Disclaimer: The following characters, settings and referenced events are, and always will be, the property of J K Rowling.

– CHAPTER TEN –

The Wrong Step

On the way back to The Burrow, Ron peppered Harry with questions, none of which he consented to answer. All Harry would tell them (much to Ron's annoyance) was that they were to lay low at the Weasleys' for a couple of days while he took care of a few things, then they would proceed from there. In the meantime, they were not to talk about any of this, even amongst themselves. Ron still tried to argue and Hermione didn't make him any calmer by taking Harry's side, but Lupin managed to get him to (very grudgingly) agree to Harry's terms by the time Molly opened the kitchen door.

When Harry did return from his 'few things', he still wouldn't tell them what was going on. Mrs Weasley demonstrated her displeasure at this by refusing to let Ron go anywhere with Harry until they explained what they were up to. This led to the worst argument Harry had ever witnessed the Weasley family have and wondered if the bust-up with Percy had been in any way similar and, indeed, Ron went so far as to threaten to move in with his estranged brother and never speak to his mother again before Mrs Weasley finally broke down. Mr Weasley pulled her into his arms and pressed her head against his shoulder so she wouldn't see him waving Harry, Ron and Hermione away behind her back.

'Be careful,' he mouthed at them as they silently crept out the door.

'What are we doing here?' Ron screwed his nose up as they turned into Grimmauld Place.

'You'll see,' Harry grinned.

Hermione glanced around uncertainly. 'Something's wrong.'

'Stop being a panic merch –'

'Where's Sirius's house?'

Ron frowned at Hermione. 'What do you mean, where is it? It's right –' His jaw dropped as he looked at number eleven and number thirteen … and nothing in between. 'Er … Harry … I think someone stole your house.'

'This will make things clearer.' Harry fished a slip of parchment out of his pocket and passed it to Hermione.

'The residence of Harry James –'

'Not out loud,' Harry cautioned with a nervous glance along the street.

Hermione frowned at the message again and then glanced up.

'Oh!'

'What?' Ron craned his neck to see over her shoulder. 'That's like the note Dad showed us when we first –'

'Concentrate on it, Ron.' Hermione passed it over her shoulder to Ron. Without waiting for the note's magic to work on him, she started to cross the road towards the now-visible number twelve.

'OK, so nobody nicked it.' Ron scowled at them as he caught up. 'But like I said, why are we here?'

'You'll see.' Harry touched the black front door – a series of clicks could be heard as the door unbolted itself – then he ushered his friends inside.

Much to Ron and Hermione's dismay, Harry promptly led them down to the kitchen.

'It's OK, you can breathe,' Harry told them as he opened the kitchen door; they were starting to turn blue.

'What the –'

Hermione jabbed Ron hard in the back to stop him saying something he shouldn't, but it was more from habit than conscious intent. Both of them gaped, astonished, at the room before them.

'You did all of this in two days?' Hermione asked as she slowly stepped into an extremely clean kitchen. Dumbledore nodded from his seat at the head of the table. 'Oh, I have so got to learn your housekeeping charms.'

Dumbledore chuckled. 'Actually, it was Remus Lupin who did most of the work, with assistance from Harry.'

'Did you get rid of Mrs Black, too?' Ron was peering closely at the table. Apparently satisfied that there were absolutely no traces of house-elf (mashed or skeletal), he pulled out a chair and sat down.

'I already told you, Ron; the only way we're going to get rid of that portrait is to take down the wall.' Hermione sounded impatient as she accepted Dumbledore's offer of a seat. 'So, what do we do now?' She gazed at Dumbledore expectantly.

'Good morning to you, too, Miss Granger.' Dumbledore's moustache twitched a moment at Hermione's uncharacteristic lack of manners. He glanced up at Harry before she could redden too much. 'I think we're ready now, Harry.'

Harry closed the door and sat down at the end of the table opposite Dumbledore.

'The first meeting of the Lazarus Club shall now come to order.'

'Huh?'

Ron looked from one end of the table to the other, clearly at a loss, but Hermione sat up straighter, eager excitement all over her face.

'What's the Lazarus Club?' Ron was still staring at them stupidly.

'It's the name I've decided to give to the people who know about Dumbledore,' Harry explained. 'Total membership: seven.'

Ron frowned in concentration, counting his fingers. 'Who's the seventh?'

'Fawkes.' Dumbledore stroked the head of the phoenix resting on his lap.

'Oh … OK … So what now?'

'Well, for a start, I thought you might like to know what I've been doing the past couple of days.' Harry drew Ron's attention away from Dumbledore.

'Cleaning this place.' Ron took a deep, appreciative breath.

'Yes, well, I couldn't have Dumbledore trying to cook in here with it like it was, could I?'

'And what's Dumbledore doing here, anyway?' Ron turned back to the former headmaster. 'Aren't you worried someone from the Order might see you?'

'Only the Lazarus Club can find this place,' said Harry.

'What do you mean only –? How did Fred and George turn up on the doorstep?'

Dumbledore frowned quizzically at Harry.

'Last Sunday,' Harry explained. 'But … that was before yesterday.'

'Yesterday? What happened –?'

'Be quiet, Ron; let Harry explain.'

Ron scowled at Hermione.

'Yesterday, I went to Hogwarts,' Harry told them. 'I told McGonagall I'd take that job –'

'What? You said – OW!'

