorjamb and glancing around the room. The Dursleys were all on the floor, and standing over them, wand in hand, was the Dark Lord Voldemort himself. He was torturing them.
Harry said nothing, did nothing to stop him. He merely stood there, head cocked in curiosity, watching dispassionately. There was no love lost between him and the Dursleys, and while he knew it was Voldemort who had killed his parents, and Dumbledore who had left him here with naught but a letter for information, he knew things would have been very different had his relatives bothered to care for him. If they had given him even an ounce of the compassion and care they had given to their own son, Harry was positive this wouldn't be happening right now. But they hadn't, and now it was.
Despite the Dark Lord not having noticed him, the teen knew Voldemort was aware he was there watching, and went on with his torture. It didn't take him long to really start getting into it. There were Crucios, of course, but the intense pain of the torture curse didn't seem to be enough. And he started with Dudley, likely mainly because he wanted his parents to suffer.
*****
With a severing charm, the tendons in both of Dudley's ankles were sliced, and he released a sharp scream of pain as blood pooled around his legs and onto the floor. His screaming continued, even as Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon joined in. Harry cringed at the noise, but continued watching, intrigued by all the blood. He had never seen a severed tendon before, but was sure it was definitely really painful. The slices were deep too, he noted, spotting stark white bone.
Voldemort chuckled lowly. "It is unfortunate you were raised so appallingly, Dudley Dursley. But you are young, and though you should have known better, the Dark Lord Voldemort will be merciful." He intoned a simple incantation that brought Dudley off the ground and up into the air, blood from his ankles dripping down onto the pristine floor Harry had mopped just a few hours ago. How rude.
He directed Dudley to the other end of the room, and with another, clearly darker spell, Dudley went flying. And not just slowly or anything. It was with a shocking amount of speed, and before anyone could really register what was happening, the teen hit the opposite wall with a sickening sound.
The splatter was shocking. There was blood, and fat, and entrails, and Merlin knew what else, and it was everywhere. The wall, the floor, the ceiling. A quarter of the room was glistening with the mess. It was completely and utterly disgusting, and yet, to Harry, actually kind of fascinating. Gross, but fascinating, because just a few seconds ago, that mess had been his cousin!
The shocked silence that had fallen was broken abruptly by hysterical screaming and crying, before his aunt threw up the dinner Harry had spent so much time making. Ew. Voldemort merely examined the mess on the wall with interest, before turning his attention to the woman.
"Petunia," he intoned very slowly, ominously so. "Older sister to the brave, brave Lily. Such a shame you lack the courage she had. Courage to step between me and her child. Do you not care for your son?" He glanced over at what remained of Dudley, splattered on the wall. "Oh, forgive me, I should say, did you not care for your son?"
Harry bit back a laugh, and watched, still choosing to say nothing. Though he was glad he wasn't standing near that wall. He didn't want any of that shit-quite literally, ending up on his clothes. And besides, the smell was absolutely vile.
The woman said nothing, merely sobbed and dry heaved. Voldemort, clearly not impressed, hit her with a Crucio, likely to regain her attention, and with another spell, Aunt Petunia had her hands splayed out on the floor.
"I have heard you spend far too much of your time cleaning," said the Dark Lord, eyeing the fingers with eerie crimson eyes. "Time you could have spent doing other things that would have changed your fate. Nevertheless, you won't be needing these where you are likely to go." Each finger broke, one by one, each enlisting a sharper and sharper scream. But the man wasn't done, and ten strong severing spells later, eight fingers and two thumbs lay on the floor, parted from the hands they belonged to.
Aunt Petunia threw up again, the bile mixing with her blood on the floor, but Voldemort wasn't finished with her, because he used yet another severing spell. And this one? This one sliced straight through dear old Aunt Petunia's jugular. Her fingerless hands rose up to her neck, attempting to stop the rush of blood, but naturally, those efforts were fruitless, and she died mere moments later, gurgling incoherently. She had felt far more pain than her precious Duddykins.
"And then there was one," said the snake like man with a smirk. He turned his wand on a blubbering Vernon Dursley.
Though he was already a pasty white, Uncle Vernon paled even more, and immediately began scrambling back like a crab, trying desperately to get away. But with all that fat on him, he really just moved far too slowly. Voldemort flicked his wand, before giving it a sharp jab.
Harry saw his uncle fall back, saw his chest depress, and heard bones snap, though the sound was quickly drowned out by screams of pain. The teen felt quite satisfied by it, actually, because he knew many of his uncle's ribs had broken, and who knew how many times the same had happened to him over the course of his short, painful life?
Merely crushing the large man's ribs however, clearly wasn't enough for Voldemort, for he continued the jabbing motion with his wand. The pressure on Uncle Vernon's chest kept increasing and increasing, until-
The teen watched with wide eyes as his uncle's upper body all but exploded, his half crushed intestines flying out, along with a lot of blood and fat, and other fluids Harry decided not to think about. His bottom half twitched for at least twenty seconds before going still, the intestines falling to drape over the trouser clad limbs, his scream cutting off mid way as he died in excruciating pain.
*****
For a moment, there was silence, and Harry swore he could still hear his relatives screaming. Then he realized his ears were ringing and gave his head a little shake as he stepped past the doorway. "Well, that was messy."
Voldemort turned to him now, and raised a non-existent brow. "Enjoy the show, Harry?"
"Yes I did, though I think that's only because it was the Dursleys." It was an honest reply, actually. The emerald eyed teen really wasn't sure he would have watched that had it been anyone else. ...Except Umbridge and Wormtail, maybe.
"You will come with me," stated the Dark Lord, waiting to see if there would be a protest. There wasn't.
"Where?"
"To my manor. We must leave quickly. There are wards around this house to inform Dumbledore of any dark magic performed in these walls."
Harry just shrugged. "Sure, why the hell not? I'll just grab my stuff from upstairs," he said, even as he made his way to them. "My trunk and broom are both in the cupboard under the stairs!" he called out.
And while Harry went through the small bedroom to gather the few things he would require, Voldemort moved to the cupboard, unlocking and opening it. He spotted the mentioned items immediately, and shrank them down, before slipping them into his pocket. He did the same when Harry returned with the books he had left him, and some clothing.
"Come," said Voldemort, moving to the front door.
Harry started following, then stopped in the doorway, and looked around the sitting room. It had been so perfect in here barely an hour ago. Everything so clean and pristine and immaculate. Now it looked horrifying, covered, splattered, streaked, and pooled with blood, sweat, tears, fat, vomit, urine, feces, and who knew what else.
The teen looked at his crushed uncle, his severed aunt, and at his smashed cousin, and absently wondered if he was a bad person for not really feeling any guilt. He knew the guilt would have been there for other people, but with these three, there was...nothing. Nothing at all. He just felt...empty. He didn't even feel relieved or pleased. Just empty.
"Harry?"
"...I'm coming."
And with that, Harry Potter left Number Four Privet Drive for the very last time. Left, with the Dark Lord Voldemort. He didn't know what was going to happen now, didn't know if he was going to live or die, and couldn't bring himself to care, even as he watched the Dark Lord perform the spell that left the Dark Mark in the sky above the house.
As the two Apparated out of the always boring neighbourhood, all Harry found himself wondering was how poor Remus was going to have a very hard time getting into the house with the stench that now lingered through it.
And that's it for now. What do you think? I'm not used to writing torture scenes. Looking forward to reviews! Laterz!
