CHAPTER 21

Abandonment

Harry was gritting his teeth so hard it felt as if a plate of steel had grown between them. He stared at the fork in the road, sure that any minute the answer would come to him. The Aurors were attempting to be patient, and failing. They shifted behind him, scuffing the dirt with their heels like children who didn't get their way. He could feel their growing annoyance getting heavier and heavier on his back as he stared at the earth ahead of him. The paths were surrounded by thick bushels of tall trees so it was impossible to see where any of them remotely led. All Harry could make out was that the right path moved downwards and curved whilst the other two ran up, the middle one going steeper whilst the left twisted away. No matter what he did, he couldn't think of which way to go.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, which made him jump slightly.

"Do you have any idea?" Ginny asked, Harry shook his head slowly.

"Maybe we could split up," Dylan suggested, he was close to the right path, staring down it with mild interest.

"But we split up and two thirds of us won't get there," muttered George.

"I'd have to agree with Dylan," Jack said, "and besides, maybe those other two paths meet up somewhere."

"I doubt it Jack," Harry grumbled, more to himself.

"And what's worse," George continued, "is that there is only one Harry. So if either of those two groups end up at Vereor Nex they're going to have no idea how to find Ron or Hermione,"

"No offense, but we're not particularly doing the most fantastic job of that right now," Jack replied, Harry shot him a glare and he raised his hands in defence.

"One thing is for certain," a male Auror with messy brown hair and a pointed, angular face muttered, "we're not going to get anything from just having Potter praying that he'll suddenly remember."

"Yeah, well I'd like to see how well you would do in a position like this," Harry spat.

"I'd certainly do a better job than just watching the day go by," the Auror continued, stepping forward. "What happened to the fact that you were so sure Vereor Nex was only one day away? We started walking around three hours ago, who's to say we didn't make a wrong turn? It's the blind leading the blind." These words sent doubt into Harry's chest, after recognising the campsite he was sure that they would be close, that places would seem more familiar – but the more he trudged on the more alien his surroundings appeared.

"I don't know," Harry said quietly. Taking this as surrender the Auror continued, apparently fuelled by his own words,

"So basically, we could be anywhere right now, and we have no way to tell any differently."

"We just have to be patient," Ginny said, jumping in, "we're getting there…"

"Yes, but we're still not completely convinced… You're probably saying this just because he's Harry Potter, right?"

"I trust him," Ginny said defiantly.

"You might have this kind of absolute faith in him, but we certainly don't." The first male Auror continued, Harry turned around, raising his eyebrows. "As far as we're concerned he's just a man with a bunch of scars. He could have just been on drugs the entire time and Vereor Nex was a hallucinogenic side-effect…" Harry swallowed, seeing in his minds eye the golden liquid he used to diminish pain. Ginny fell silent, he was sure she was thinking the same thing. "This whole ordeal is probably a waste of time! I could be back at the Ministry…"

"Doing what?" Harry yelled, unable to keep his anger in check.

"Anything other than just wandering around in the wilderness!"

"Then leave!" Harry replied, stepping forward. A few Aurors took a hesitant step back, "all you people have done so far is complain and whisper behind your backs about what is happening."

"We've had to bury our friends!"

"You're Aurors, get used to it! People die!"

"But these ones didn't have to! And that's blood on your hands!" Harry walked up to the man and grabbed his shirt, staring at him with a crippling glare.

"Those Aurors who died," he muttered, warning lacing his words, "were due to the Death Eaters."

"Yes," the Auror replied, shoving Harry firmly in the chest so that he would release his grip, "and who was the one who lead us into their trap?"

"I would have to agree," one of the other Aurors said matter-of-factly. "This trip has been nothing but disaster." The first Auror leaned in as if he were telling a secret.

"You're a murderer Harry Potter." Harry couldn't help it, white-hot fury rose in his chest and he lunged at the Auror, making his fists meet any flesh that was close enough. The Auror fought back, kneeing Harry in the gut and striking a well-aimed blow on his chin, making it throb in unexpected pain. Everyone acted at the same time, pulling the two off each other. George and Jack had a firm grips around Harry's arms as he fought against them.