Hermione slapped Ron's hand

'– and I got Professor Flitwick to perform the Fidelius Charm upon me.'

'Oh!' said Hermione.

'What?' cried Ron.

'Oh, isn't it obvious, Ron? Harry's Secret Keeper!' Hermione stared at Harry in amazement.

'But I thought … aren't you –?' Ron turned to Dumbledore, confused.

'I was Secret Keeper for the location of the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, it is true,' said Dumbledore quietly. 'But that organisation is now based at Hogwarts. This building –' he swept his hand in a wide arc, '– is now nothing more nor less than Harry's house, though still complete with its protective wards. It is because of this protection that Harry has graciously given me leave to use it as my hideout.' The blue eyes twinkled at Harry.

'So why is Harry Secret Keeper?'

'So nobody from the Order of the Phoenix can accidentally stumble upon us. They won't be able to find this place because I haven't told them about it.' Harry grinned at his friends.

'Does that mean Mum can't come barging in here?' Ron wanted to know.

Harry nodded.

'Great! I'm staying right here!' Ron jabbed his finger twice on the table for emphasis, but a moment later his grin slipped. 'Er … wait up … you said only people in this Lazarus Club can get into this place, right?'

'Yes.' Dumbledore watched Ron closely, his moustache twitching ever so slightly as if at some private joke.

'Does that mean Snape can rock up here without warning?'

'Professor Snape is able to gain entry to this house, yes.' Again, the moustache twitched.

'I've changed my mind,' Ron glared at Harry, as if blaming him for letting Snape in on his secret. 'I'll take Mum over Snape any day!'

Despite his avowal not to stick around, Ron spent most of the remaining holidays at Grimmauld Place with Harry and Hermione, cleaning the house under Dumbledore's guidance. At the end of the meeting, Dumbledore had produced Slytherin's locket, which both Ron and Hermione had examined at close quarters. It was no longer readily identifiable as the locket from Hokey's memory (the snake engraved upon the crest had melted into the gold surface), but charms performed upon it by Dumbledore and Snape had left both professors convinced that it had at one time been a Horcrux but was no longer.

Snape returned each evening to administer Dumbledore's 'treatment', which was the cue for the three teenagers to make themselves scarce, and Lupin came to see them just after the full moon, looking tired and pale but bringing lots of news, the most important being that Amelia Bones's brother, Alan, had been found dead behind the Leaky Cauldron.

'Isn't he Susan's father?' asked Hermione.

Lupin nodded. 'They must have really taken him by surprise; he didn't even get a chance to draw his wand.'

The day after Lupin's visit, while clearing out Sirius's old room, Harry found a small mirror tucked away in the bottom of the sock drawer. It looked familiar.

'It is indeed a Two-Way Mirror, Harry.' Dumbledore looked up from his inspection of it. 'Where did you find it?'

'In a drawer.'

'There was only the one?'

Harry felt his face grow warm as he explained about the mirror's mate.

'Well, it is no longer any use as a Two-Way,' Dumbledore sighed. 'But it still functions perfectly as a plain mirror. May I keep this?'

Harry had been reaching for it but quickly pulled his hand back. 'Er … sure … if you want,' he said, trying to cover his embarrassment.

Four days before school was due to start again, letters arrived with their booklists as well as Head Boy and Head Girl badges for Ron and Hermione ('You'll have to go home for dinner tonight,' Dumbledore told them, smiling broadly. 'Molly will insist upon a celebratory feast.')

Harry's letter, on the other hand, included a not-so-welcome surprise.

… I shall need your Lesson Plans for the first term's classes delivered to myself no later than ten p.m. on 31 August.

Yours sincerely

Minerva McGonagall

Headmistress

Lesson Plans? For a whole term? Despite not being a novice when it came to teaching, Harry's mind was suddenly blank. How was he supposed to devise classes for five years? Suddenly he wished he hadn't allowed Dumbledore to convince him to change his mind. Dumbledore! Harry's panic diminished slightly. Dumbledore got him into this, so Dumbledore could get him out.

'No, Harry; I shall not draw up your lesson plans for you.' Dumbledore gazed up at Harry's disgruntled face with infuriating calmness. 'What I shall do, however, is provide guidance. Despite your current feelings of self-doubt, you are quite capable of completing this task yourself.'

So, while Ron and Hermione went to Diagon Alley to get their supplies for the new school year (although Harry suspected it was just an excuse to be alone together – despite being extremely large, the house didn't have many safe hiding places), Harry settled down at the kitchen table with several scrolls of parchment.

It was no easy task. McGonagall's advice to him when he had first accepted the job had been to draw upon what he had been taught during each of his years at Hogwarts but, since one teacher had been afraid of his own subject, one suffered pure narcissism, one actively worked to stop him learning anything and one continually failed him out of spite, it wasn't much to go on. Even Moody's 'Constant vigilance!', while in character, had merely been an act. Only Remus Lupin had ever taught classes which Harry both enjoyed and really learnt from.

But that was only one year.

'It would help if I knew what students are supposed to know at each level,' he complained to Dumbledore as he poured over the books Sirius and Remus had given him for Christmas during fifth year.

'Minerva didn't give you a copy of the school's curriculum?' Dumbledore glanced up from the volume he had been flicking through. 'That was most remiss of her.' He reached across for a sheet of parchment.

Curiosity and puzzlement battling with each other, Harry watched as Dumbledore waved a wand over the blank page.

