Chapter 10
He was standing in the main hall of Azkaban, a place he recognized, not from his own memories but from previous visions. Around him were hundreds of black clad death eaters, all with their hoods drawn up and their masks firmly in place, making them all appear identical save their heights.
Only one man was standing in the hall though, the rest were kneeling on the floor with their eyes downcast, all in utter silence. The one figure, though, caused Harry's stomach to lurch painfully as he watched him pace restlessly. Voldemort, the one responsible for everything that had gone wrong in his life and more pain than he thought imaginable was waiting for something.
It didn't take long though, for the thing he was waiting for to arrive, as mere moments later, the great stone doors at the end of the hall burst open and thirteen new figures entered, none of these wearing any sort of covering, clad instead in the typical robes of a death eater among the inner circle, and the sight of them almost made Harry even more sick as painful images assaulted his mind, for it was these thirteen men who were the only ones aware of his existence in that hell besides their master, and the ones who took sick pleasure in torturing him to the brink of sanity and life.
He could recognize each and every one of them by their footsteps alone, having heard them more often than he could count and he closed his eyes and tried to close his ears against the ghosts of pain and stinging words that they had each inflicted upon him.
"Lucius, I hope for your sake that you have something worthwhile to report" hissed the dark lord as the men stopped before him and bowed their heads in assign of respect for their leader.
"My Lord, the prison has been abandoned, no one remains, dead or alive" said the blonde man in a voice that rang through the hall and even though he was not looking, Harry knew that the others were nodding their heads in agreement with what the right hand man of Voldemort had reported.
"Fools!" cried he evil man so suddenly that Harry began to tremble "Because of you I have lost the only guarantee I had of winning this war!" he bellowed and Harry forced his eyes open just in time to see Voldemort brandish his wand onto one of his followers kneeling just before him and with a flash of green light the man fell to the floor dead before he realized what was happening.
"My Lord?" asked a voice from the front row as the inner circle took their places behind their lord to watch the proceedings.
"Speak" commanded the evil voice and at once the figure stood and began speaking and after only the first word, Harry recognized the voice as that of his school time rival, Draco Malfoy.
"Sir, what prisoner was so important that they could determine the outcome of the war? All of those who were held here had proved useless to your cause and were left here to be tortured to madness by the dementors until their eventual deaths? Were they not?" he asked, his head bowed the entire time.
As soon as the words had left his mouth, his master began laughing, that cold and heartless laugh that had haunted Harry's dreams for the entirety of his life and he felt as though his blood had turned to ice upon hearing it.
"You are quite mistaken, young Malfoy, but I will allow you to go unpunished for your cheek long enough to hear what I have to say. You are correct in assuming that the prisoners here were left to their own deaths and insanity, but there was one prisoner here that was only known about by my most trusted followers and myself, and it was he that I was trying to keep hidden for the time being, but due to the ineptitude of you fellows, he has managed to elude me yet again. You see, young Malfoy, there was one prisoner here that no one was to know about, and if that fool Dumbledore managed to get his muggle loving hands on him, we have all but lost this war."
"But m Lord, who could be so important that they could take away from us all that we have earned?" asked Draco
"Perhaps you are not as intelligent as your father led me to believe, Draco, but I will humor you long enough to answer your question. Hidden in a cell only known to myself and a select few of my followers was the boy- who-lived himself, and now, he is back in the hands of Dumbledore despite all that I have done to insure that he was never found" hissed the dark lord angrily, and with another green flash, another death eater fell down dead.
"My lord, I had thought that Harry Potter was dead, by the hands of his own godfather some time ago?" said Draco clearly confused
"You thought wrong, Draco, the person whom was killed by Sirius Black was one of my loyal servants who has been disguised as Potter since the night of our last meeting together, and the real Potter has been a prisoner of mine since that night" he answered, before turning his back on Draco and facing his inner circle, and at once, Malfoy Sr. stepped forward and inclined his head, asking permission to speak.
