21; Defences Demolished
Harry Potter blearily opened his eyes to someone's voice.
"Dora?" He muttered.
The upper right side of his head was in pain and he could barely open his right eye..
A maniacal cackle answered him, "I'm not ickle Nymphadora, Potter!"
"Ugh…" aches and pains everywhere, burns too, "So my fiendfyre didn't kill me… Brilliant." He muttered sarcastically.
He absently realised that he was chained up against a stone wall. His body was in an X against the wall and he couldn't move much.
"Hello Harry" Voldemort greeted, "You will tell me every spell you even think I don't know, and all the information that I want to know. Then, you will die."
"Hello Tommy!" Harry coughed, "So my fiendfyre didn't kill you or dear Bellatrix either. Did I at least kill someone?"
"You will be happy to know that Rookwood survived with only a few small burns. Other than that, you didn't even touch anyone of significance."
"You will tell my Lord what he wants to know, or we'll force you to." Bellatrix stated calmly.
Harry sighed, "Fine, fine, we'll start with spells he doesn't know. The incantation for the numbing charm is-"
"Crucio, we'll see how cheeky you are after a day of torture, Potter." Bellatrix snarled.
Harry hissed through his teeth, "That's the wrong incantation."
"You might as well just tell me Harry, it would be easier for both of us, I don't particularly want to waste my veritaserum."
"Fine" Harry said, and Bellatrix lifted her curse, "How about," he pointed his fingers at the cuffs holding his hands to the wall, "Open Sesame."
Nothing happened.
"The precursor to the precursor of alohamora," Voldemort sighed dramatically, "I had hoped we could do this the easy way. But alas, you decided to be uncooperative. I will return in an hour, have fun Bellatrix. Harry, I hope you will be more cooperative when I return."
"The cuffs are magic-suppressing, Potter, no wandless magic for you. Aguamenti"
Harry raised an eyebrow when the simple spell did nothing but send a light blue light at his chest.
Then he coughed, and water came out of his mouth. His eyes widened as he realised that she had conjured the water inside his lungs.
Harry started to panic and as his vision started to darken, he heard her say, "anapneo"
His lungs cleared and he took deep gasping breaths.
After a few seconds he looked up and met Bellatrix's eyes.
"I didn't know that spell could be used like that, I'll have to remember it."
"You'll never make it out alive." Bellatrix said conversationally, as she picked up a knife from the table beside her, "This knife is enchanted to cause more pain than a normal knife, it's also soaked in sensitivity potion, which makes your nerves more responsive."
Bellatrix ran the knife's tip over Harry's chin, not quite cutting the skin.
"The cruciatus curse lacks creativity, it gets boring after a while." Bellatrix said as she cut into his upper arm, Harry hissed in pain, "It does in a pinch, but I much prefer to mix it up a bit."
Harry swore in parseltongue as she cut further up his arm.
"We're going to have so much fun!" Bellatrix giggled.
"Bellatrix," Voldemort greeted, "Have you made much progress?"
"No, my lord." Bellatrix replied, "He's stubborn, he doesn't want to cooperate yet."
"And I never will" Harry spat.
"I gave him the wideye and nutrition potions as you ordered, my lord. He won't be sleeping."
Voldemort nodded as he looked at Harry, who had a few new violent scars, he assumed Bellatrix had healed the cuts she made with her knife.
Of course, the reparo charm was a painful and inefficient way to heal someone.
Voldemort looked at Harry's other new scars and wounds and deduced some of what Bellatrix had done.
"We'll leave our guest in peace for a few hours," Voldemort said, Bellatrix pouted in response, "Finite Incantatem"
Harry's three wands and his knife's bracelet appeared hanging from a rope near Harry's hand, just out of reach.
Bellatrix giggled, "you won't be able to get them, Potter, and even if you did, you can't use them."
"Yes, but three wands is a little excessive Potter, though with your tendency toward dual casting, I was expecting four." Voldemort said with disdain.
"Haven't finished the fourth wand yet, but only two of those are actually my wands, the ebony and thunderbird wand isn't a perfect match." Harry rasped out.
"What are the other wands made of?" Voldemort asked conversationally.
"Redwood and Phoenix feather, Blackthorn and Basilisk fang fragments" Harry was especially proud of the latter, and had been pleasantly surprised when his Blackthorn wood came from the same branch as the wood he used for Dora's wand.