'Admittedly, I am not acquainted with procedures since Minerva has taken charge, but I am familiar with details of the curriculum when I was headmaster. I believe you shall find this sufficient to be going on with.'

Harry stammered his thanks as he gazed at the page now completely covered with Dumbledore's thin, slanting handwriting, providing a most detailed description of what Hogwarts students could be expected to know at the end of each year with regards to defending themselves against the Dark Arts. Right up to the N.E.W.T. exam. That would come in extremely handy if Fulstrum turned out like Umbridge and Harry ended up having to teach himself again.

The party that night was a buffet affair. Mrs Weasley was torn between uncontrollable exuberance and bitter disappointment that Ron would be the last Head in the family, Ginny not being a prefect.

'What I don't understand is,' Harry mused to Lupin over a thick slice of apple and rhubarb pie, 'you were the male Gryffindor prefect, right?'

Lupin nodded.

'Well, when I first found out about all of this and my mum and dad, Hagrid told me that they were Head Boy and Girl in their seventh year. How could Dad have been Head Boy if you were prefect?'

'Because I was no longer prefect.' Lupin lowered his voice 'It took Severus more than a year, but he finally came up with a serious enough threat that Dumbledore backed down and recalled my badge.

'What was the threat?'

'I don't know; Dumbledore never told me. Mind you, Severus didn't get it all his own way; Dumbledore promptly made James not just prefect, but Head Boy.'

'I bet Snape loved that.'

Lupin smiled wryly. 'I think it was Dumbledore's way of teaching him that actions have consequences.'

'What about all the trouble Dad got into with Sirius?'' Harry thought of all the detention cards Snape had made him rewrite.

'What about all the trouble Ron has gotten into with you?' Remus threw back.

Harry couldn't think if anything to say to that. He took a moment to swallow his dessert.

'So you would have been Head if Snape hadn't –'

'I don't think so.' Lupin accepted a cup of tea from Mrs Weasley. 'Of the four of us who had been prefect in sixth year, I would say Geoffrey Andrews, a Muggle-born Ravenclaw, had been the most likely candidate. But he and his family were killed over the holidays, and out of James, Geoffrey's replacement and the other two boys, James had the best qualities.'

Harry stared at Lupin, his second slice of pie forgotten. 'Voldemort –?'

'No, neither he nor any of the Death Eaters were responsible, at least according to Dumbledore … and his conclusions usually ended up being right.'

'Then how –?'

'Car crash. Mr Andrews had a history of heart disease and apparently had a heart attack at the wheel. It was just their time, I guess.'

Harry stared down at his plate. He didn't think he would ever agree with that one, that the time could be right for a young life to be suddenly and tragically ended. As far as he was concerned, it would never be time.

x

When Harry got downstairs on the morning of September first, he expected to find the usual chaotic pandemonium of the last-minute rush to get everybody and everything ready to be at platform nine and three quarters by eleven o'clock. Instead, he found the kitchen extremely quiet. Mr Weasley was staring out of the window, Mrs Weasley was packing three loaves of sandwiches, looking very content with the state of the world and two grim-looking wizards in dark robes were in front of the fireplace.

Mr Weasley turned away from the window as Harry came in but refused to look at him, glancing, instead, at the two strangers very briefly.

'Harry.' He cleared his throat nervously; Harry had the impression he was a little afraid of the men. 'This is Nigel Blackthorn (short and fat, Blackthorn's beady, extremely pale eyes narrowed) and Horatio Plaxton (the tall, thin one grunted curtly). 'They're with the Ministry of Magic. They're your bodyguards.'

Harry supposed it shouldn't have been too unexpected for the Ministry to provide protection for him until he safely got onto the Express; it certainly wasn't the first time they had kept an eye on him, but they had always made an attempt at subtlety before. It was the first time they had purposely drawn attention to themselves.

'They'll be working a split shift,' Mr Weasley continued. 'Blackthorn will be guarding you during the day and Plaxton will take over at seven each evening.'

Harry blinked. 'What, they're going to be on the train with me?' That would make talking to Ron and Hermione difficult.

'They're going to be with you all the time from now on, until You-Know-Who has been taken care of,' Mrs Weasley piped up. 'So there'll be no more looking for trouble, young man.'

'I've never gone looking for trouble –'

'Nevertheless, you always manage to find it!' She was all ruffled, like an angry hen. 'And as for this ridiculous suggestion that you're the one who's supposed to destroy …' She took a gulping breath 'You can get that idea out of your head right now. You just concentrate on your studies like a normal boy and leave far more dangerous matters to the experts!'

Harry couldn't believe Ron's mother was siding with the Ministry. 'I'm not a boy anymore,' he growled through gritted teeth. 'I'm seventeen. And even when I was a boy, I certainly wasn't normal.' He pointed at his scar. 'I'm not a kid and you're not my mother, so stop trying to keep me locked in a cage. I had enough of that at the Dursleys.

'As for you two,' Harry turned his fury on the Ministry employees. 'You can take me to King's Cross, if you must, but once I get on the train, I fall under McGonagall's protection. The Ministry has no jurisdiction at Hogwarts.' He glared at them.

'We may not have jurisdiction over Hogwarts,' Blackthorn reached inside his robes and removed a roll of parchment, 'but we do have jurisdiction over you.' He tossed the scroll onto the table.

