Disclaimer: JK Rowling and assorted publishers own Harry Potter.

This is a work of fanfiction: no money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.


Chapter 53

It had been another bad night.

For all Harry knew, it could still be another bad night, since his vision remained completely white, and his sense gave away nothing as to the time of day. Still, his skin didn't have the tightness he associated with the small hours of the night, there wasn't the graininess to the eyelids that urged him back to sleep, so he assumed it must at least be after six.

Whatever the specific hour, however, the fact remained that the Beauxbatons Key draining ceremonies had resumed, seemingly under the leadership of the Lestranges, and, if his visions were anything to go by, seemingly more cruel than Lucius Malfoy had ever been.

With no visual distractions, the images replayed again and again in his mind, the Lestranges delighting in every detail of the macabre ritual. He saw the victims' arms slashed open again and again - a deep cut on the left forearm (oddly enough, exactly where the Dark Mark would be), heard the strangled, broken cries, the words unintelligible, yet the sentiment conveyed by the deep-seated primal language of terror.

Disturbingly, the mental connections in the image flickered and shifted, and Harry's mind was constantly assaulted by different interpretations of the sight being played out before him. For the most part, the same chill, dispassionate observation was to the fore, but there would be flashes of torment, and anguish - brief moments of terror, horrified shock. These sensations reached Harry through the connection, with thought processes in foreign tongues, and he could sense the internal energy as battles were fought between wills. Always, however, the darkness won, and the draining would finish to callous acknowledgement that the victim had served their purpose.

Morning no longer offered the cleansing light of day to banish the visions to the darkness of night, where they belonged. Instead, deprived of sight, Harry's mind constantly replayed its last visual input - the goading Death Eaters, ranged in a circle about the broken captive, the gravel in the courtyard slowly turning black in the spilt blood of the sacrificed wizard.


Taking his cue from Dean's hugely enthusiastic review of Reservoir Dogs (which really didn't sound all that pleasant), Harry had labelled his guards after the colours of their patterns. It was odd that, whilst humans tended to have patterns of several colours, swirling cloud-like, much as in pictures of Jupiter, the goblins tended to be predominantly single-coloured.

So it was that Mr Green and Mr Pink were currently pacing the corridor in his cell block. As far as he'd been able to ascertain, there were eight goblins detailed to keep watch, operating in four shifts. It was possible, he'd decided, that the goblins worked in 6 hour shifts, which would mean that today would be four days after his initial arrival at Blackrock.

Which should make the day Friday, but of this he was far from certain.

With his nights broken by the Key draining visions (these always took place during the night at Beauxbatons, although whether this was crucial or simply an aesthetic nicety he knew not), Harry had taken to sleeping during what he assumed had to be the day, but there was really no way of knowing.

Even his meals - stale bread, tepid water and a liquid that he hoped was soup - even these came at seemingly odd intervals, further heightening Harry's disorientation, adding fuel to the growing sense of helplessness.

Part of him, however, realised that this was part of a game-plan, part of a strategy. His captors were evidently doing their best to keep him in the dark (almost literally), reasoning, unfortunately soundly, that he would pose less of a threat in uncertain surroundings.

And it was this part of Harry, spurred on by the sense of guilt he felt on watching, again, as the wizard's body lit up with the power from the Beauxbatons Key, that drove him to persist with the sense map of his surroundings. Every time the horrified scream echoed within his skull, Harry heard the underlying accusation: he'd allowed Voldemort to return; it was his blood running through those Dark veins, his life that allowed this cruelty to be inflicted upon others.

It was his duty to bring Voldemort to account.


Patience was the key.

Unfortunately, this wasn't exactly playing to Harry's strengths, but stretching himself out fully on the rough bed, Harry pressed his fingertips flat to his temples, and let his sense sweep outwards, committing the surroundings to memory.

The six cells and their corridor were easy. Mr Pink and Mr Green would walk up and down the corridor, their steps neatly dodging the embedded, brooding patterns in the floor, and weaving about sinister columns of energy that drooped from the ceiling. It went without saying that anything the goblins made an effort to dodge had to be a Bad Thing, and Harry had mentally filed the different pattern types under 'trap/ward'.