"Yes, Lucius?" asked Voldemort
"My Lord, Potter has been you prisoner for over five years now, it is highly unlikely that he will be sane enough, if he is even still alive, to be of any aid to the enemy, given the fact that he has been tortured relentlessly for the past years and the dementors haven't left his cell since the day he was brought here" he said and slowly a twisted smile crossed the dark lords features
"You might be correct Lucius, but that won't stop me from punishing those who caused me to loose him. Crucio!" he bellowed and Draco fell to the floor, screaming in agony, followed closely by many others as the entire inner circle began cursing the lower ranking death eaters.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Harry, feeling the pain of every curse Voldemort cast, was suffering as well thousands of miles away, but he bore his pains in silence for the nearly two hours that they lasted before he was thrown out of the vision.
Sirius was lying in the bed beside his godson, catching a few hours of sleep while the teenager did the same, but he was awakened suddenly by the sound of a faint gasp and shuffling from the bed beside him.
He was on his feet in an instant and stumbled over to his godson's side, delayed momentarily by his own clumsiness as he tripped over the foot of his bed and fell face first to the hard ground, but after a few choice curses, he was back on his feet again, rubbing a sore knee and leaning over Harry's bed.
"Harry? Harry!" he asked worriedly, but there was no reaction from the figure and Sirius blinked rapidly to clear his sleep fogged mind before he could truly comprehend what he was seeing, and when he did, he did the first thing he could think of "Madame Pomfrey!" he bellowed at the top of his lungs.
The nurse was at his side in an instant, seeing at once what he was so worked up about. Her patient was curled into a tight ball on his side, with one arm wrapped securely around his knees and the other palm pressed tightly to his forehead, but between the white fingers seeped a thin trail of dark red blood. His emaciated form was consistently being wracked with severe tremors, and his entire body was coated in a thin sheen of sweat.
"What happened?" she demanded immediately as she fumbled for her wand that had been up the sleeve of her robes.
"I don't know, I just woke up and saw him like this!" said Sirius frantically as Harry began to thrash about on the bed.
"Hold his shoulders down; we don't want him to hurt himself anymore than he already is" she commanded as she began to wave her wand over him, muttering spells under her breath the entire time. It was nearly five minutes later when she jumped back and brandished her wand around the ward, looking frantically into every shadowed corner, and at that moment, Harry fell limp and appeared to be unconscious, allowing Sirius to look toward the matron in curiosity.
"What is it, Poppy?" he asked as he regained his breath and wiped his own sweaty hair from his eyes.
"Shh, someone else is here" she whispered and at once, Sirius had his own wand in his hand, positioning himself between Harry's bed and the rest of the ward as he too looked around.
"How do you know?" he whispered back without looking at the woman.
"Harry was under the cruciatus curse" she said heavily, and upon hearing her words, Sirius nearly dropped his wand in shock and horror before he came back to his senses and in the blink of an eye, Padfoot stood in his place and began to sniff the air of the hospital wing thoroughly, and after a quick trip around the vast room, he transformed back into himself and pocketed his wand.
"There's no one here besides the three of us" he said in a normal voice as he turned back to Harry's bed where he gently turned the teenager back on to his back before he gently brushed the sweaty hair off the pale forehead, carefully avoiding the sore scar.
"Keep an eye on him for a minute, please Sirius, I'm going to go and tell the headmaster what has happened" she said as she turned and strode quickly back to her office and distantly he could hear her speaking to Dumbledore through the fire there.
She returned only a minute later and began to rummage through the cabinets in search of potions, which she apparently couldn't find because he then heard her speaking to Severus from her office as well before she again joined him beside the bed.
"Has he begun to wake up yet?" she asked as she again waved her wand over his form.
"No" answered Sirius as he watched her work, but when she raised his wrist to feel his pulse, he found himself speaking again "I thought you said that you had healed all of the scars that were on visible areas of his body?" he said as he caught sight of the underside of Harry's wrist where three parallel lines were clearly visible on the pale skin that was otherwise unmarked.
"I did, but not even I can remove scars from self inflicted wounds" she said absentmindedly as she used her wand to clear away the remaining traces of blood from Harry's forehead.