Harry picked it up warily and broke the seal. His eyes scanned down the page, the pink-inked words changing his anger to horror.

'She can't do this!' Harry threw the scroll back at Blackthorn.

'Unfortunately, she can,' Mr Weasley mumbled to the table. He was still refusing to look at Harry.

'Too bad! There's no way I'm agreeing to that!'

'It's a little late to try to back out now.' Blackthorn's face was completely expressionless. 'You sealed the agreement when you broke the seal.'

Harry glared at all four of them, but if he was expecting them to back down, he could tell immediately from the looks on their faces that it was going to be a long wait. With an angry cry, he turned to storm from the room and promptly bumped into Ron, making the trunk he was levitating fall with a loud CRASH! All Ron could do was stare in bewilderment at Harry's disappearing back as he struggled to his feet.

'What's wrong with you?' Ron caught up with Harry at the top of the first flight of stairs, blocking his way. 'Who are those two blokes?'

'Laurel and Hardy.'

'What do they – can I help you with something?'

'What?' Harry looked back over his shoulder and saw that Blackthorn had followed them. He gritted his teeth.

'Ignore him.' He tried to push past Ron.

'Why, who is he?'

'My bodyguard.'

'Your – what?'

'Bodyguard.' Harry ground out. 'Hardy here does days, Laurel does nights. The Ministry's got them watching me twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, until Voldemort has been destroyed. And if I try to stop them doing their job, I'll be arrested and promptly sent straight to Azkaban.'

Ron's jaw dropped. 'What? What idiot came up with that?'

'Umbridge, of course. And Scrimgeour's right behind her.'

'Well, stuff that. That …'

'Ron! You're Head Boy. You shouldn't be using language like that anymore.' On their way down to the kitchen with their trunks, Hermione and Ginny had arrived in time to hear Ron's colourful description of Umbridge.

'You're never going to guess what the Ministry has come up with this time,' Ron told them as the girls began to look the newcomer over curiously. He quickly explained what was going on. Harry had expected Hermione to be quite startled at this new development but instead she seemed to be even angrier than he was.

'Well, we'll see about that!' She pushed past Blackthorn roughly, knocking him off balance. As he rolled to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, she gave a horrified cry, covered her mouth with her hands, and turned and ran back up the stairs, her trunk left abandoned on the landing.

With an uncertain glance back down at Blackthorn (he was starting to move), Harry hurried up the stairs after her.

He found her coming out of Ron's room with Harry's Invisibility Cloak and the Marauders' Map.

'What –?'

'Shhh.' Hermione glanced past his shoulder as she donned the Cloak. 'I'll sneak these into my trunk in case the Minister wants his people to search yours.'

'Oh, OK. Yeah, that's a good idea. Thanks.' Harry grinned at where she had been.

'See you downstairs,' he heard her whisper as she brushed past him.

Once all students and trunks were gathered in the kitchen, (along with unwanted guests), they began the task of loading everything into two cars from the Ministry. Harry had a feeling Blackthorn's presence had more to do with the loaner than he did, despite it being a blatant attempt at providing as much protection for him as possible. Not that he was complaining. In no time at all, they were pulling up in King's Cross.

Being bustled through the station, his arm gripped tightly by a short, fat man, was not Harry's idea of unobtrusive behaviour, especially since they were starting to attract the attention of the station guards, and he began to wonder just how good these guys were meant to be at their job.

He had just gotten level with the barrier between platforms nine and ten when something slammed hard into his shoulder, knocking him sideways. As he hit the ground, his wand flew out of his hand. He reached for it automatically but, before he moved more than an inch, strong ropes wrapped around his body, pinning both legs together and one arm against his side, the other stretched uselessly towards a pair of expensive, well-polished shoes poking beneath the hem of a dark cloak.

'Take a wrong turn, Potter?' Draco Malfoy's voice tutted as he grabbed Harry's free arm and pressed a bent galleon into his outstretched hand.

Harry's heart pumped with panic; he was bound, wandless and completely at Malfoy's mercy. Where was his stupid bodyguard when he needed him?

'The Dark Lord wants to speak to you,' continued Malfoy as he curled Harry's fingers around the coin. 'Mustn't keep him waiting, must we?'

Harry caught a brief glimpse of a slit hood and mask as colour rushed at him in an explosive kaleidoscope, then he was landing on a hard, stone surface.

He didn't even get a chance to get his breath back. All the warning he got was a familiar voice snarling the word 'Crucio', then his body was wracked with extreme pain as he writhed like a snake on the cold surface. Laughter erupted around him. Then Malfoy also cried 'Crucio' and Harry gritted his teeth together against the new lightning bolt of pain but it didn't come. Instead, he heard Malfoy hiss angrily. 'He's my prisoner; I'm the one who brought him for our Master.'

'And you think that makes you special?' the first voice sneered.

'It makes me more special than you,' said Malfoy. 'You told the others he was to be saved for our master but then you just let him go while you escaped. You could have brought him here but you didn't!' Harry could picture the self-satisfied gleam in Malfoy's eyes as he stared down his former Head of House.

'No.' Snape sounded unconcerned. 'I merely stepped into your shoes and carried out the Dark Lord's order to permanently stop Dumbledore being a threat when you proved too weak for the task.'

More laughter echoed around the room but it was much less enthusiastic than when Harry had been tortured. It was almost as though the other Death Eaters (at least, Harry assumed that was who they were) were afraid of Snape. Perhaps his fake assassination of Dumbledore had moved him deeper into Voldemort's circle, after all.