Voldemort's left brow muscles raised, "I admit I didn't expect you to be so forthcoming about the nature of your wands. From my own studies of wandlore, those woods often denote warriors, duellists and such."
"You already knew I was a talented fighter, but what do you have against dual casting."
"Splitting the paths of your magic like that is inefficient and tires you quickly."
"True" Harry agreed, but didn't mention the advantages, which in his personal opinion, outweighed the negatives. "Have you ever tried it?"
"I used it a few times in the underground duelling circuits in my youth when I was still learning." Voldemort said, "Have fun trying to escape Harry."
"I'll see you tomorrow, Potter." Bellatrix giggled, "We can have some more fun then."
As Voldemort walked out the door he said, "I sincerely hope you enjoy the boggart, Harry."
A chest appeared and opened in front of Harry, who yelled after Voldemort.
"This is a terrible present, fuck you very much."
Dora burst into the meeting of the Alliance just as they were finishing up.
"Tonks, what is it?" Moody asked.
"Harry isn't dead." She said.
"We heard him Tonks." Bill said, "He cast fiendfyre, even if he survived that, Voldemort would kill him."
"He's not dead!"
"You're in denial, Tonks."
Dora thought furiously, she didn't want to reveal that Harry had gotten the resurrection stone. Then she remembered how he hid the stone.
"I'm not, he cast a fidelius charm to hide something, he was the secret keeper, I was the only one he told, and I still can't tell anyone else."
"Harry's alive." Sirius whispered, "If he is than he's captured, we need to move up our plans."
"Three days from now is the soonest we'll be ready, otherwise the teams might be too small." Moody replied, "I'll tell Amelia of the change… and why we changed it."
"I'll tell Albus" McGonagall volunteered.
Harry had allowed his Dementor-Boggart to cause him to black out. Apparently wideye potion couldn't stop that.
He woke up to a short Death Eater.
"The Dark Lord has allowed me to entertain you, Mr. Potter."
"Good Morning, Professor Umbridge! Or is it afternoon?" Harry chanted cheekily.
"Crucio." Umbridge snarled, "Consider this revenge for having me thrown in Azkaban, Potter!"
"Bella's was," Harry twitched, "far better."
Harry was held under the curse for a minute, and didn't do more than hiss in pain.
"You really are incompetent, even at torture. Stick to using your quill on kids."
Umbridge stepped closer, trying and failing to be intimidating, "You'll learn not to insult me, Potter."
"According to Snape, I'm a complete dunderhead. I'm not likely to learn anytime soon."
She stepped right up to his face, "We'll see."
Harry's lips twitched into a smirk and he slammed his head forward into hers. She stumbled backwards with a broken nose.
"Don't get too close professor," Harry taunted.
"You'll pay for that you filthy half-blood."
She glared at him and Harry responded by spitting in her eye.
"CRUCIO!"
Harry grunted, "Bella's is still stronger."
"I'll kill you!"
"Then dear old Tommy will kill you, or maybe he'll give you to Bellatrix"
Umbridge looked momentarily nervous. Then rallied, "It doesn't matter, you'll never leave this place alive."
Harry faked a rasping chuckle, "Do you think you can hold me for long?"
"You're not as entertaining as I had hoped, I'll just leave you to Madam Lestrange"
Umbridge healed her nose and left the room, clearly having noticed that she had little effect on Harry.
Harry, now alone, decided to find out what he could do while under the magic suppressing cuffs.
He already knew he could still sense magic, but what else could he do?
Harry tried to use his metamorphmagus abilities to heal himself from Bellatrix's 'fun'. He could morph nothing past the cuffs, so he couldn't heal his hands or feet, but he could heal some of the other stuff, provided he didn't make it noticeable.
He started on the fiendfyre burns, morphed them until they had healed enough to be slightly smaller and less painful. He focused on the largest fiendfyre burn, on the top right of his head. It wrapped from roughly where his lightning scar was to where his skull met his spine. He made that burn less serious and wondered if the fiendfyre might have destroyed the horcrux.
He partly healed the wounds Bellatrix gave him next.
Then he started to work on an escape plan. He just had to take into account that he couldn't do channel magic through his hands or feet, which were the only places that he knew how to channel wandless magic through. Metamorphing excluded.
