Disclaimer: The characters and settings, including any sentences taken directly or partly from the books or movies, of Harry Potter are the property of J. K. Rowling, Scholastic Books, Bloomsbury Publishing, AOL Time Link and Warner Brothers. I do not make money from publishing my story.

After a minute Severus had arrived at his Lord's chambers, knocked politely before entering and after that went straight to the adjoining bedroom, where the Dark Lord was already waiting for him, while he was carefully watching the young man who currently laid in the bed.

Harry had been unconscious ever since he had been brought the first batch of pain relieving potions, after which he had stopped screaming and had fallen unconscious due to the stress and the exhaustion. Luckily the screaming had stopped and Severus had been able to treat the more superficial wounds the boy had endured.

In the meantime the Dark Lord, had him brewing complex soul mending potions, most of which stemmed from the dark ages and had to be translated before brewing them. The Dark Lord had also used some rituals and spells, to assess the situation the boy and the horcrux were in, but they are rare pieces of magic and not much is known about them. In this case there where even less certainties as this wasn't a normal horcrux, it hadn't even been successfully destroyed.

"My Lord, I have finished the first batch of the soul-mending potions, you requested", Severus told the Dark Lord ,who motioned for Severus to sit down in the only other chair in the room, while he himself sat down the chair farthest away from the bed.

"You were right to bring the boy to me, Severus", Voldemort said, with as little arrogance as he could muster, "I believe I have halted the progress of the exorcism and that the mending process can be started any moment now." Severus could barely hold in his sigh of relieve, but managed to hide it skilfully.

"However it is too early to say, whether either the horcrux, the boy or perhaps even both have sustained any lasting damage. You have done a good job of fixing the boy physically though, I hope you will be able to do the same for his mental health." Even though, the dark Lord was hardly interested in the boy's health himself, he was interested to keep Severus as his subject, the man was incredibly intelligent and practical, always making sure he got what he needed and the Dark Lord admired that in a man.

"Now you can leave", it was not a question and thus Severus placed the finished potions on the bedside table, before his Lord addressed him one more time, "You will bring me the second batch of potions tomorrow", that wasn't a question either and Severus would have to make haste to meet that deadline.

Now alone in the room, more or less, if you didn't count the unconscious boy in the bed, the Dark Lord sat on the bed next to said boy and grabbed one of the potions. He hoped the boy wouldn't wake up for a while, administering these potions would be much easier while the boy was unconscious. He tilted Potter's head back and poured the potions into the open mouth, stroking the throat to get the swallow reflex working.
As the potion made its way down the boy's throat, he felt the magic beginning to work. Potter groaned a bit, as if in pain, but nothing too serious. Then again he wasn't too concerned with his health either. Voldemort knew that it would take a few more doses to repair the damage done to both Potter's and his own soul, but the boy could awaken any moment now, since the pain wouldn't keep him unconscious anymore.

His attention went back to the boy currently lying in his guest chamber. He hated what the boy represented, his downfall and a beacon of light. He admitted that he was intrigued by the boy's power, the magic crackled slightly under his skin, like it did with his own. The boy wasn't extremely bright, nor was he ambitious, but Voldemort knew that the boy could be extraordinary, as all magic's favourites were.

The Dark Lord's musings were forcefully disturbed when someone knocked on the doors to his chambers and since he expected no one, he stood up quickly. Opening the heavy doors he came to face Lucius Malfoy.

"My Lord", Lucius said, he was somewhat out of character, trying very hard to catch his breath, while informing his Lord of the last changes, "Dumbledore's group didn't believe the false trail we set up, they have somehow found that he have Potter hostage. It will not be long before they find out that we have set up our headquarters here and they will come for Potter then."

The Dark Lord couldn't tell whether Lucius was concerned about his house, his family or about the mission, but the concern was clearly visible on his face. His Lord's face was completely blank and Lucius was unable to tell what the man was thinking. "Give a message to Pius, he must haste things at the ministry. I want the Aurors under our control within the week. Have Rookwood and Rudolphus reinforce the wards. I will add to them myself later."

While the Dark Lord hadn't dismissed him officially he felt like those were orders he needed to fulfil right now and he was right. His Lord turned around and almost closed the door in his face. Since his return from Azkaban he had been treated as a messenger, still allowed to have most of the information, but hardly trusted enough to act on it. He hoped that his son wouldn't suffer because of it, but Draco had already been given an impossible task.

As he made his way towards the entrance hall, he had one of the house elves bring his cloak, casting an illusion spell upon himself, so he would not be noticed, he arrived at the edge of the wards and apparated away.

Meanwhile, the Dark Lord had been thinking up plans to avoid a confrontation with Dumbledore's Order. He needed to safeguard his horcruxes first and any confrontation with Dumbledore would mean he had less time to do that.

The fact that Dumbledore knew of the Potter boy's status as his horcrux meant that Dumbledore probably knew about the existence of the rest of the horcruxes. Although he believed in his own methods to hide them, he also believed that Dumbledore would leave no stone unturned to find those soulpieces. He would be busy all night, until next morning when Severus came with the next batch of potions to give to Potter.

I'm sorry for the delay, university thought it would be fun to saddle me up with a huge assignment. While I'd rather write for this story, the assignment makes up 50% of my grade for this course. But I'm halfway there so expect the next chapter to be up in about two weeks.