"Self inflicted wounds, what do you." Sirius began before he felt the blood drain from his own face as the meaning of her words sank in "Do you mean that he tried to.kill himself?" he asked quietly, stumbling slightly over the words.
Pomfrey looked at him sadly for a moment before organizing her answer into something both professional and yet reassuring for the man to hear "I think he did, Sirius, but the scars are quite old, and given what he has been forced to endure, we could have expected no less. Harry is one of the strongest people I have ever known, but he has been imprisoned and tortured for the last five years, and he is still only a teenager, a teenager who has been through more in the past nineteen years of his life than a dozen of the strongest wizards have been through put together. Now, will you please help me get him into some dry night cloths before the headmaster and Severus show up?" she asked, and Sirius put the more worrying thoughts from his mind in order to help her, and by the time they were done, the other two men had joined them in the room and he watched as Severus administered the post cruciatus potion while they were brought up to speed on what had happened a shortly before.
"Sirius, would you please help Severus search the grounds?" he asked and without argument, the two men began to stride toward the door of the wing, closing the curtains around the bed behind them. Before they had made it to the doors though, they opened of their own accord and in strode a familiar figure clad in the traditional robes of a death eater, the likes of which Snape himself had worn up until his discovery as a spy nearly two years before, escaping with his life thanks to the emergency portkey that Dumbledore had insisted he keep on his person at all times.
To the untrained eye, Draco appeared to be his normal, arrogant self, but to these two men, it was obvious that he had been punished for something that night, even though he tried to hide it.
"Do either of you know where the headmaster is?" he asked, forgoing the pleasantries and getting right to the point of the matter, but before they could respond, Dumbledore approached from behind them.
"Mr. Malfoy? Are you ok?" he asked immediately
"Fine, sir" he said briskly before striding the rest of the way across the room till he was standing directly in front of the three older men. "Headmaster, it's about Potter, he's not dead sir" he began bluntly
"I know, my boy" he said quietly as he laid a hand on Draco's shoulder
"No, you don't understand! It wasn't Potter who joined the death eaters! It was an imposter, a loyal follower posing as Potter, and it was he who was killed, not Potter" he said as he took a quick breath before continuing "Harry has been kept a prisoner of Voldemort's since the tournament in our fourth year. He was kept in a hidden cell and tortured by Voldemort and the inner circle, no one else knew he was even there, and now he's missing. If what my father said is true, we have to fine him, he's hurt and might or might not even be sane, but if Voldemort finds him first, we have nothing left and we have already lost this war" he said in a rush.
"Draco, come here, there is something I want you to see" said Dumbledore before turning to the other two "Gentlemen, please join us, I think I understand what has happened now" he said before striding back toward the enclosed bed with the other three close behind.
When Draco had returned from the meeting at Azkaban, after what felt like endless curses being thrown at him and his fellows, he proceeded directly to the headmasters office, but when he had learned that it was empty, he turned in the intent of going instead to the dungeons, but on his way there, he passed Nearly Headless Nick who had informed him that the headmaster had been seen hurrying in the direction of the hospital wing a short time before, so he changed his direction yet again.
He arrived in the white room out of breath and had the matter not been so urgent, he would have first requested a pain killing potion before he relayed the news, but not tonight. He had never been able to truly believe that Potter would willingly join the dark lord, not until he saw the black haired former classmate participating so willingly in one of their regular torturing sessions of a group of muggles, and the fanatical gleam in the cold green eyes had convinced him at once, and when Potter had been openly accepted as the heir of Voldemort and joined his master in the punishments of the less loyal or successful death eaters, he had known it in his heart as well.
This is why the news that he had received had affected him so, for he had believed for so long now that the one cursing him had been Potter when in fact, Potter had been subjected to the same treatment continuously for over five years, over a quarter of his life he had been tortured, and now, when they should all be out looking for the undoubtedly insane teenager, they were instead taking a jolly stroll through the hospital wing. Cursing silently to himself, Draco followed Dumbledore, Black and Snape to the very last bed in the wing, where curtains separated it from the view of the rest of the ward.