There were still a whole host of unexplained energies present in the prison, however, and these just in his own corridor. The walls all glowed with a soft energy, static, but present, as though waiting, biding its time. Even though the pattern was soft, Harry gained the impression that this was through restraint, not weakness.

Sweeping down the now familiar corridor, which, apart from the goblins' movement, seemed exactly as it had on all previous occasions, Harry reached the crossroads, actually a five way junction, leading to a further three cell blocks similar to his own, and a corridor onward, deeper into the rock, yet also seeming to be the route through to the main Entrance Hall. Certainly, it was down this corridor that the relief shift arrived and the retiring shift exited.

As a working hypothesis, then, Harry assumed that escape would also take that path.

Sensing his environment in this fashion was such an assault on his mind, bombarded as it was with shapes, patterns, contours and movement, that he couldn't maintain concentration for too long. The effort was draining, and the process of sorting the wheat from the chaff - static wards from mobile life - seemed to mock him with the huge scale of the concept.

Nonetheless, corridor by corridor, cell-block by cell-block, Harry was building an image of the prison in his mind. He knew that with true sight the place would doubtless look different, but the mental map he was conjuring would form a central foundation to his plan of escape.

There were moments when the multitude of paths, the shimmering confusion of patterns, and the simple vastness of the labyrinth threatened to overwhelm him. All that he had to do at these times was recall the latest Beauxbatons' victim's frenzied death, however, for his resolve to be stiffened.

It was ironic that the single person doing the most to keep Harry motivated in the exercise was Voldemort. He was determined to ensure that the irony would not be lost on the Dark Lord himself - that it was his cruel, inhuman reign that had sown the seeds of his ruin.

For no doubt about it, although Harry still possessed the vivid, burning line in his conscience that separated Good from Evil, prison was developing a dark edge to his power. It was concentrating, honing and sharpening a sense of focus in the Last of the Magi, solidifying a sense of purpose.

Voldemort would fall.


Awaking from a nap some time later, Harry's thoughts wandered in the whiteness of the void to consider Hogwarts, and the friends he'd left behind. Or, more correctly, the friends he'd been taken from by the Ministry's misguided fear, and Fudge's terror of public opinion.

Blindness was particularly cruel on the imprisoned - he couldn't even write to Cho, or Hermione, or any of the Away Team, and, equally obviously, they couldn't write to him. Prison was no place for a fifteen-year old; he was supposed to be at school, passing notes in Divination, catching up on sleep in History of Magic.

Harry allowed himself a small smile as he recalled shared wariness of the subjects of Hagrid's lessons, and the seeming inevitability of detentions in Potions. A school where people thought nothing of Professors entering the classroom by walking through the blackboard, or being taught by a werewolf (Harry actually resented the fact that he was missing lessons from the best teacher at the school, bar none).

His thoughts turned to Quidditch - after all, he was Captain, and flying, recalling the exhilaration of his practice against Cho, the two of them both flying on the edge, swooping, spinning, diving, throwing themselves about the sky, revelling in the joy of the free. He wondered if Ginny had reclaimed the Firebolt for herself once more - they needed a good Seeker if they were to recapture the Quidditch Cup.

It was a little while later that Harry suddenly realised that he'd probably spent the best part of an hour analysing the Houses' Quidditch teams and likely strategies, determined to find a way to put Gryffindor's name on the Cup. Captaincy was a disease - even if they had nominated someone else by now. Thinking about it, it would probably be Angelina, he mused, since the only non-seventh-year in the first team would now be Ginny, and she'd not played in a competitive match...

Harry grinned again as he realised he was taking this all way too seriously. He could visualise Hermione rolling her eyes in a mixture of exasperation and boredom. Cho, on the other hand, well she'd sympathise... he'd seen that in her eyes that time in the library, when he'd tried to explain that he wouldn't be able to fly anymore...

Cho. The grin faded: it just wasn't fair - almost the very second that they'd finally been open about being together, and just when she'd agreed to go with him to the Yule Ball... just at that moment, Percy had arrived with his jumped up hit-wizards and his mad list of charges, and taken it all away.

