Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter and never, ever will.

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This chapter is dedicated to everyone who has EVER reviewed, suggested, PMed, faved, or alerted this story. THANK YOU READERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

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Harry Potter laid in a limp heap against the wall. He could only barely feel his tired heart beat and his air deprived lungs expand, but he was alright. Voldemort hadn't wanted to kill him in one beating. The Dark Lord wanted to savor Harry's death for as long as possible, to get his revenge. He wanted Harry to feel pain where he shouldn't have to, his mind, his only safe place until now.

And it hurt like hell.

Harry winced as he felt Voldemort's fury erupt when the snake figured out what his enemy's head was like when you were in there long-term.

You see, Harry Potter's mind was built like the best security system in the universe. To get to his deepest secrets you must tear through the different parts. However, it isn't that simple, Harry's mind was also made to be a maze that only he knew the way through.

He's going to destroy me from the inside out, Harry realized with a tired groan, and for some reason he and I can only do magic that effects the outside world here. But now that I think about it's a blessing and a curse... Harry smiled weakly at the picture of Riddle without magic, in an extremly elaborate corn maze, banging his head against a wall of corn stalks.

His spirits seemed to lift slightly at the thought, and Harry added Dumbledore to the picture, having him shoot ears of corn at Voldemort. Wait a minute, Dumbledore! If I could just... Harry trailed off, and grinned a second later. Yeah, that might just work. After all, I can only do magic that effects the physical world...

He searched his 'body' until he felt a familiar sense of power come over him, his magic. It wasn't much, since he was so exuasted and his physical body was injured or dying, but it would have to do. Harry pushed himself painfully up to a sitting position, and concentrated as hard as he could on the solution for his problem.

He let the magic go, praying that his last hope would work, before he put all his weight on the wall behind him, since he was unable to hold himself up from the pure exuastion. Harry shut his eyes, hoping with all his heart, until a bright golden light shone through his eyelids.

He opened his eyes and smiled, while whispering, "I love magic."

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Much earlier in the REAL WORLD:

Albus squeezed his favorite student's hand in comfort as hot tears ran down his silver beard. Harry had been getting much better these past few hours, but injuries kept randomly appearing around his body, that Poppy found she was unable to heal.

And now, he and Poppy had taken shifts to try to spot an injury appearing, but they had drastically slowed, and have not been seen for around fifteen minutes. Albus wasn't sure that was such a bad thing, but the mediwitch was lost. She had never been so clueless with a patient, especially Harry!

She had taken a liking to the child ever since he was brought into her wing during his first year, after Tom Riddle had a go with him... Albus shivered at the thought of his Harry at Voldemort's mercy again and again, right under his nose. It just wasn't right!

But at least the child knows why now. He reasoned. At least Harry knows why he was doomed at birth. Why he was led so many traps by Voldemort and his followers. Why his godfather is dead. That's what Harry wanted, wasn't it? To have answers? The old man shook his head and sighed. He needed to have another talk with the child about this. Harry couldn't have been dealing with it well... Especially with only those horrid muggles, Malfoy, and Voldemort for company.

Dumbledore bit his lower lip, and wiped the tears away from his face. He had to be strong now. Harry needed him to be-

"Professor?" Albus jumped and spun around, grabbing his wand, only to put it back in his pocket seconds later when he recognized the pair before him. A tired, blonde, Slytherin with heavy bags under his eyes and a equally, if not more, tired shabby werewolf.

"There you are Remus." He said as lightly as he could, "What, pray tell, took you?"

Lupin grimaced and replied, "Everyone wanted an explaination, of course. Why Malfoy was there and where Harry was." Remus' eyes dimmed and went to the boy. "I just told them that Harry wasn't-" He shook his head when he realized the tense of the word he used. "Isn't d-dead and he was gravely injured. It took a good while before we could sneek here past Molly and Hermione. But never mind that, sir. How is he?"