"GO THEN!" Harry yelled at the Auror, "all of you leave!" The man was being restrained by three Aurors.

"He doesn't mean it!" George called, "he doesn't! Just stay with us – we'll get there, we need every fighter we have."

"You have too much faith in him."

"I have just enough." George replied, loosening his grip around Harry's arms. "We need all of you're help! All of you. You are trained in magic and fighting and I understand that it is frustrating to have very little idea of what is happening and where you are going – but you just have to trust Harry, and keep going for a bit longer." The Auror grit his teeth,

"The Ministry has sent all the best fighters on this trip… back there they have almost no one. They have us walking around in circles and staring at paths! Can you imagine the havoc that could be erupting at the Ministry right now?"

"They had a good reason for sending away the best fighters," Harry said, trying to keep calm.

"I don't see it," the Auror spat, looking Harry up and down, and with that, he turned and walked away. The other Aurors watched him go, looks of uncertainty etched across their faces.

"Anyone else?" Harry challenged. A few more turned and left without a word, one only pausing to mutter 'sorry.'

"We took an oath!" Dylan called out to them, "we were going to abide by the Ministry's best interest –,"

"And we really seem to be doing that right now," the man replied sarcastically, turning around. The other Aurors who had decided to leave stopped behind him, separated from the group.

"We've had people die before!" Dylan continued, "what you are doing right now is cowardly and stupid. We're meant to be fighting for the greater good, and that's what we're going to do. We shut down Vereor Nex, and we might put an end to this whole Death Eater threat once and for all." Dylan fell silent and stared at the Aurors. The man who had originally questioned Harry raised his eyebrows, then turned around and left without another word.

"You can't just let them go!" Charlie said, turning to Harry, "get them back."

"How do you propose I do that? They want to leave, they can leave. We can survive without them."

"I wouldn't be too sure," Charlie muttered. "You know where to find us!" He called out to them, but he got no response, so Ginny tried.

"Don't think the Minister won't hear about this when I get back! You will have a lot of explaining to do!" Again, no response.

Harry pushed his fingers against his eyes; the group had a hole in it now. He felt sick in his stomach as the three words 'you're a murderer,' echoed through his head.

"Are you okay?" Asked Ginny, hand resting comfortingly on his shoulder. Harry nodded vaguely. "It wasn't your fault, the attack…"

"I know," Harry lied. The remaining Aurors stared at him, apparently feeling the weight of the others absence as much as Harry was.

"Thankyou," Harry muttered to them, swallowing a constriction in his throat, "thankyou for staying…" they nodded courteously in response.

"Was Vereor Nex on a hill?" Jack asked, suddenly.

"What?" Harry asked, he had forgotten altogether about the fork in the road.

"Was it on a hill?" He repeated, Harry shook his head,

"No, why?"

"We should go right," said Jack, pointing down the pathway.

"What makes you so sure?" Harry asked, frowning. Jack flicked hair out of his eyes,

"It's the only path that seems to stay flat, the other two move upwards…" Harry nodded, but he was unsure, and he felt a desire to stay. Maybe the Aurors would change their minds, come to their senses? As soon as he picked a direction to go, there was a great possibly they would not be able to find them again. Harry looked back down the path, but was now unable to see the Aurors who had left. He contemplated suggesting they stay where they were for the rest of the day – but that wouldn't work. It was still daylight, and they had a great deal of distance to go.

Harry watched Jack, he didn't seem surprised by the Aurors departure, in fact, he wasn't displaying much emotion at all. Harry nodded vaguely and began walking down the right path, keeping his eyes on Jack.

The path had a green glow to it as sun shone through the thick trees; they had to step over multiple logs and branches to make their way along. The path itself wasn't really a path, it was merely a dirt strip created, most likely by travellers… and even then it didn't feel as if anyone had been down there for months. The further they moved down the track, the more worried he was that nothing seemed familiar to him. Naturally, he blamed Jack. Why did he suggest this path? And, more importantly, why did Harry listen to him? Suddenly, the group came to a roadblock. A massive tree blocked the path, it's strong, dark trunk the size of a boulder.