That - he and Cho - that had been good, he reflected; alright, they weren't an overt couple like, say Seamus and Lavender, or even Dean and Ginny. No, their connection was more subdued, but there was meaning to it all. She'd loved and lost before, and the ghost of Cedric was still there, not as a detraction from what they had, but... Harry wasn't quite sure how to define the role Cedric's memory played. It gave them a common bond, something about which they both focused, and through which they could touch and connect.

And just when it was getting good, just when it was becoming right, it had all been taken from him. Brutally, sharply, publicly... and he'd never even had a chance to say goodbye.

He didn't hold any malice against Percy - it wasn't in his nature to hate a Weasley, but he did begrudge the Ministry official the fact that he'd not even given Harry time to say goodbye to his friends, to the few people who truly mattered in his life. Percy, Harry thought bitterly, might at least have allowed him that.

But then, he'd not had a chance to say goodbye to Ron either. He'd sent him off to meet his fate at Sprout's wand, and Wormtail's bidding, that night in Beauxbatons, with no thought to the danger. No thought - he'd just assumed that Ron had got back to safety... and that assumption had ended up with him watching Ron's coffin lowered slowly into its grave in the November rain.

As Harry cast his mind back further, he remembered his last conversation with Cedric - Wands out, d'ya reckon? And then, zam!, dead. Kill the spare. Wormtail again.

It was as though you never got to say goodbye, like walking through life with the constant threat that the world would be pulled from beneath your feet at any moment. Sinister forces pulling the strings of puppetry about Harry's friends, simply because they were that - friends of the Boy Who Lived. Simply because Voldemort, the great, dark, powerful He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, simply because he was scared of a fifteen year-old with a lightning bolt scar on his forehead.

And for the first time in his life, Harry was no longer afraid of Voldemort; the Dark Wizard was right to fear him, because as soon as his sight was back, he, Harry Potter, would be getting out of Blackrock, and he would be going after Voldemort.

And no matter what the Dark Lord tried to put in his way; creatures, servants, traps, hostages... no matter what, Harry would fight his way through to the end, through to the final confrontation, and through to Voldemort's defeat.


"Visitor," announced Mr Red as the goblins changed shift.

This was hardly news to Harry, since he'd tracked the two goblins - Mr Red and Mr Yellow - as they accompanied Dumbledore's pattern along the corridors from the cart-track.

The heavy key clunked in the lock as the barred door swung open, and Dumbledore's pattern entered the room. Although Harry had initially sat bolt upright in his bed as soon as he processed the incoming signal, he'd determined that, for the sake of minimising his captors' knowledge of his abilities, he'd better not indicate that he knew who his visitor was until greetings had been exchanged.

Shortly after coming to this decision, he also realised that Dumbledore might have been using Polyjuice Potion, and Harry could have jeopardised everything with an inopportune display of his sensing prowess. So he waited.

"Good evening, Harry," announced Professor Dumbledore, in tones that could only ever be associated with the Headmaster.

"Hello Professor Dumbledore," responded Harry, "so it's evening then?"

"Indeed, a little after five o'clock, to be precise," a paper bag rustled before Harry's face, "sherbet lemon?"

"Thanks," accepted Harry, as he blindly extended a hand, and accepted the proffered sweet - it certainly made a change from stale bread, and, as the sugar hit, he started to feel, well, pretty alright, actually.

The goblins remained on guard - one was standing inside the cell, the door still open, whilst the other remained on the other side of the bars. Clearly, Harry deduced, they weren't about to let him discuss matters of secrecy with Dumbledore. But then, given the goblins' general levels of paranoia, they probably had the room bugged anyway...

"They've been treating you well, I trust?" enquired Dumbledore, with a warming hint of 'or else' behind the tone that made Harry feel greatly relieved that at least someone, somewhere was looking out for him.

"Well, I s'pose," said Harry, about the sweet, as he shrugged his shoulders "I mean, I can't see, and, well... I never know what the time is, or anything..."

