[A/N: Thank you, Sarah, for being a killer beta :)
Also a HUGE thank you to every single individual out there who has reviewed Serpent Tales. I have over 300 reviews and I'm practically new to this site! That really makes me want to cry with joy. You all are awesome and I can't thank you enough. Just know that this story is for all of you. I wouldn't write if I couldn't hear from the readers :)]
Chapter 25 – The Traitor
Hogsmede was alive with the flickering illumination of a raging fire and the chorus of a hundred terrified screams. Harry was just in time to see the bloody sign of the Hog's Head one last time before it was caught up in the flames pouring from the pub's smashed windows. In the distance he could just make out the grounds of Hogwarts, the site of even more chaos and destruction; the violent curses of Death Eaters, the shimmering shields of the Order, the unorganized commotion of so many innocent civilians who put their faith in the infallibility of the Hogwarts castle, and even, to Harry's immense surprise, the hulking shapes of two club-wielding giants.
"Get down!" Tonks cried and Harry was forced to his knees as a spell flew over his head.
Moments later Madam Rosmerta dashed past, throwing hexes over her shoulder at the pursuing Death Eater.
"Stupefy!" Harry bellowed instinctively before he'd even had a chance to fumble for his wand.
A jet of red light sprang from his palm and rushed the Death Eater, hitting him square in the chest. Before the body had even hit the ground Harry was off, sprinting down the road through the crowds of frightened shop keeps and more raging fires. He could hear Tonks calling after him but he didn't slow. In fact, he hoped he'd lose her and she'd go on to Hogwarts to help where she could. He wasn't sure what Narcissa would do but the thought of leaving her trapped alone in her empty manor with her morbid thoughts while her son was in danger had seemed incredibly cruel to Harry.
Suddenly, Harry ran head-long into a brutally unforgiving barrier. He dropped like a rock and lay in the dirt in a daze for a moment while his vision swirled and solidified again. When he pushed himself onto his feet with a groan his nose throbbed and blood dripped down into his mouth. For a split second it occurred to him that fixing his broken nose would be easier than feeding a Flobberworm—and then his magic was put to better use.
With his hands outstretched he took a slow step forward. His fingers penetrated the impossible barriers and they parted as he came in, rushing around him like icy water and closing behind his back. With one steady step after another he gained on the house that grew out of the shadows. And then a ripple shuddered through the heavy air surrounding him.
Harry looked back to see Tonks gaping at him, her hands flat on the air as if pressed against a window. How is he doing that? she thought loudly and he was momentarily swept up into the racing thoughts of her alien mind.
In his moment of distraction, the wards closed on him, thick like molasses. Air was forced from Harry's lungs at an alarming rate and his forward advancement was suddenly halted. And just as blackness began to creep in around his vision a gentle touch brushed over his back, hot in comparison to the coldness of the murderous wards.
"Move, Harry," Dumbledore's voice echoed from behind him, clear in the din of panic all around. "You're almost there."
His chest aching, his pulse slowing, his vision blurring, Harry allowed Dumbledore's magic to guide him. Three terrifying, painful steps later, he broke through to the other side of the wards.
Air rushed down his throat, light and cool and more refreshing than pumpkin juice on a hot day. Harry collapsed to his knees as he gulped it in and when he drank his fill he turned to confront Dumbledore—he had to know about Draco and the kidnapping.
But Dumbledore was so impossibly far away. Had Harry really traveled that far? He was waving his wand in a series of complicated patterns at the far side of the wards and Harry recognized his intentions instantly—but he didn't have time to wait for Dumbledore to disable the barriers. He had to find Voldemort. Tonight—whichever way it went—Harry would end this war between them.
So he turned back to the dilapidated Shrieking Shack and, without even considering what spell would work best, his magic pried the nails out of the wood covering the door. Harry crossed into the house alone and frightened but determined. The door swung shut behind him, silencing the terrors from the town and eliminating what beams of moon and starlight had lit the entryway.
Then a voice echoed in the empty room, slithering and sliding like a cloak along a dusty floor.
"I had hoped you would come to me, Harry Potter."