The aged headmaster walked wearily around the curtains, and when Draco joined him on the other side, he nearly gave into his urge to allow his jaw to hang open and fall to the floor in shock. There, on the bed only a meter from him was a figure that was so easily identifiable, yet so alien to him that he recognized it at once.
"Potter?" he asked in shock, looking to the headmaster for confirmation which he immediately gave in the form of a slight nod.
It was defiantly his school time rival, with the unmistakable black hair, albeit quite a bit longer than the last time he had seen him and not the imposter, toward the end of their fourth year, and the telltale scar was clearly visible on the too pale skin, looking red and raw as though it had been cut anew.
His skin was so pale that it appeared nearly translucent, and though the backs of his arms were completely free of marks, no doubt due to the strongest healing charms, he could see several thick and raised areas along his neck and descending down under his shirt which was unbuttoned at the collar. It was only then that he realized that his old enemy was covered in a very thin sheen of sweat, and that every exposed muscle was shuddering, at a rate nearly triple what his own were doing at the same time.
"What happened to him?" he asked hesitantly, and all three knew that he wasn't speaking of the old injuries.
"Correct me if I am mistaken, Mr. Malfoy, but I believe that Voldemort punished many of you tonight" he said and Draco mutely nodded in assent.
"I believe then, that Harry was pulled into a vision of this punishment since the dark lord was in an especially angry mood, and due to the connection that they share through Harry's scar, he not only saw but felt the spells that were cast to some extent, by the looks of it, the Cruciatus curse" he finished heavily
"How will he be able to survive this, Albus?" asked Sirius as he gripped the limp hand of his godson
"We can only hope that his will is strong enough to stand up to it, for I fear that this is only the beginning and there is nothing else we can do, there is no potion that is able to block visions, and if the emotions of Voldemort are strong, like tonight, he could even be pulled into one while he is awake" he answered as he buried his head in his hands in an attempt to relieve the pressure that had been building behind his eyes all night long. "Mr. Malfoy, Severus, why don't you two retire to your rooms for the night, and please, Severus, could you brew some more post cruciatus potion tomorrow, I fear Harry will be needing it when he awakens, and many times after tonight. Sirius, you should get some sleep as well, he won't awaken until at least late morning and he will need you when he does. I shall be in my office if any of you need me" he said before standing and gently brushing the hair from Harry's face before he left the room with Snape and Draco behind him. Sirius stood and made his way back to his previous bed where he eventually fell into a restless sleep.
When Harry awoke, it was barely daylight and he could hear the sounds of muffled snores coming from somewhere off to his right, but other than that, the entire hospital wing was completely silent, allowing him some time to think about all that had happened in the last twenty four hours. Aside from his vision the night before, which he would like to think never happened but was proving difficult with the sharp pains and constant tremors that were attacking his muscles, the entire day had been complicated and tiring and more than a little shocking to say the least.
It was no longer a question of how this had all happened, but now more a question of where to go from here. He understood that everyone was more than sorry about what had happened, and that they were appalled at themselves for not discovering the truth sooner, but he had been stuck in hell for over five years and they had all believed that he, the boy-who- lived and the one to always lookout for others before himself, would turn traitor and join the one who he had spent his entire life fighting against. Sure, they had all apologized for what had happened, but was sorry enough to fix the wrongs? Could he ever begin to forgive them for this, or more importantly, trust anyone ever again after this? All those he had ever trusted had betrayed him, and trust was something that Harry Potter did not give easily, even before his capture thanks to his less than stellar childhood.
Now, the only question that remained after his silent musings was this; where do I go from here? Only time would ever hold the answer.
A/N: Sorry, hard drive crashed, next update will be sooner if I don't loose everything I write, TGTBT will be updated this weekend. Have a Happy Thanksgiving those who celebrate it. Thank you all and for those of you that asked, I'm much better now and my new colt, Dakota is doing great. I have pictures of him on my yahoo group as well as both of my girls that I lost. Let me know what you think of this, please!? ~Tismy~
He was standing in the main hall of Azkaban, a place he recognized, not from his own memories but from previous visions. Around him were hundreds of black clad death eaters, all with their hoods drawn up and their masks firmly in place, making them all appear identical save their heights.