He could almost hear Dumbledore frown, and had the distinct impression that the entire cell was coming under the intense, and displeased gaze of the great wizard.

"A horrible, inhuman thing to do, the blindness charm," noted Dumbledore, with tangible distaste, "however the Ministry insists that such precautions are necessary. Understand, Harry, I tried my best, but in circumstances such as these..."

Harry had to stop himself from saying 'it's OK,', reminding himself that he had to maintain the illusion that his blindness was permanent - the merest hint to his captors that he didn't feel his plight was as serious as it should be and the game was all over. "But I can't see," protested Harry, getting into character, "and I can't write... I can't contact my friends; y'know, Hermione, Cho... Cho Chang, I mean, and the other Gryffindors."

"Well," offered Dumbledore, "I'd be happy to pass word to..."

"No. Messages," interrupted Mr Red from his position next to the cell door, in an uncompromising tone.

Harry turned to face the direction of the goblin's voice, not attempting to hide the sheer surprise that anyone, anything, even, would dare to try and tell Dumbledore what he could and could not do.

"I understand your security concerns," advised Dumbledore, patiently, although obviously without any trace of sympathy for the security regime, "but it is simply inhumane to cut this boy off completely from his friends. You heard our exchange - if there was anything at all hidden in what we've said already, I'm sure you would have picked up on..."

"We have our Orders from the Ministry," persisted Mr Red, undaunted, "and from the Minister himself..."

"And," continued Dumbledore, cutting the guard short, "I shall be speaking with Cornelius about this matter immediately. I know that the Ministry like to delude themselves that this boy, somehow, is something less than human, but they would be well advised to note that the fastest way to dehumanise the mind is to treat the person like an animal. It would be ironic would it not, if the Ministry's regime of solitary confinement actually precipitated the change in this boy from what he is to what they fear?"

Mr Red, clearly not used to dealing with rhetorical statements, shuffled his feet, muttering darkly, but obviously ceding to Dumbledore's lead. Harry was quite impressed with Dumbledore's logic, and hope clung to the possibility that his Headmaster might persuade the Ministry to let some of his friends visit.

He felt Dumbledore turn to face him once more. How he felt it he couldn't explain, but there was a sensation, there was a feeling, there was just something that told you when Dumbledore's eyes were upon you. There was power, a weight of comforting reassurance, the promise of absolute trust.

"So, Harry, I take it you'd like me to pass on greetings to Miss Granger, Miss Chang, and your other friends from the South West Tower?"

"Ye..., the South West Tower? You knew?" No sooner had he asked the question than he realised that probably there was nothing that went on at Hogwarts that Dumbledore wasn't aware of at some level or other... "I mean, yes, please. Just say, erm, well, just tell them I'm fine... and, I hope they're OK, and everything."

"Most certainly," agreed Dumbledore, in the tone that made you know that everything was fine.

"Oh," Harry remembered, "and could you say Hi to Hagrid for me, and Professor Lupin, and... and his dog." Harry caught himself just in time on the last request - it certainly would not have done to have given away Sirius' location at Hogwarts to whatever wards might have been eavesdropping.

"Yes, yes, I'm sure all the staff will be relieved to hear that you are well," continued Dumbledore (Harry wondered whether this extended to all the staff - no doubt, though, that Trelawney would be delighted that her long campaign of predicting doom had finally paid off), before his tone darkened somewhat, "although I am somewhat dismayed to say that your relations did not seem, ah, unduly perturbed by your confinement."

"What? The Dursleys?" scoffed Harry, "Hardly; they used to lock me in the cupboard under the stairs - actually, that was my bedroom - until I got my Hogwarts letter, that is, but they used to lock me up. Punishment..." aware that he was babbling slightly now, Harry stopped, and shrugged, lightly. He didn't think of the Dursleys as his family - he didn't really think of them as having any connection whatsoever with him any more - they belonged to a different Harry, in a different place.

It was funny how life turned full circle like that - that he could grow up and break free from imprisonment in an intolerant Muggle world, only to be thrown into fresh incarceration in the world he'd thought had been his truthful home.