A word was whispered that Harry didn't know and a beam of light raced toward him. The guardian in his chest reared up protectively and magic glowed warm and bright at his finger tips. But the spell was too fast and when it hit him the breath rushed out of Harry. He was unconscious before he hit the ground.
When Harry came around the first thing he was aware of was a man's ragged breathing. It shuddered and rattled like the bones of a skeleton and it hurt his head. He wished it would stop. And then he realized it was him.
He was cold—colder than he could ever remember being since he'd first kissed Draco. After he burned that first time he'd remained so hot—like he suffered from a perpetual fever—that even the touch of another human felt like ice on his skin. His throat ached with the cold he was forced to breath and he had a stitch in his side that zinged with pain every time he inhaled.
As he continued the silent inventory of his body he discovered that his nose still throbbed, his head ached, and—most disconcerting—he couldn't move a single limb.
Harry's eyes sprang wide open and a hissing chuckle worked its way through the silence toward him. Harry zeroed in on the direction of the voice and shadows began to loom out of the blackness—darker spots in the dark room. One such spot was tall, thin and cloaked and drifted closer to him subtly as it paced back and forth between the walls. Harry's scar seared with a pain that threatened to blind him as he looked upon it.
"You think I can't escape these bonds?" he croaked, hoping a conversation would take his mind off the pain in his head.
The chuckle again and then Voldemort spoke. "Oh, I have no doubt that your magic could free you...if you asked it to."
Harry's eyes narrowed. For someone who shouldn't know about what he was, that was a very apt description of the way his power worked.
"Yes, Harry," hissed Voldemort. "I know how it works. I know what you are...Scytale."
Shock coursed through Harry in an electric current. Was Voldemort hearing his thoughts? It couldn't be possible.
"But I am, Harry. I can hear you." Voldemort paused in his pacing and turned towards Harry. As his eyes had begun to adjust to the darkness, he could just make out the leer stretching Voldemort's revolting mouth. "Perhaps if you didn't scream your thoughts they might be more protected."
Well that was fine, Harry thought. Voldemort could read his thoughts—but he couldn't contain Harry's power. In a split second, without actually having to think the spell, he let the magic in his veins seep outward, forming the countercharm he needed. Feeling and mobility rushed back into his limbs and then, as quickly as it had come, it drained back out again.
Harry stared down at himself in awe. He let his magic out again and his fingers and toes tingled with renewed strength—and then went numb. Pushing this time, sensations exploded in all his nerve endings for half a second before he was as paralyzed as before. Harry teetered in the blinking numbness and toppled sideways. In a quick instinct to save himself, his threw his magic outward with all his strength and in the moment that he hit the ground his arms were so over-sensitized that the bones crunched beneath him.
Harry screamed so loudly that he was sure he ripped his vocal chords and then suddenly, he felt no pain—nothing. He was bound again.
Above him Voldemort was laughing softly.
"We can play this game forever, Harry. Or you can give up and we can talk."
One more time Harry threw off the bonds but the pain in his arm was so crippling that he was almost relieved when Voldemort counteracted his magic.
"Are you satisfied?" Voldemort breathed.
Harry glared up at Voldemort. He would not give him the satisfaction of his surrender. Instead, he focused all his power on resurrecting a mental wall so solid that he somehow felt even Draco could not break through.
Voldemort raised an astonished eyebrow at him and the corner of his mouth turned down in dissatisfaction.
"But Harry," he said with mock disappointment. "How will I answer all your questions if I cannot hear them?"
"Where's Draco?" Harry demanded, ignoring Voldemort's act.
Voldemort smirked. "I suppose that is one solution. Very well, Harry Potter, we can have a nice conversation, the two of us."
He pointed his wand and Harry was lifted into the air and rotated until he fell onto a moldy, moth-eaten couch. Voldemort sank into a rather nicer armchair across from him. "Would you like some tea?" he offered sarcastically.
"You might as well just kill me," spat Harry. "You don't have long."
"If you are referring to your dear Headmaster just beyond my wards, I am not worried," Voldemort said. Then he smiled. "But you should not be worried either, my friend. I will kill you...in time."
A sudden jolt of panic rippled through Harry. Time—how much time had passed since he'd left Grimmauld Place? He tired to consult his watch but his wrist was turned upside down and he could not move it.