"If a tree falls down in the middle of the forest, and no one is around to hear it…" George muttered, looking at it,

"Yes, it makes a sound," Ginny replied.

"But how can you be sure?"

"Put a monitor in the forest, be on the other end, away from the tree… and it'll still make a sound."

"…Touché," George said. He placed his foot onto a branch and pulled himself up on top of it. Then, hesitantly, jumped down. The others were quick to follow, Jack offered Harry his hand as he ascended the tree – but Harry ignored it, grabbing Ginny's hand instead to help her up, she muttered a breathless thankyou. They managed to have a short, quick conversation as they jumped down,

"Are you sure you're okay? That was pretty rough what happened back there," Ginny said.

"I'm fine, honest. I'm just hoping we went the right way…"

"We'll find out sooner or later, do you recognise anything?"
"No…"

"Well, we'll keep going, see what happens." Harry nodded in response,

"Oh hey," he said, "you've got something in your hair." He walked close to her and pulled the twig out, making sure he brushed his hand lightly over her cheek as he pulled away, she smiled at him.

"Thankyou,"

"Don't mention it…" he replied, smirking before setting off on a walk again. Walking made Harry get lost in his own thoughts; it became automatic, one foot falling in front of the other. Often they all walked in comfortable silence, not feeling the need for words. He wondered what the Aurors behind him were thinking; did they wish they had gone with the others? Did they think he was responsible for the deaths? He sighed, running a hand absentmindedly through his hair.

The path didn't change again for a number of hours, it would have seemed as if they were going in circles if they hadn't been going downhill slightly with every step. It was only when the shadows grew long and they found themselves squinting in the darkness that they decided to stop and set up camp. Harry didn't express his concerns of being lost to anyone else, he too afraid of the other Aurors disappearing – of people looking at him with disappointed eyes.

They decided to camp on the path, to avoid losing it. As Aurors stood around, muttering spells and watching the air ripple as they took effect, Harry set up the tents with the others. It was short, easy work, which often made conversations spark over the mundane chore.

"Harry, I've been meaning to ask you…" Ginny had began. Harry looked up,

"About what?" He pushed a tent peg into the ground with his shoe.

"The day you escaped," she muttered timidly. Harry looked down at the dirt,

"You've already asked that," he replied, clasping his hands in front of him before walking over to a nearby log to sit on.

"But you didn't answer," Ginny said, joining Harry. George, Charlie, Dylan and Jack seemed to have heard the conversation starting so came close – wanting to hear Harry's story as much as Ginny. "If you don't want –," Ginny began,

"No," he said, rubbing the back of his neck, "it's fine… you should know." Harry looked up at the others and saw that they were staring at him intently. His eyes lingered on Ginny; her expression urged him to proceed. He picked up a twig off the ground and snapped it in half.

We made two minutes," he whispered.

"Harry!" He could see Ron's hand reaching forward as the body was dragged backwards, his eyes widened in fear and he scratched his nails into the dry earth, making his hands red and raw.

"Harry?" A voice snapped him back into reality, he looked up and saw that the others were still staring at him – he cleared his throat.

"We had been planning for a month," he remembered "I believe that if we didn't have that hope, we never would have survived as long as we did. We could hear everyone dying around us… in the different cells," he clenched his jaw, "you always know when it's their last scream…" he whispered, "It's the loudest, as if they know they're dying and need to get out all the noise they would have created if they had lived those extra years. Then it stops – abruptly – and they go limp… and you just know that there's another cell vacant."

"That's horrible," Ginny muttered almost inaudibly.

"Ron, Hermione and I had been planning. We knew that the Death Eaters still had our wands – because we once overheard them talking about storage…"

"Digger needs a wand, his broke," the other Death Eater laughed,

"What did he do this time? Sit on it again?"