Worst comes to worst, he just had to last until the attack, and hope he wasn't close enough to the bomb to kill him.
"So Potter was Grimm!"
"You knew?" Moody asked.
"He was using Potter's wand, Black was Tonks, I think."
Moody smiled slightly, "I will neither confirm nor deny that."
"I'll trust you to set up the squads."
"I assume you're willing to lead a squad, Amelia."
"Of course. Do try to take as many as feasible alive, Alastor." Bones said, "I'm sure you weren't this lethal last time around."
"Last time, Azkaban was inescapable, dementors left the Death Eaters with fates worse than death. This time we just have a fideliused bunker and lots of Draughts of Living Death."
"You have a point."
"Legilimens!"
Harry felt Voldemort's attack ram into his occlumency and quickly gathered all the memories of the Tortures he had experienced here. He quashed everything in the memories except the pain, and tossed it at Voldemort's legilimency probe.
Voldemort immediately backed out with a pained yell and stumbled backward.
"Well played Potter"
"You're- ugh- welcome." Harry groaned, and spat out a mouthful of blood.
Voldemort sighed, "We can't have you drowning on your own blood, anapneo."
Harry laughed bitterly, "but what a way to go, days of torture and you accidentally let me drown in blood" Harry punctuated this by coughing up more blood.
"Bellatrix, get some healing potions, make sure our guest doesn't die on us yet, we use Veritaserum tomorrow morning."
"You know it's only been two days Potter." Bellatrix commented.
Harry just hung his head with a groan and coughed up some more blood.
"Anapneo."
"Today, we will be conducting the largest raids ever recorded in the history of the DMLE. We expect to run into many Death Eaters. We don't know how many will be at each house, but we have decided on sending a group of twenty-one to each of the five locations." Minister Bones announced.
"Each group will consist of four senior aurors, the squad leader, two DoM curse-breakers, seven aurors and seven hit wizards." Moody explained, "Each squad leader will have an earpiece that allows communication with me and each other. I will be coordinating the raids from here."
"I'll lead team one, Kingsley Shacklebolt will lead team two, Rufus Scrimgeour will lead team three, Gawain Robards will lead team four" Bones said, "And Nymphadora Tonks will lead team five."
"Me?!" Dora exclaimed, "B-But, I don't have experience leading a team!"
"You're talented Tonks." Moody reasoned, "You duelled the Dark Lord and lasted far longer than most aurors would. You'll do fine. Now, Dumbledore has volunteered to help us, should any group run into Voldemort, Dumbledore will come to join your raid."
"One last thing, we have reason to believe that Harry Potter is being held in one of these buildings. He is priority two, priority one is not to die, priority three is to capture or kill as many Death Eaters as possible." Said Bones, "Good luck, and get ready, we start in one hour."
"Hello Harry!" Bellatrix said, "We brought Veritaserum… and maybe will get a camera later so we can send pictures of your… beauty to the Daily Prophet!"
Harry glared at her and rasped, "Be sure to get my good side."
"Open your mouth Potter" Voldemort ordered, Harry raised an eyebrow at him, as if he'd make it that easy, "Very well then, Aguamenti."
Harry glared at him defiantly until his vision started to darken.
"Anapneo" Voldemort said and as Harry instinctively gasped for breath, Voldemort dosed him with the Veritaserum in the open provided. "How did you survive my killing curse?"
"I don't know" Harry replied, it was true, he only had suspicions.
"How did you survive your fiendfyre?"
"Bad luck" again, true. Harry had intended to die.
"Who has been robbing my Death Eaters houses?"
Harry had a frantic look in his eyes as he tried to stop himself giving names, "My allies and I" he eventually spat out.
"Who are your allies?"
"Some of my friends, some of their friends and some people who agree with my goals"
Voldemort glared at his evasions, "Where are your safe houses?"
"Britain"
"Where in Britain are your safe houses?"
"On land" Harry was almost smirking, but Voldemort could see the smug gleam in his eyes.
Voldemort decided to stop this line of questioning for now. "What curse did you use to disable Pettigrew's hand?"
"A frostbite curse."
"What's the incantation?"
"The word a person says when casting a spell when they are too incompetent to cast silently or are being dramatic, distracting, misdirecting-"
"Who taught you how to evade veritaserum questions?" Voldemort snapped his frustration getting the better of him.
"No-one."