Dumbledore conjured two more chairs near the bed and gestured for them to sit. "Harry is much better than he was." The twinkle was gone from his now stormy blue eyes. "Remus, he had six broken ribs, a broken arm, two broken legs, a minor concussion, a punctured lung, series of deep cuts all over his body, and he was so bruised that his body was more bruise than skin!

Poppy said that he had been under the Cruciartus Curse also." He turned his attention to Draco who was looking very uncomfortable and slightly stunned at the extense of his classmate's injuries. "How many times Mr. Malfoy?" Albus braced himself for the teenager's answer, knowing that it would weigh him down with guilt for the rest of his life, as the Malfoy spoke.

"Six times, sir." The headmaster felt his eyes widen in pure shock and inhaled a sharp breath. The Slytherin added softly, now looking down at his knees, "He didn't start screaming until the fifth one, but professor, there's something else you should know." Albus looked straight into Draco's eyes, but Malfoy's dropped back to the floor, intimidated by the headmaster. "W-when I was shoved into the dungeon with Potter, he wasn't... himself."

"What do you mean?" Remus asked. You could practically see the man's hair graying before your eyes. He was looking older and shabbier by the minute.

Malfoy cringed at the man he knew to be a werewolf in fear. The young Slytherin had never liked animals. "He was trapped in a cage... A-as a phoenix." Draco whispered shakily.

Dumbledore shot out of his chair in shock and started to pace around the hospital. The gears in his head were spinning off the charts while he muttered under his breath, "Harry.... Patronous.... But how...? The stag.... Fawkes might have... Hmm...."

Remus had also leaped out of his chair, but instead of choosing his teacher's method, he ran over to Harry. He put a war hardened hand on the sixteen year old's forehead, but recoiled when he realized he had put his hand on an angry bruise. "Oh Harry..." Remus sighed, "Why do you always have to be knee deep in everything?"

"Knee deep?!" Draco muttered from his chair, "What drugs are you doing? he's never been any less than neck deep at best." This earned a small, slightly forced, smile from the old DADA professor, but Dumbledore was too deep in his thoughts to hear, although he had stopped pacing and sat to grasp Harry's hand again.

"Well, " Dumbledore said evenly, looking Draco and Remus straight in the eye, "it seems Voldemort- Oh for heavens sake, it is just a name you two! - After he captured Harry, he wanted to be sure the child could not find a way out, seeing as the Boy Who Lived hasn't become the Boy Who Died yet. Therefore, he must have changed Harry into his animagus form to prevent him from escaping."

Remus furrowed his eyebrows in confusion as he said, "But it takes an extremly powerful wizard to have a magical animagus form! Harry is sixteen!"

"Age," Albus replied with a sad glint in his eyes, "is not realtive to power Remus. I believe Harry's first accidental magic, when he was nine, caused him to Apperate onto a roof. It was quite a nasty shock for his cousin, who had been chasing him." Malfoy sniggered softly at the picture, but it was quickly diminished by the guilt that had swollen in his gut when he looked at the weak form in the Harry's regular bed. Potter- no, Harry- had gotten those injuries, but still told him to save himself and hide in the back... He had flown out in front of an Avada Kedavra for him... But he couldn't tell them that, he still had his pride left.

"Draco," the old man said to take him away from his guilt ridden thoughts, "I need to know exactly what happened at Malfoy Manor. May I ask your permission for that memory?"

The Slytherin shrugged, figuring that he didn't really have much of a choice, and followed Dumbledore's instructions to retrieve the silvery memory from the depths of his shallow mind. He held back a wince as the tug he felt on his temple amplified to a yank, but when Draco removed his wand, the memory was attatched.

He dropped it into the pensieve that Dumbledore had conjured a moment ago, and sat back comfortably into his soft armchair as the Harry's mentor and werewolf friend jumped into the memory.

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By the way, everybody, I have entered a contest for this story and must have it done by Sept. 1st. So I'll be really putting out the other fics and ficusing clearly on this until Sept. 1st. THERE WILL BE A SEQUEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please review ASAP!

kirby