'Bickering, gentlemen?'

Harry's heart froze. All sound and movement around him stopped so suddenly, it was as if someone had cast a Freezing charm. A stillness as cold as winter seemed to penetrate every corner of the room.

'I do not permit dissension amongst my followers. Perhaps you need to be reminded of that fact.' The air around Harry glowed red as both Snape and Malfoy fell to the floor, screaming. More nervous laughter echoed through the room.

'Silence!' Voldemort's patience was very thin. 'I trust you have both learned to behave properly,' the cold voice almost hissed. 'Or do I need to continue the lesson?'

'No, Master.' Snape sounded suitably penitent, but Malfoy's reply seemed to be dragged from him letter by letter.

'Then you shall both apologise to each other and we shall then forget this … transgression.'

More tension thickened the air.

'I apologise, Draco, for drawing your attention to your weaknesses.'

Angry silence greeted Snape's words.

'Draco.' Voldemort seemed to be enjoying humiliating Snape and Malfoy. 'We are waiting.'

More silence.

'Now!'

Malfoy gave a small yelp; Harry suspected Voldemort had zapped him.

'I'm sorry if anything I said offended you, Professor.' Again, it sounded as though the words were being drawn from between Malfoy's lips with utmost reluctance.

'I accept your apology, Draco.' Snape's tone was free of any traces of animosity, anger or even sarcasm. 'And I thank you for accepting my apology.'

Despite Voldemort's insistence that the two combatants kiss and make up, Harry was pretty sure Malfoy was neither sorry for his attack nor had he forgiven Snape for reminding him of his failure to follow orders. If he knew Malfoy, this matter certainly wasn't over. He would find some way to pay Snape back for the humiliation and pain he had just suffered.

'Now that we are all friends again, perhaps you would like to explain exactly why you were disagreeing with Mr Malfoy –'

'He was jealous because I managed to bring you something which he couldn't,' said Malfoy boastfully before Snape could get a word in.

Once again, a nervous titter vibrated through the Death Eaters, punctuated by an air of anticipation that they would get to witness more pain being inflicted upon a hapless victim and relief that the victim was not them. They were not disappointed as Malfoy fell to the floor once more, screaming. Perhaps it was lack of experience or perhaps he felt that, because he was a Malfoy, he was better than his fellows, but he certainly had not learnt how to play this game very well.

Finally, the screams stopped.

'Very well, Draco, since you are so keen to speak for Snape, what is this … gift … you have brought for your master?'

It took a moment for Malfoy to do or say anything; he was probably still trying to recover from the double assault of the Cruciatus curse.

'This!' A hard shoe kicked Harry in the ribs, rolling him towards Voldemort.

'Well, well, well,' hissed Voldemort. 'Harry Potter.' Unable to do anything else due to the ropes still wrapped tightly around his body, Harry put as much defiance into his expression as he possibly could as he glared up at those hateful red eyes. 'This is indeed a most unexpected, and extremely pleasant, surprise.

'Do all of you see the gift young Mr Malfoy has brought to your master?' Voldemort commanded the attention of every Death Eater present. 'He has succeeded where the rest of you have failed and brought me the one thing which I desire more than anything else in the entire world. Who would have thought you capable of such an achievement, Draco? I could almost forgive your weakness of June, when you failed to perform a simple task – putting a weak, old man out of his misery.'

The red eyes gleamed as they gazed down at his treasured prize, then closed as he threw his head back, ecstasy spreading across the snake-like visage. 'Let me just take a moment to absorb this happy moment.' Not a sound was heard as Voldemort immersed himself in the warm waters of desire, satisfaction and anticipation that he would finally complete the task he had begun nearly sixteen years earlier.

For the first time since Malfoy had abducted him, Harry felt really scared. Not that he was afraid to die, quite the contrary – he had faced death enough times during his short life – but this was not the way he wanted that life to end. He hadn't said goodbye to Ron and Hermione, nobody would know what had happened to him, and he would be letting Dumbledore down.

Voldemort opened his eyes again and held out one long-nailed hand. 'His wand, if you please, Draco.'

Malfoy just stared at the waiting hand, his pale eyes behind the mask starting to quiver with fear. Voldemort turned his red eyes towards the terrified young man standing beside Harry.

'You did catch his wand when you disarmed our guest.'

Harry wondered why Voldemort would word his request as a statement rather than a question, but a moment later, Malfoy was screaming on the floor again, his mask in Voldemort's hand.

'Do not hide yourself from me, boy. You have no secrets which I cannot discover.' Another jet of red light from the end of Voldemort's wand sent Malfoy sliding across the floor to crash hard into the far wall.

'You let him drop it?' Voldemort was almost whispering, but Malfoy jumped as if it had been an ear-splitting scream. 'What difference does that make?' he added as Malfoy opened his mouth to speak. 'You see, your every thought is mine to know.' The lipless mouth stretched in an evil grin. 'It makes a great deal of difference. Unlike your pathetic young self, I come from an era where manners were valued and the word "gentleman" commanded respect. It would be most ungentlemanly of me not to give our guest a sporting chance. This shall be an important day in the history of wizardkind: my final victory over the once-famous Harry Potter. Would you have the history books say I only succeeded in defeating him because he was defenseless and wandless?' The red eyes narrowed.