"Something like that," the first chuckled. "So he was looking to get one from storage,"

"Well, tell him to come talk to me, it's my floor anyway."

"Our floor," the first corrected. The second Death Eater flicked his forehead with his finger,

"Idiot," he muttered whilst the other rubbed the sting away. "He'll need to be the one doing the killing so that he can get the wand to work for him,"

"Yeah, I know the drill. I'll let him know."


"That conversation," Harry muttered, "was the beginning, we replayed it over and over…" he smiled for a moment. "Hermione became Hermione again… because she had something to do, something to think about other than impending torture and death."

"Keys, is what we need," Hermione muttered, back against her cell. "We can get them the same way we did last time."

"Right," Harry said.

"They all have a set on them," she continued, "so the next one of us to go on the table has to get them. But, don't make it obvious that you've taken them."

"They'll know though," Ron muttered, "I mean, they'll need those keys sometime today."

"Exactly," Hermione said, "that's why as soon as we have our wands we're going to have to escape. No time for waiting."

"Do you think they have our other stuff… my sword? Our clothes?" Harry asked, Hermione shrugged then winced – as if she had forgotten for a moment about her injuries.

"I have no idea," she muttered, rubbing her shoulder blade. "We can only hope… but I wouldn't hold your breath."

"How are we going to escape, though?" Ron asked. Hermione pointed at Harry,

"Harry, to your right there's a window."

"Yes, made of solid iron," he said, knocking his fist against it.

"We'll have our wands by then."

"But it's a huge drop!" Harry said, standing up on one leg because his left had a particularly cruel gash in it. He looked down at the earth below; it was enough of a drop to give anyone with a slight fear of heights jelly legs.

"We could apparate on the way down?" Ron suggested.

"But we can't apparate in here, how could we do it out there?" Reminded Hermione,

"Yes, I'm not particularly willing to take that chance," Harry mumbled, still looking down the side of the black building. "Wait, we could… jump," he said, "there is a cement ledge along the window… if we walked about seven feet to the left there's a roof we could jump onto. Of course, if we don't make that roof we die." Ron gulped,

"Then what?"

"Then we're going to have to improvise, because I can't see anything from here," he replied, cursing the bars.


"So you had tried to escape before," Ginny asked. Harry nodded, "what else did you try?"

"Everything… but all the effective escape plans we thought of required a wand or a weapon of some kind – and we assumed that our wands had been snapped – our possessions sold on. We gave up after about the fifth failed escape attempt because of how badly we were punished after each try – we admitted defeat."

"You admitted defeat?" George asked, smiling, "as if."

"I was ready to die," muttered Harry, the smile disappeared from George's face. "I just wanted out of there so badly, for them to use the Killing Curse on me, I just wanted it to stop… but that was until we heard about storage, and we saw a plausible way to escape. The kind of escape that beats trying to wrestle off four armed Death Eaters with our bare hands…" Ginny nodded solemnly,

"What happened next?" Harry shut his eyes, as if he could see the scene playing out in his head.

"I was the next one on the table, so it was my responsibility to get the keys."

"Eeney, Meeney, Miney, Mo," the Death Eater mused, pointing at each of their cells with long, slender fingers. Harry found himself wondering how this woman came to be a Death Eater, stuck in a place like this, taking joy from pain. She was pretty in an odd-looking way, with sunken-in cheeks and wide eyes. Her finger rested on Harry, "looks like we have ourselves a winner!" She giggled, "time to take our prize."

"I'll pass, thanks." Harry said. The woman withdrew keys from her pocket and stuck it in the lock, turning it until they all heard a distinctive click. Harry watched carefully as she placed them back into her robes. Harry stayed at the back of the cell as the door opened. "Get him boys," the woman said, addressing the other two Death Eaters in the room. Their names were Digger and Kurt, they 'assisted' when the prisoners refused treatment. They now clasped Harry by both arms, dragging him forward. Harry tried to fight them off but he knew it was no use; they were larger and stronger than he was. They reminded him somewhat of Crabbe and Goyle, which entertained him. Digger and Kurt threw Harry onto the stone table in the centre of the room, securing him to it with ties before they left the room, with the parting remark of,

"Have fun!"