Only one man was standing in the hall though, the rest were kneeling on the floor with their eyes downcast, all in utter silence. The one figure, though, caused Harry's stomach to lurch painfully as he watched him pace restlessly. Voldemort, the one responsible for everything that had gone wrong in his life and more pain than he thought imaginable was waiting for something.
It didn't take long though, for the thing he was waiting for to arrive, as mere moments later, the great stone doors at the end of the hall burst open and thirteen new figures entered, none of these wearing any sort of covering, clad instead in the typical robes of a death eater among the inner circle, and the sight of them almost made Harry even more sick as painful images assaulted his mind, for it was these thirteen men who were the only ones aware of his existence in that hell besides their master, and the ones who took sick pleasure in torturing him to the brink of sanity and life.
He could recognize each and every one of them by their footsteps alone, having heard them more often than he could count and he closed his eyes and tried to close his ears against the ghosts of pain and stinging words that they had each inflicted upon him.
"Lucius, I hope for your sake that you have something worthwhile to report" hissed the dark lord as the men stopped before him and bowed their heads in assign of respect for their leader.
"My Lord, the prison has been abandoned, no one remains, dead or alive" said the blonde man in a voice that rang through the hall and even though he was not looking, Harry knew that the others were nodding their heads in agreement with what the right hand man of Voldemort had reported.
"Fools!" cried he evil man so suddenly that Harry began to tremble "Because of you I have lost the only guarantee I had of winning this war!" he bellowed and Harry forced his eyes open just in time to see Voldemort brandish his wand onto one of his followers kneeling just before him and with a flash of green light the man fell to the floor dead before he realized what was happening.
"My Lord?" asked a voice from the front row as the inner circle took their places behind their lord to watch the proceedings.
"Speak" commanded the evil voice and at once the figure stood and began speaking and after only the first word, Harry recognized the voice as that of his school time rival, Draco Malfoy.
"Sir, what prisoner was so important that they could determine the outcome of the war? All of those who were held here had proved useless to your cause and were left here to be tortured to madness by the dementors until their eventual deaths? Were they not?" he asked, his head bowed the entire time.
As soon as the words had left his mouth, his master began laughing, that cold and heartless laugh that had haunted Harry's dreams for the entirety of his life and he felt as though his blood had turned to ice upon hearing it.
"You are quite mistaken, young Malfoy, but I will allow you to go unpunished for your cheek long enough to hear what I have to say. You are correct in assuming that the prisoners here were left to their own deaths and insanity, but there was one prisoner here that was only known about by my most trusted followers and myself, and it was he that I was trying to keep hidden for the time being, but due to the ineptitude of you fellows, he has managed to elude me yet again. You see, young Malfoy, there was one prisoner here that no one was to know about, and if that fool Dumbledore managed to get his muggle loving hands on him, we have all but lost this war."
"But m Lord, who could be so important that they could take away from us all that we have earned?" asked Draco
"Perhaps you are not as intelligent as your father led me to believe, Draco, but I will humor you long enough to answer your question. Hidden in a cell only known to myself and a select few of my followers was the boy- who-lived himself, and now, he is back in the hands of Dumbledore despite all that I have done to insure that he was never found" hissed the dark lord angrily, and with another green flash, another death eater fell down dead.
"My lord, I had thought that Harry Potter was dead, by the hands of his own godfather some time ago?" said Draco clearly confused
"You thought wrong, Draco, the person whom was killed by Sirius Black was one of my loyal servants who has been disguised as Potter since the night of our last meeting together, and the real Potter has been a prisoner of mine since that night" he answered, before turning his back on Draco and facing his inner circle, and at once, Malfoy Sr. stepped forward and inclined his head, asking permission to speak.
