25. Abduction

Sirius pushed his way through the crowd, looking for the messy mane of his best friend's hair. Blond, black, brown, straight, curly, but not that distinct Potter messiness. He had just heard the most hilarious story about-

Red hair. He ran into Lily.

"Hey!" Sirius yelled over the noise of the party. "Have you seen James?"

Lily shook her head and screamed back, "Not for a while! I saw him earlier but haven't since!"

Sirius nodded and left her, managing to make his way to the entrance of the boy's dorms. He climbed the stairs to the second year dorm and pushed the door open. Inside Remus was talking with Frank about the coming Defense Against the Dark Arts exam.

"Have you guys seen James?" Sirius asked, his voice a little louder than necessary having just come from the party.

Frank shook his head and Remus said no.

Sirius made a frustrated noise and went into the bathroom. He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a square mirror.

"James Potter," He said clearly.

The inside of a pocket appeared on the glass, the faintest hints of light coming through the worn denim. He heard the noises of things being moved around and the murmuring of someone, not James, talking to themselves.

Suddenly, the image moved the light coming through the pants pocket changed, as though turned away from whatever light source was in the room. There was a murmured spell, Sirius couldn't identify it, and then the picture was still again, a little light coming through again.

"James?"

No answer.

"James?" Sirius asked, a little, not much, louder.

No answer.

At that point Sirius was worried. He didn't know where James was but why wouldn't he answer? He would recognize Sirius's voice, if he had been awake that is. However, the only voice Sirius heard from the other end of the room was that of an adult, definitely a man, who had a probably unconscious James.

Sirius stuffed the mirror back into his pocket without breaking the connection and left the bathroom. Frank and Remus looked up and their faces shifted to match his.

Something had happened to James.

James was dreaming.

He was at Hogwarts but something was wrong. There were no people in the Great Hall. There were no house tables, no Head table. The candles that usually hung were gone and the ceiling that showed the heavens was dark and grey like the floor of a basement. The edges of the hall were blurry, as if he was seeing them without his glasses.

Then, the ceiling burst, a flood of water raining down on him, it kept coming, and James couldn't breath until-

He was gasping from breath, taking huge gulps of air. His eyes were closed and his hair was soaked, covering up to his eyes. James flipped his hair up and opened his eyes, and regretted it immediately, the harsh light too much for him. He became aware that he was tied up. And that he wasn't alone.

Next to him, in a separate chair and no more than a couple meters away from him was a woman with graying red hair and warm hazel eyes magnified by tears. She was looking at him and sobbing and, with her looking so weak, so fragile; James didn't recognize her for a second: It was his mother.

"M-m-mum?" James asked, confused and shivering from the blasts of cold water.

His mother continued to sob and nodded. James looked at the man in front of him, who had watched the whole exchange delightedly, feeding off the misery of the two people in front of him.

It was Tenebrae.

"Tenebrae," James growled a sound he hadn't even been aware he could make. He tried to lunge out but remembered he was tied up.

"Hello James, lovely job at the Final I must say, though I was a tad disappointed that Slytherin didn't take the Cup." Tenebrae smiled at him. James stared at him defiantly.

"What have you done to her?" James demanded an answer. He had never seen his mother like this, so… broken.

Tenebrae laughed. "I simply had a little fun with her. Just like I did with you at Christmas," Tenbrae paused letting the information sink in. He had been the one to torture James with the Cruciatus curse. James glared at him.

"Why?" James asked, despite the situation, curious. He also knew it was always better to keep people talking, it worked wonders on teachers, get them distracted and they forget entirely that their cross and they don't remember until you're gone.

"Well, your dear father has been causing too much trouble for us. We had thought that attacking his home might get him to back down, but it seems that his bigheadedness has kept him from doing so." Tenebrae smiled. "Like father like son."

James smiled, taking that as a complement.

"Anyway, we figured that we'd take matters further. We've had this plan ready for months, just in case Harold Potter continued to be a nuisance. There have been people ready to take the both of you at a moments notice and, when the time was right, we acted on those plans."

"And now we wait. We've alerted Potter to the fact that his family is at our mercy and if he doesn't comply, we'll kill you."

James didn't respond to that.

"But in the meantime, I can have some fun. You've been quite a thorn in my side this year Potter, now I get to return the favor." He holds up his wand and aims it not at James, but at his mother.

"Crucio!"

"MUM!" James yelled. His mother thrashed within her bounds, her mouth open in a silent scream, her eyes rolled to the back of her head, and her body contorting in ways that shouldn't be possible.

Tenebrae lifted his wand and broke the curse. Elizabeth Potter was barely conscious, her head lolling to the right, her eyes closed and her breathing heavy.

James opened his mouth to yell but Tenebrae flicked his wand and a band wrapped around his mouth, making his words unidentifiable. Tenebrae laughed and sounded, to James, truly evil. The Death Eater lifted his wand again.

"MMMMMPH!" James yelled.

"Crucio!" His mother started thrashing and contorting all over again and this time her screams weren't silent. They rang around the room, echoing mixing with Tenbrae's cruel laugh and James's muffled yells. He shook in the chair and thrashed his head, trying to free himself from his restraints to no avail. Not that it would have mattered; his pockets were empty, except for a square something in his-

The Mirror! It was in his pocket. If he could contact Sirius he would be able to contact James's father. They could find them.

The curse faded and James's Mom was crying and mumbling incoherently. James realized he too was crying; only his tears were those of rage. The cloth around his mouth fell to his neck.

"I am going to kill you," James said quietly, deadly seriously. He looked Tenebrae in the eyes and stared at the man. He laughed.