Malfoy tried to stammer an answer but seemed incapable of speech and settled, instead, for a nervous shake of his head.

'No,' Voldemort almost purred. 'I want history to record that I vanquished our infamous little friend because I was indisputably the more powerful wizard. And the only way I can prove that is if we duel … properly … wand against wand.'

Still shaking from head to foot, Malfoy threw his own wand at his master's feet. Voldemort glanced down at the thin length of timber and smiled coldly.

'While the offer is to be commended, I am afraid it shall not do. A wizard does not choose the wand, Mr Malfoy, the wand chooses the wizard. Whilst I have no doubt Mr Potter would be able to make a valiant attempt with your wand, Draco, we must not forget that it is your wand, and our young friend would be at a disadvantage. I am afraid it would be ungentlemanly to duel under those circumstances. No, we shall duel against each other with our own wands … or not at all. And your achievement in bringing Mr Potter to me would no longer be worthy of reward. Only punishment.' The red eyes drifted up to meet Malfoy's. 'So you know what to do, don't you? Do not return empty-handed.'

Malfoy looked like he was going to wet himself as he nodded, once more seemingly unable to make his voice work properly. He turned slightly and vanished with a loud crack, no doubt returning to King's Cross station to retrieve Harry's wand.

'While we wait for our young friend, let us indulge in a little amusement to prepare the mood for this evening's celebrations,' Voldemort addressed the remaining Death Eaters. 'One of my loyal servants taught Mr Potter here how to fight against the Imperious Curse, so let us play a little game. Let us see how long it takes for one of you to break through Mr Potter's defences and, thus, break him. And, as incentive for our friend to put up a good fight and not give up too soon, once one of you has broken him, that one shall then be the first to lead the next round of the game – the Cruciatus curse.'

Hisses of anticipation echoed above Harry as several of the Death Eaters expressed their delight at the chance to inflict pain upon a defenseless victim.

'But do not overdo it,' instructed Voldemort. 'I would have our guest strong enough to stand when he faces his death.' The red eyes flashed triumphantly as he turned and walked away from them, leaving Harry lying bound in the centre of a group of power-thirsty Death Eaters.

Harry had no idea how long he endured the assault; time was sort of swallowed up in the struggle against the blissful numbness of a blank mind. It would have made everything so much easier to succumb to the nothingness and just do the things the Death Eaters were telling him to do, but the memory of Snape's recent Cruciatus helped to keep him focused. Just.

He had tried to keep track of the time by counting the number of attempts he had thwarted, but that didn't really help much. Even allowing only a minute for each turn, they had to have been at it for at least three hours. The only good thing which this achieved was that the Death Eaters seemed to be running out of ideas. Two whom Harry was pretty sure were Amycus and Alecto, the brother and sister who had been on top of the Astronomy Tower in June, had only had the one original thought between them – getting Harry to take off all his clothes. Considering he hadn't been released from Malfoy's ropes, they weren't about to see their wish fulfilled any time soon.

Although he took Harry's resistance against the endless Imperios as confirmation that he would indeed be destroying a great wizard, meaning that he would be an even greater one, Voldemort eventually became frustrated at Malfoy's slow return (Harry wondered if he had run into the bodyguard), and altered the rules of the game, ordering that the Death Eaters' curses were all to be cast non-verbally.

This made it much harder to fight against, as Harry no longer had voices in his head telling him what to do. Instead, he felt an overwhelming desire to do the most ridiculous things, on impulse. Nobody was telling him to do them; he just wanted to do them. They were his ideas, his whims, his needs. He had struggled like crazy to obey the first craving but the ropes wouldn't let him. This had made him aware of the change in tactics and he had concentrated really hard to remember the sensation he was feeling when the second craving built up. Four later, he had the desire pegged.

Then Snape had his turn, and Harry suddenly found himself wanting to give in to the desire to roll over twice to his left and touch his right hand to Malfoy's Portkey which Snape was hiding with his boot.

Harry didn't know what to do. The bent galleon Malfoy had used as a Portkey had slipped from Harry's fingers when he had arrived but he hadn't seen where it had rolled to. Was Snape really standing on it? What if he was trying to trick Harry? What if it was just a trap to upgrade the game to the next level, giving Snape first go at performing the Cruciatus curse again?

Not willing to risk that happening, Harry fought against the desire and stayed lying right where he was. The dark eyes just visible through the mask above him flashed angrily. Harry knew he hadn't heard the last of it. Seven times, Snape forced the desire on Harry as his turn came around and seven times Harry remained unmoved.

Finally, as he went to take his ninth turn since the non-verbal rules were introduced, Snape raised the toe of his left boot. Something gold flashed briefly before the boot once more pressed it into the floor, but it proved to Harry that it was finally time to end the game.

Rolling twice to his left, Harry's hand came to rest on Snape's boot. Hidden by the hem of his robes, the foot moved back and Harry's hand dropped to the floor, the bent edges of Malfoy's coin cutting into his palm.

'Congratulations, Snape.' Voldemort led a round of unenthusiastic applause. Harry would have thought the Death Eaters would be glad that the pointless part of the game had ended; they would be much more successful with the next stage, as well as satisfying their desire for inflicting as much pain as possible. 'You may fire when ready.'

Harry's fingers had only just folded around the Portkey when Snape's curse hit him, almost making him drop his only means of escape. But Snape seemed to have anticipated Harry's lapse for his boot was suddenly on top of his hand, crushing the knuckles beneath its weight.