Fourty-five frustrating minutes later, Voldemort had gotten very few of the answers he wanted, but he eventually stumbled upon a question that would force Harry to reveal the identities of everyone he could name in the Marauder Alliance.
Harry struggled against the potion and started slowly saying names he suspected Voldemort would already suspect.
"S-sirius… Orion B-Bla-ack, Ny-nympha-ad-d-dora D-d-den-ne-b-bol-la T-t-tonks," Harry revealed Moody, Andromeda and Remus before he found a way to stop.
Harry bit down violently on his tongue and ripped off a large chunk. He spat a mouthful of blood and the top of his tongue at Voldemort and started gargling his way through every name he could think of as fast as possible, spitting blood on Voldemort and Bellatrix as he did so.
"Heal him Bellatrix" Voldemort snarled, "Once he can speak again, we'll get our answers the hard way."
Within ten minutes Harry was no longer bleeding and was starting to heal, he suspected that without his morphing slowing it down, he would be speaking again in twenty minutes.
He thought he was left alone to heal, but then the door opened, and a short figure came in.
"I thought we might try this again, Potter."
Harry glared at her and grunted. Of course, it had to be Umbridge.
"I know it's not very creative, but Crucio, just while I look around."
Harry twitched under the curse and Umbridge looked around at the array of torture tools.
"This one looks interesting…" She said with her back turned to him and he curse dropped.
Before she turned around Harry felt a rush of magic as all of the wards dropped, he also felt a build up of magic a fair bit behind him.
He knew that this was a thin window of opportunity and disapparated. He reappeared just in front of Umbridge and the wall he was stuck to blew apart, chunks of it flying towards them before Umbridge even registered his sudden appearance.
A large chunk of the wall slammed into Umbridge's back with a sickening crack and slammed her into him, pushing them onto the ground a metre or so behind where he started.
Harry stared into the dull eyes of Dolores Umbridge's corpse as he realised that the magic suppressing cuffs had caused him to splinch his hands and feet off.
He felt another wave of magic as new, temporary anti-magical-travel wards were erected by, he assumed, the aurors.
Harry deadened the nerves at his new stumps and focused on regrowing his tongue until he could speak as he found Umbridge's wand hanging in her limp arm. He twisted to push he off him and lay the severed end of his left arm on her wand's handle, his right hand at the tip.
"~Quicksilver~" He hissed with his new tongue, a new, silver right hand, slightly deformed by the poorly matched wand, formed and he picked up the wand with it. "Accio My Wands."
His three wands and bracelet flew from the ground near some rubble to his only hand, they thankfully hadn't been more than scratched.
He pulled his redwood wand from the bundle and conjured his two feet and other hand, the switched wand hands, vanished the poorly formed right hand and conjured a better one. He cast a few quick durability charms.
He conjured some new clothes and two crude waist holsters for wands. He snapped Umbridge's wand and holstered the ebony and redwood wands. He slipped his bracelet onto his left wrist and summoned his dagger.
Harry walked over the where his wall used to be with his blackthorn wand in his right hand, dagger in his left. He was awestruck by the damage. He could see a one metre wide hole in the ceiling of the third floor above him.
He saw someone looking down from the second floor and fired off a heart stopping curse. The Death Eater fell and hit the bottom of the crater over a second later. His corpse landing with a crunching sound.
Harry looked around the damaged room had spent the last few days in, "Accio Hands, Accio Feet"
A big mess of blood and gore and a hand flew toward him.
He sidestepped the bloody mess that he assumed was his other hand and his feet. But he caught the hand.
He transfigured the left hand he had caught into a small marble with a grimace and placed it in his pocket.
Now he just had to ambush as many Death Eaters as he could while they were fighting the aurors, and hopefully avoid getting himself killed.
Harry headed towards the edge of the crater where it connected to a first floor hallway and jabbed his wand hard into the ground as he rasped out an incantation, "Terra Forma!"
The ground ahead of him shot up, creating a rough rocky slope to the first-floor hallway. Slowly but surely, smooth steps formed, sections of the ramp sinking and rising to form each stair.
He healed his arms, legs, vocal chords and tongue as much as he could as he started ascending the stairs, he needed to be ready to fight. Maybe he should have apparated to Godric's Hollow when the wards dropped.
In hindsight, it made more sense than staying to fight.