"You couldn't kill me boy, even if I was at your mercy. You're too weak!" Tenebrae moved closer to James and smacked him. James's chair fell to the side at the force of the hit. His bounds became looser.

"You're sick Tenebrae. You beat up children and people who are defenseless. Sirius Black as a child, me now, my mother, with her hands tied behind her back. She would have destroyed you in a duel." James said Sirius's name loudly, hoping to activate the mirror.

Tenebrae kicked James, who was still on the floor, his left cheek on the cool concrete. He felt a rib crack.

"And you realize you aren't going to get away with this don't you? Even if you kill us, you'll be caught; the Ministry will catch you in an instant."

"You fool, my master will protect me, and the Ministry will fall. Times are changing Potter, and your family has chosen the wrong side. You will die."

"If I'm to die, could you at least tell me where?"

"Knockturn Alley," Tenebrae responded in his arrogance.

"Shame, I was hoping for a nice countryside." James deadpanned. "Godric's Hallow's nice this time of year."

Tenebrae kicked him again. James's chair skidded into the wall at the end of the room. The rope around his waste was coming loose, as was the rope that bound his hands. He coughed and a little blood came out of his mouth.

"I've dreamed of this all year. Arrogant, smart-arse Potter bloody and beaten. Maybe I should kill you now. It would go against the plan but it would be so-" James cut him off by grabbing his legs out from under him with the hands he had just freed from their bounds. He stood up and kicked the wand out of his teacher's hand, sending it skidding across the floor.

Tenbrae screamed in fury and pain, getting to his feet and lunging at James. James jumped to the side and stuck out his foot, causing Tenebrae to trip again. James's eyes searched the ground for his Defense teacher's wand and saw it lying on the floor. James ran towards it and scooped it up. He gripped the wand for only a second before he was kicked with such force he was flung back and the wand fell from his hand.

The wooden stick lay on the floor in between them, and James knew instantaneously that Tenebrae would beat him to the wand. James looked to his mother, whose hair was now all grey, almost white, and was unconscious. He had lost.

Tenebrae made his way towards the wand and James started running towards it as well. He wasn't going down without a fight.

But before James could make it even within a few feet of the wand Tenebrae had it. The man held it over his head triumphantly and then pointed it a James, a crazed look in his eye. James looked around the room he was going to die in and refused to close his eyes. He looked Tenebrae in the eye defiantly and opened his arms; an invitation.

Then suddenly the door was burst open. Half a dozen Aurors burst into the room, wands pointed at Tenebrae. Harold Potter was among them, his robes billowing around him and his face a mask of rage James had never seen. James had a sudden appreciation of his father's strength and understood why he was the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

Tenebrae's eyes darted back and forth, calculating. He made as if he was going to put his wand down and surrender. Then his right hand grabbed at his left wrist, at the watch he had been wearing over his robes, and suddenly, he was gone.

Harold Potter sighed. "Portkey," he muttered. Then he spotted James, hair soaked, with cuts and bruises all over and blood on his face. James and his father embraced and a couple of the other Aurors went to the side of his mother.

At the sight of his unconscious wife, Harold left James in the care of one of the Aurors, a young man named Kingsley Shacklebolt.

Kingsley brought James to St. Mungos. They got a room and he was patched up fairly quickly, Kingsley asking him questions and getting James to regale the whole story.

"Is my mother going to be okay?" James asked Kingsley at one point, wanting to get an answer. His mother had been taken to the Hospital before James had arrived but he hadn't been allowed to see her as of yet.

Kingsley paused before answering. "Your mother was among my most influential teachers during my training as an Auror. She is strong and one of the most intelligent and capable witches I have ever met. I have little doubt that she won't make a full recovery. I've seen and heard of her survive many worse situations."

James wasn't convinced, despite the conviction that the Auror spoke with. "I'd like to go to sleep now." James told him. Kingsley nodded and left the room, though James could see that he stood outside of James's room.

James sighed and lay back on his bed. Then, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the square mirror.

"Sirius Black,"

The image shifted from James's tired looking face to the worried one of Sirius.

"James!" Sirius said happily. Remus and Peter squeezed their way into the picture, and after some fighting over the mirror, it was placed so James could see all three of them.

"Where are you?" Remus asked him.

"St. Mungos, but not for me, for my Mum," James answered quietly. "She was put under the Cruciatus curse. The Healers are working on her now, but she took a lot, and I only saw a few minutes of it."

None of his friends said anything. "Do you have any idea when you're coming back?"

James shook his head. "On the bright side, I don't think we're going to have a Defends Against the Dark Arts exam this year."

Sirius laughed. "I guess not."

They stayed silent for a while. Then James said, "I assume you were the anonymous tip."

Sirius nodded proudly. "I was all for taking the glory but Remus pointed out that then the mirrors wouldn't be a secret anymore."

James nodded, agreeing with his friend's logic. "I wasn't sure my saying your name was going to activate your mirror,"

Sirius shrugged. "It might have, but I had tried to contact you with it a little before you woke up so we were already listening in, waiting for something to give away where you were. Nice job with that by the way."

"Thanks guys,"

They waved off his thanks and then he hung up, lying back in his bed and closing his eyes. Almost instantaneously, the exhaustion of the past few hours kicked in and he gladly let the oblivion of sleep envelop him, briefly grateful for the Healer who had given him a Draught for Dreamless Sleep.

A/N: Told you I'd update again before the end of the week. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. This story is coming to a close, two, maybe three chapters left. Thank you for all of the reviews and more would never hurt. Every time I read a review I get inspired to write so please keep them coming.