"Yes, Lucius?" asked Voldemort
"My Lord, Potter has been you prisoner for over five years now, it is highly unlikely that he will be sane enough, if he is even still alive, to be of any aid to the enemy, given the fact that he has been tortured relentlessly for the past years and the dementors haven't left his cell since the day he was brought here" he said and slowly a twisted smile crossed the dark lords features
"You might be correct Lucius, but that won't stop me from punishing those who caused me to loose him. Crucio!" he bellowed and Draco fell to the floor, screaming in agony, followed closely by many others as the entire inner circle began cursing the lower ranking death eaters.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Harry, feeling the pain of every curse Voldemort cast, was suffering as well thousands of miles away, but he bore his pains in silence for the nearly two hours that they lasted before he was thrown out of the vision.
Sirius was lying in the bed beside his godson, catching a few hours of sleep while the teenager did the same, but he was awakened suddenly by the sound of a faint gasp and shuffling from the bed beside him.
He was on his feet in an instant and stumbled over to his godson's side, delayed momentarily by his own clumsiness as he tripped over the foot of his bed and fell face first to the hard ground, but after a few choice curses, he was back on his feet again, rubbing a sore knee and leaning over Harry's bed.
"Harry? Harry!" he asked worriedly, but there was no reaction from the figure and Sirius blinked rapidly to clear his sleep fogged mind before he could truly comprehend what he was seeing, and when he did, he did the first thing he could think of "Madame Pomfrey!" he bellowed at the top of his lungs.
The nurse was at his side in an instant, seeing at once what he was so worked up about. Her patient was curled into a tight ball on his side, with one arm wrapped securely around his knees and the other palm pressed tightly to his forehead, but between the white fingers seeped a thin trail of dark red blood. His emaciated form was consistently being wracked with severe tremors, and his entire body was coated in a thin sheen of sweat.
"What happened?" she demanded immediately as she fumbled for her wand that had been up the sleeve of her robes.
"I don't know, I just woke up and saw him like this!" said Sirius frantically as Harry began to thrash about on the bed.
"Hold his shoulders down; we don't want him to hurt himself anymore than he already is" she commanded as she began to wave her wand over him, muttering spells under her breath the entire time. It was nearly five minutes later when she jumped back and brandished her wand around the ward, looking frantically into every shadowed corner, and at that moment, Harry fell limp and appeared to be unconscious, allowing Sirius to look toward the matron in curiosity.
"What is it, Poppy?" he asked as he regained his breath and wiped his own sweaty hair from his eyes.
"Shh, someone else is here" she whispered and at once, Sirius had his own wand in his hand, positioning himself between Harry's bed and the rest of the ward as he too looked around.
"How do you know?" he whispered back without looking at the woman.
"Harry was under the cruciatus curse" she said heavily, and upon hearing her words, Sirius nearly dropped his wand in shock and horror before he came back to his senses and in the blink of an eye, Padfoot stood in his place and began to sniff the air of the hospital wing thoroughly, and after a quick trip around the vast room, he transformed back into himself and pocketed his wand.
"There's no one here besides the three of us" he said in a normal voice as he turned back to Harry's bed where he gently turned the teenager back on to his back before he gently brushed the sweaty hair off the pale forehead, carefully avoiding the sore scar.
"Keep an eye on him for a minute, please Sirius, I'm going to go and tell the headmaster what has happened" she said as she turned and strode quickly back to her office and distantly he could hear her speaking to Dumbledore through the fire there.
She returned only a minute later and began to rummage through the cabinets in search of potions, which she apparently couldn't find because he then heard her speaking to Severus from her office as well before she again joined him beside the bed.
"Has he begun to wake up yet?" she asked as she again waved her wand over his form.
"No" answered Sirius as he watched her work, but when she raised his wrist to feel his pulse, he found himself speaking again "I thought you said that you had healed all of the scars that were on visible areas of his body?" he said as he caught sight of the underside of Harry's wrist where three parallel lines were clearly visible on the pale skin that was otherwise unmarked.
"I did, but not even I can remove scars from self inflicted wounds" she said absentmindedly as she used her wand to clear away the remaining traces of blood from Harry's forehead.