But only for a moment. As the weight just as suddenly lifted, colour and wind whirled around him, at him, sending him rushing back to Platform nine and three quarters.

'Harry, are you all right?'

Harry kept his eyes closed tight, waiting for the spinning to stop. When he finally opened them, he found that, even though the ropes had disappeared, the spinning had gotten worse; so bad, his stomach seemed to forget which way was down.

'Feel a bit better?' There was that voice again. Even though it was female, it wasn't Hermione or Ginny, but Harry was certain he had heard it before. He tried to remember why it was familiar but the effort made his head explode, causing him to throw up again.

'Obviously not.' The voice sounded amused and sympathetic at the same time. 'Just hang in there, Harry, the Rambleance will be here soon.'

'I don't need an ambulance,' Harry tried to say but his tongue was still revolting against the taste of vomit. He rolled away from the former contents of his stomach, squeezing his eyes shut to stop the spinning making him throw up again. He tried to count to ten slowly, but couldn't remember what came after seven. He tried three times but eventually gave up.

Deciding that three sevens had to be more than ten, he risked opening his eyes a crack. A face spun slowly into view.

'What are you doing here?'

Patricia Capsworth smiled down at him. 'Hermione Granger said you missed the train, so I came back to find out what had happened. When I got here, I found Rufus arguing with Delores Umbridge because Blackthorn allowed you to disappear from right under his nose. Neither of them had a clue where you were, but both of them were quite angry that I was trying to interfere. Then one of Lord Voldemort's Death Eaters turned up, but neither the Minister nor Delores reacted as they should have. The Death Eater managed to Stun Scrimgeour before I Stunned him. Delores got quite a surprise when we unmasked Scrimgeour's attacker. It turned out to be –'

'Malfoy,' groaned Harry.

Capsworth nodded slowly. 'So he did have something to do with your disappearance?'

'He had everything to do with it.' Harry struggled not to throw up again. 'He kidnapped me and took me to Voldemort.'

Capsworth frowned. 'Voldemort had you in his grasp for five hours and he didn't kill you?'

Harry shook his head, then promptly screwed his eyes shut again as the world took yet another funny turn. He tried to clamp his mouth shut but was too late; Madam Capsworth had yet another pool of vomit to clean up. When he could finally breathe again, he answered her properly.

'He didn't even try. He said he wanted us to duel, so he could boast that he had defeated me in proper battle, not just murdered me all tied up, unable to defend myself. That's why he sent Malfoy back here. He wanted me to fight using my own wand so nobody could say I had been unfairly disadvantaged at all. Oh,' he gasped, remembering. 'My wand –'

'It's all right, Harry.' Madam Capsworth held him down. 'It's here, safe and sound.' She gave him a small wink as she pulled back the side of her robes, revealing the handle of Harry's wand. 'So you've just been lying in Voldemort's hideout all this time, waiting for Lucius's son to return?'

'No,' groaned Harry; he didn't trust himself to shake his head. He started to explain about the Imperius Curse but only got part way through when a loud bang almost made him jump out of his skin and a long black vehicle appeared out of nowhere, skidding to a halt beside them. Harry blinked. It was a hearse; it even had a wreathed-topped coffin in the back. Along its side, red letters spelt out the words St Mungo's Rambleance.

Two wizards wearing blood-coloured robes jumped out, looking like something out of the Spanish Inquisition and, while one proceeded to run an assortment of metal tools over Harry from head to foot, the other grabbed Harry's arm and took his pulse.

'Got a deceased one here, Basil,' he said cheerily to his partner.

'Deceased?' Harry was certain he hadn't heard correctly. 'What on earth makes you think I'm deceased?'

'You ain't got no pulse, mate,' the wizard squeezing his arm replied as though nothing could be plainer, not at all perturbed that a dead person was talking to him. 'And not surprising.' He glanced across at Basil's instruments. 'You've been through the wringer, you 'ave. Over three 'undred Imperius – 'ang on, tha' can't be right!' He threw Basil an accusatory glare. 'Your tools on the blink again?'

'Must be, Cyril.' Basil shook a multi-limbed instrument hard, making one of the arms fly off and narrowly miss taking Madam Capsworth's eye out. She snatched the errant tool off him before any more damage could be done.

'Oy!'

'Could we please just get Harry to hospital?' The coolness Patricia Capsworth had used when dealing with Scrimgeour and Umbridge was now being concentrated upon the two Rambleance officers.

''Ospital?' Both men stared at her with amused grins. 'It'll be the morgue for this one.'

'Will you lot stop saying I'm dead?'

'Now, now, mate, if we say you're dead, then you're dead.' Cyril patted Harry on the head as Basil packed up his instruments. 'Come on, now, up you get into the back.'

Harry felt like he was back with the Death Eaters. These blokes couldn't be for real. It had to be an aftereffect of all those Imperiuses.

'If Harry is dead,' said Madam Capsworth exasperatedly, 'how on earth is he supposed to sit up?'

Cyril and Basil looked at each other; clearly, this hadn't occurred to them.

'She does 'ave a point, Cyril,' said Basil. The pair of them grabbed one of Harry's shoulders each and pulled him up. Everything spun like crazy again and Harry's stomach reacted violently.

'Easy there, mate.' Neither Rambleance officer seemed too troubled by the fact that Harry had just thrown up all over them, although Basil did seem to have some doubts.