The woman Death Eater, ran her hand up Harry's body, he flinched away, she tutted,

"Oh no dear! Don't fight." Harry looked to his right and saw Ron and Hermione staring at him, the same look of concern he always saw when he was in this position. The Death Eater opened Harry's shirt,

"Ooohh," she said, touching Harry's sores, he hissed in air through his teeth, "I see someone went a bit rough on you last time, poor dear." She smiled, "I'll tell you what, you tell me how to bring the Dark Lord back and I'll spare you the pain."

"As I tell you, every time," Harry said through gritted teeth, "he's dead, there is no way to bring him back!" The Death Eater's eyes sparked in anger, as if she were surprised at his retort.

"There is," she spat, "there has to be!" Her cruel expression suddenly diminished and died, replaced by an unnervingly cheerful smile, "but if that's how you really feel." The woman pulled out a box of matches from her pocket, "I found these the other day," she said, striking one until it lit-up. She dropped it onto Harry's bare chest, he growled in agony, trying to move away from the fire yet unable to. The match went out, but the incredible sting remained.


"I tried to look for the keys," Harry said to them, "but I couldn't see any… she wore long, black robes, it was impossible to see any pockets."

"They… dropped lit matches on you?" Charlie asked, horrified.

"I didn't get all these scars from nothing."

Harry shut his eyes tight as another match burnt black, the woman was walking along the table, he opened his eyes to watch her.

"That's better Harry, I much prefer it when I can see the pain in your eyes." She leant against the table, her hair falling in front of her face – that's when Harry heard it – the slight ring of keys coming from the right side of her robes. She walked around him dreamily, stopping at his side. Harry fought against the restraints around his arms, finding that he could only move from his elbow.

She was at arms reach, if only he could reach into her pocket… he was so focussed that he didn't realise that she had dropped another match on his chest until it hit. Again, he groaned in agony, forgetting his search for a moment. The woman placed a finger on the new burn and twisted – digging her fingernail in to prolong the pain.

Harry looked over again at Ron and Hermione; they clung to their bars, heads pressed against the iron, watching with sheer terror etched on their faces. They had to get out of there. Harry again focussed his attention on getting the keys. Slowly, whilst keeping his eyes on the woman – he reached inside her pocket and felt it, hard metal pressed against his fingers. He wrapped one finger around the key ring and pulled softly. The keys rattled, a sound that made Harry stop dead for a moment, but the woman did not seem to notice. She had pulled a silver knife from no where and was now tracing it down Harry's torso, not pressing hard enough for it to rip at his flesh. Harry ignored his own fear, and the feel of the knife and quickly pulled they keys out, clutching them in his hand, trying to make them invisible to the Death Eater.


"I had to get through the rest of that before I could get back to my cell," Harry continued. "She enjoyed pain too much, liked to make patterns out of my cuts…" Harry grimaced and unbuttoned his shirt to show them; down his side there were long, curvy white scars.

"So what happened next?" Dylan asked, he had taken a seat next to Ginny. "You had the keys now…"

"Well, as soon as she put me back into my cell we went to work," Harry muttered. "My wounds were still open so I didn't particularly feel like running, but there wasn't much I could do… it was then, or never."

To be continued…


I had to break this chapter up, it was getting wayyy too long. I didn't know where to break it, that's why there is a rather abrupt cut. There's so much that is going to happen in the next chapters – it'll be very interesting, I promise you. Plus, I'm on holidays after Thursday, and I've also written some later chapters so updates will be quicker! Sorry about the breaks for whenever there is a change between memory and real-life... I wasn't going to do it, but I thought just having italics would be confusing.

I've spent a lot of time on this chapter, so let me know what you think! Press the awesome review button… of awesomeness

Haha.

Exam study now! (blegh)

Pheonixxsong