"Self inflicted wounds, what do you." Sirius began before he felt the blood drain from his own face as the meaning of her words sank in "Do you mean that he tried to.kill himself?" he asked quietly, stumbling slightly over the words.
Pomfrey looked at him sadly for a moment before organizing her answer into something both professional and yet reassuring for the man to hear "I think he did, Sirius, but the scars are quite old, and given what he has been forced to endure, we could have expected no less. Harry is one of the strongest people I have ever known, but he has been imprisoned and tortured for the last five years, and he is still only a teenager, a teenager who has been through more in the past nineteen years of his life than a dozen of the strongest wizards have been through put together. Now, will you please help me get him into some dry night cloths before the headmaster and Severus show up?" she asked, and Sirius put the more worrying thoughts from his mind in order to help her, and by the time they were done, the other two men had joined them in the room and he watched as Severus administered the post cruciatus potion while they were brought up to speed on what had happened a shortly before.
"Sirius, would you please help Severus search the grounds?" he asked and without argument, the two men began to stride toward the door of the wing, closing the curtains around the bed behind them. Before they had made it to the doors though, they opened of their own accord and in strode a familiar figure clad in the traditional robes of a death eater, the likes of which Snape himself had worn up until his discovery as a spy nearly two years before, escaping with his life thanks to the emergency portkey that Dumbledore had insisted he keep on his person at all times.
To the untrained eye, Draco appeared to be his normal, arrogant self, but to these two men, it was obvious that he had been punished for something that night, even though he tried to hide it.
"Do either of you know where the headmaster is?" he asked, forgoing the pleasantries and getting right to the point of the matter, but before they could respond, Dumbledore approached from behind them.
"Mr. Malfoy? Are you ok?" he asked immediately
"Fine, sir" he said briskly before striding the rest of the way across the room till he was standing directly in front of the three older men. "Headmaster, it's about Potter, he's not dead sir" he began bluntly
"I know, my boy" he said quietly as he laid a hand on Draco's shoulder
"No, you don't understand! It wasn't Potter who joined the death eaters! It was an imposter, a loyal follower posing as Potter, and it was he who was killed, not Potter" he said as he took a quick breath before continuing "Harry has been kept a prisoner of Voldemort's since the tournament in our fourth year. He was kept in a hidden cell and tortured by Voldemort and the inner circle, no one else knew he was even there, and now he's missing. If what my father said is true, we have to fine him, he's hurt and might or might not even be sane, but if Voldemort finds him first, we have nothing left and we have already lost this war" he said in a rush.
"Draco, come here, there is something I want you to see" said Dumbledore before turning to the other two "Gentlemen, please join us, I think I understand what has happened now" he said before striding back toward the enclosed bed with the other three close behind.
When Draco had returned from the meeting at Azkaban, after what felt like endless curses being thrown at him and his fellows, he proceeded directly to the headmasters office, but when he had learned that it was empty, he turned in the intent of going instead to the dungeons, but on his way there, he passed Nearly Headless Nick who had informed him that the headmaster had been seen hurrying in the direction of the hospital wing a short time before, so he changed his direction yet again.
He arrived in the white room out of breath and had the matter not been so urgent, he would have first requested a pain killing potion before he relayed the news, but not tonight. He had never been able to truly believe that Potter would willingly join the dark lord, not until he saw the black haired former classmate participating so willingly in one of their regular torturing sessions of a group of muggles, and the fanatical gleam in the cold green eyes had convinced him at once, and when Potter had been openly accepted as the heir of Voldemort and joined his master in the punishments of the less loyal or successful death eaters, he had known it in his heart as well.
This is why the news that he had received had affected him so, for he had believed for so long now that the one cursing him had been Potter when in fact, Potter had been subjected to the same treatment continuously for over five years, over a quarter of his life he had been tortured, and now, when they should all be out looking for the undoubtedly insane teenager, they were instead taking a jolly stroll through the hospital wing. Cursing silently to himself, Draco followed Dumbledore, Black and Snape to the very last bed in the wing, where curtains separated it from the view of the rest of the ward.