'Ere, Cyril. Are you sure 'e's dead?'

'Course 'e's dead. I told ya, 'e ain't got no pulse. Why?'

'It's just that dead people don' usually go spewing all over everything,' Basil pointed out. 'Maybe we better take 'im to the 'ospital after all.'

Cyril nodded his head slowly. 'Yeah, maybe we better.'

Now that they finally believed they might be dealing with an extremely ill live person rather than a dead body, Cyril and Basil's enthusiasm for the job disappeared faster than a Moke. Harry hoped it was their bitter disappointment which made them treat him so roughly as they loaded him into the back of the Rambleance (the sides of the coffin folded down to reveal a proper ambulance stretcher) and not because this was how they treated every case they were called to.

'What d'you fink you're doin', luv?' Cyril asked as Madam Capsworth went to climb up beside Harry.

'I'm Harry's bodyguard; I don't leave his side.'

'Bodyguard?' Cyril scoffed. 'Not doin' a very good job, are ya? What's he want a bodyguard for, anyways? It's not like he's famous or anyfink.'

Behind Cyril's back, Harry mouthed 'No,' at Madam Capsworth, begging her not to reveal his identity. He could just imagine their reaction if they knew the truth.

Harry could almost have believed he was on the Knight Bus. Not only did the Rambleance jump jerkily from one location to the next with little or no regard for the comfort and welfare of its passengers, but Basil seemed to have gone to the same driving school as Ernie Prang. Harry threw up another three times in the five minutes it took them to get from King's Cross to St Mungo's but Cyril, who was riding in the back with them, merely zapped everything clean, a wide grin splitting his face.

'You're really goin' all out ta prove you ain't dead, aren't ya, mate?'

Harry groaned in response.

Hair plastered to his forehead by perspiration, Harry found himself being wheeled into St Mungo's reception area and parked against a side wall, Basil and Cyril waving a cheery farewell, none the wiser just who it was they had told the hospital staff needed to be taken downstairs.

'One for the morgue, indeed!' The nurse behind the front counter rolled her eyes as Harry groaned. 'Exam room three.' She flicked her wand and Harry's trolley scooted down the corridor, Madam Capsworth trotting along after him.

A middle-aged healer with salt-and-pepper hair and white robes entered Harry's room almost as soon as they arrived. 'What seems to be the problem today, Mr … er … oh dear, we seem to have forgotten to fill in a form at Registration.'

'I would prefer this was kept strictly off the record, thank you, Healer … Smethwyck.' Patricia Capsworth squinted at the name badge pinned to the healer's robes.

'That is most … er … irregular.' Smethwyck's eyes were focused on the wand being pointed at him as he tried to edge closer to the door.

'You will find that this is a most irregular patient.' Madam Capsworth reached out and gently swept Harry's fringe back, leaving his forehead bare.

Smethwyck froze halfway to the door, his gazed fixed on Harry's scar. He glanced up at Capsworth, who gave a single nod of confirmation, then back down at Harry, who also nodded.

He immediately regretted it as the room spun violently again.

'Whoops-a-daisy.' Smethwyck conjured a bucket out of the air and helped Harry roll onto his side. Once his stomach had finished convulsing, Harry rolled back onto the trolley, groaning softly.

Smethwyck shone his wand into each of Harry's eyes in turn, frowning slightly as he mumbled, 'No concussion.' He reached a hand under Harry's head and gently pressed all over his skull. 'No cranial damage.' Then he took out a long straight wand notched from tip to grip into sections, each section engraved with odd symbols around the full circumference of the wand.

'What's that?' Harry had never seen a wand like it before.

'A Diagnostick,' the Healer replied, concentrating on the symbols dialing around the length of wood. He frowned as they clicked to a stop. 'That can't be right,' he murmured softly, still staring at the stick in his hand.

'It's right,' Madam Capsworth told him.

Smethwyck glanced up at her. 'You don't even know what it says.'

'Over three hundred Imperiuses, right?'

'How –?' Healer Smethwyck glanced from Capsworth, who nodded solemnly, to Harry, who groaned again.

'Now do you understand why we need to keep this quiet?' said Madam Capsworth softly. 'If the ones who did this to him learn just how much of an effect they really had, they would think they had won some kind of victory. And they haven't.' She held Smethwyck's gaze, stressing the seriousness of the situation. 'Now, is there anything which you can do to help Harry, please?' She glanced at Harry as he reached for his bucket again. 'I do really need to get him to Hogwarts before it gets too late.'

By the time Smethwyck had finished his ministrations and declared Harry fit enough to be dismissed, night had fallen. The Healer had set a cauldron up in the middle of the floor beside Harry's trolley and brewed an antidote right there in the room. When it came time for Harry to drink the potion, it had taken him seven tries to get it down, not helped at all by the knowledge that its ingredients included four tablespoons of Harry's blood and a quart of his vomit.

'If I ever find myself in that situation again, promise me you'll just perform the Avada Kedavra on me and put me out of my misery?' Harry groaned as the window of Purge & Dowse Ltd department store solidified behind them. While he was once again the picture of health, he could still taste Smethwyck's antidote in the back of his throat. 'I really don't think I could go through that again.'

'Which part?' asked Capsworth. 'The Death Eaters, Rambleance or antidote?'

'All of it.'

His rescuer chuckled.