"You have two hours remaining to you," Voldemort said, noticing where it was Harry was looking. "You were unconscious for quite some time. A waste, I must say, if you are bent on rescuing your mate."
Harry gaped at Voldemort, at a loss for what to say.
"Although," he continued, pretending to ignore Harry's shock. "I don't know why you would want to rescue him, considering he betrayed you."
"What are you talking about?" Harry tried to demand, but his voice came out strangled.
"It's sad really," mused Voldemort. "That you have yet to figure it out. I wonder what possessed you to trust Draco in the first place. The two of you have never been amicable, after all. I suppose he fed you the story about wishing to save his family. He does favor that lie."
Harry's mind was reeling. He hardly had enough focus to keep his mental wall in place, but the slithering guardian wrapped round his heart lent him its strength. Stories—lies? No, it was Voldemort. Voldemort was the liar!
"Oh dear," Voldemort murmured. "It seems you doubt me. If only there was a way to persuade you to see truth..."
Voldemort leaned forward intently until his face was only a half a metre from Harry's. Harry couldn't draw his eyes away. He watched in horrified fascination as Voldemort's red slits began to writhe and undulate with some sort of magic. And then they were growing—wider and wider until all Harry could see was red. And the red began to form shapes and the shapes began to move and the movements followed a pattern Harry recognized as easily as his own name—people walking; people speaking—a memory.
Narcissa Malfoy knelt prostrate at the foot of an eager Voldemort. She raised her hand to him. In it was a letter.
"It is from Draco," she said. "Something amazing has happened. Harry Potter has claimed him as his mate."
"His mate?" Voldemort snapped. "What kind of mate?"
"His Scytale mate, my Lord. Potter is a Scytale."
Voldemort was silent for a long while, thoughts and plans whirling behind his eyes, his hands coming together in a subtle sign of perverse joy.
"And how does Draco feel about this?" he breathed after a time.
"He feels this could be the key to Potter's downfall. He wishes to use his new position to bring Potter to you."
A wicked smile curled Voldemort's lips.
"May his wishes be granted," he hissed.
The scene changed. Draco Malfoy was alone in his bedroom in Grimmauld Place. Harry watched in horror as he made a mess of his possessions and then slit open his own palm. With his undamaged hand he drew his blood across the wall, writing a message. Then he turned and walked away.
He appeared in front of Voldemort.
"He will have approximately twelve hours to find me," he said.
Voldemort's leer was repellent.
"Well done, Draco."
The scene vanished and despite his disgust and horror Harry experienced a pang of loss when he could no longer see Draco's face.
"Does that convince you?" Voldemort asked quietly.
Harry couldn't speak. His mouth and eyes alike were wide with shock and terror.
"Does that make you sad, Harry Potter?" whispered Voldemort. His voice circled and caressed Harry. "Does it make you hurt—ache—cry? Are you angry with Draco for betraying you? Are you angry with yourself for being too trusting?"
He listed the progression of Harry's thoughts with flawless finality, as if reading them off a page and Harry was only slightly affected by the realization that his wall had fallen—that his mind was open to his worst enemy. And then he was raging mad. His anger and hurt and betrayal melded with the same feelings coming from his guardian and they swept up through him in a whirling cyclone and poured out of him in a violent whisper.
"I don't like it when you listen to my thoughts," he said to Voldemort.
His vision flickered red and for a second he wondered if Voldemort was trying to take him into another memory. But this time, he wouldn't let Voldemort control it. He would go in himself. He would find every scrap of information he ever wanted. He would devour it all and then spit it back out at Voldemort in a multihued flame of retribution.
Harry rose up from where he sat—his injuries, pain and immobility a thing of the past—and loomed over Voldemort, who was frozen with shock and awe. And then he dove back down again, penetrating those vile eyes and twisting into his mind like a drill, thoughts and memories and emotions swirling up around him in an evil black cloud that blotted out the world, reality and even Harry himself...
A/N: Ugh, I'm sorry it's so short, especially since it's been so long since my last update. But it's necessary and I've already gotten started on the next chapter and it's going to be a good one, folks :D So, I hope you can forgive me.