The aged headmaster walked wearily around the curtains, and when Draco joined him on the other side, he nearly gave into his urge to allow his jaw to hang open and fall to the floor in shock. There, on the bed only a meter from him was a figure that was so easily identifiable, yet so alien to him that he recognized it at once.
"Potter?" he asked in shock, looking to the headmaster for confirmation which he immediately gave in the form of a slight nod.
It was defiantly his school time rival, with the unmistakable black hair, albeit quite a bit longer than the last time he had seen him and not the imposter, toward the end of their fourth year, and the telltale scar was clearly visible on the too pale skin, looking red and raw as though it had been cut anew.
His skin was so pale that it appeared nearly translucent, and though the backs of his arms were completely free of marks, no doubt due to the strongest healing charms, he could see several thick and raised areas along his neck and descending down under his shirt which was unbuttoned at the collar. It was only then that he realized that his old enemy was covered in a very thin sheen of sweat, and that every exposed muscle was shuddering, at a rate nearly triple what his own were doing at the same time.
"What happened to him?" he asked hesitantly, and all three knew that he wasn't speaking of the old injuries.
"Correct me if I am mistaken, Mr. Malfoy, but I believe that Voldemort punished many of you tonight" he said and Draco mutely nodded in assent.
"I believe then, that Harry was pulled into a vision of this punishment since the dark lord was in an especially angry mood, and due to the connection that they share through Harry's scar, he not only saw but felt the spells that were cast to some extent, by the looks of it, the Cruciatus curse" he finished heavily
"How will he be able to survive this, Albus?" asked Sirius as he gripped the limp hand of his godson
"We can only hope that his will is strong enough to stand up to it, for I fear that this is only the beginning and there is nothing else we can do, there is no potion that is able to block visions, and if the emotions of Voldemort are strong, like tonight, he could even be pulled into one while he is awake" he answered as he buried his head in his hands in an attempt to relieve the pressure that had been building behind his eyes all night long. "Mr. Malfoy, Severus, why don't you two retire to your rooms for the night, and please, Severus, could you brew some more post cruciatus potion tomorrow, I fear Harry will be needing it when he awakens, and many times after tonight. Sirius, you should get some sleep as well, he won't awaken until at least late morning and he will need you when he does. I shall be in my office if any of you need me" he said before standing and gently brushing the hair from Harry's face before he left the room with Snape and Draco behind him. Sirius stood and made his way back to his previous bed where he eventually fell into a restless sleep.
When Harry awoke, it was barely daylight and he could hear the sounds of muffled snores coming from somewhere off to his right, but other than that, the entire hospital wing was completely silent, allowing him some time to think about all that had happened in the last twenty four hours. Aside from his vision the night before, which he would like to think never happened but was proving difficult with the sharp pains and constant tremors that were attacking his muscles, the entire day had been complicated and tiring and more than a little shocking to say the least.
It was no longer a question of how this had all happened, but now more a question of where to go from here. He understood that everyone was more than sorry about what had happened, and that they were appalled at themselves for not discovering the truth sooner, but he had been stuck in hell for over five years and they had all believed that he, the boy-who- lived and the one to always lookout for others before himself, would turn traitor and join the one who he had spent his entire life fighting against. Sure, they had all apologized for what had happened, but was sorry enough to fix the wrongs? Could he ever begin to forgive them for this, or more importantly, trust anyone ever again after this? All those he had ever trusted had betrayed him, and trust was something that Harry Potter did not give easily, even before his capture thanks to his less than stellar childhood.
Now, the only question that remained after his silent musings was this; where do I go from here? Only time would ever hold the answer.
A/N: Sorry, hard drive crashed, next update will be sooner if I don't loose everything I write, TGTBT will be updated this weekend. Have a Happy Thanksgiving those who celebrate it. Thank you all and for those of you that asked, I'm much better now and my new colt, Dakota is doing great. I have pictures of him on my yahoo group as well as both of my girls that I lost. Let me know what you think of this, please!? ~Tismy~