Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters.

Original A/N: Thanks to MaeSilverpaws1, who is beta-ing this story.

Chapter One Hundred Forty

Torture

Harry walked into the now familiar room, hating that he kept coming to this place. The place that he had been informed was somewhere in the Department of Mystery. It didn't really matter where it was in real life though, because he walked in the room every time he closed his eyes. Unlike that first time, he no longer cared about where he was or what he would see, though there was a dark sense of curiosity that preyed on him as he wondered who he would see this time.

That first night had been filled with images of his father being tortured. That had been bad, but it seemed what came next was even worse. As Dumbledore had predicted, Voldemort seemed to be attacking his mind and after he realized that Harry knew what he was seeing was fake, the images he saw in his mind changed … though the images were all horrible to see.

The first one after his dad was Sirius who was captured. Voldemort was using a curse that broke Sirius's bones, one by one. Logically, Harry knew that the Cruciatus Curse was extremely painful, but watching as Voldemort joyfully shattering Sirius's bones was almost more than he could handle.

"He had the nerve to kill my snake," Voldemort said, "and you think I'll just let him get away without suffering through torture before I killed him. Come to me … take the orb … and I may reconsidered."

Voldemort seemed to be talking directly to him, no longer caring about Harry believing if it was real.

Harry had woken up in the hospital wing with his scar burning. It had been decided that Harry would stay in the hospital as it was likely Harry would wake up violently a lot and his roommates really didn't need to be suffering with him. When Harry woke Madam Pomfrey was sitting near him, her expression was sad as she placed a cooling cloth on his head. It felt nice against his scar, but there was still pain. Then she handed him a potions that helped him get some of his energy back, as he felt as if he had just finished with an all day practice.

After having taken the potion Harry had tried to get out of the hospital but of course Madam Pomfrey wouldn't hear of it. He probably would have argued more but when he closed his eyes the image that swam before them was of Sirius's arm breaking and him howling in pain. He knew he wasn't in the right shape to be moving around, but sitting in here only made him think about the image.

Harry was glad when his friends had showed up not too long after that, distracting him from his mind. Though his scar never stopped aching it never became too painful. That night he had tried to clear his mind before going to sleep, but that had no effect on the vision that entered his mind as soon as he closed his eyes. He knew that he must have fallen asleep for real this time, because he was trapped in the vision, unlike the other times when he was able to just open his eyes again to escape what he didn't want to see. This time it had been Remus. He wasn't too surprised about that. Voldemort was obviously picking the people that he was closest too, and he probably learned by now what Sirius and Remus meant to him. But of course it was obvious that his real dad would always be important to him especially now that he's starting to get to know him.

The following nights Harry had to witness his friends being the one under Voldemort's curses. He seemed to have a new and horrible way of cursing the people that Harry cared about, making it fresh and just as painful as ever whenever he saw the new torture. What was just as troubling to Harry was the fact that Voldemort shouldn't have known what Harry's friends looked liked. He wondered if Voldemort was looking into his mind as well. Were all of his thoughts being watched by Voldemort? Was he becoming a danger to everyone around him? He knew a lot about the fight against Voldemort and other things he learned that could be harmful to the Order, and it would be horrible if Voldemort had read that part of his mind.

Sirius visited Harry every day, so Harry told Sirius of his concerns but Sirius told him not to worry about it. That Dumbledore was still sure that Voldemort was trying to break him … all of them … by forcing visions on Harry. He wasn't trying to see Harry's own thoughts, though it was possible that Voldemort had skimmed the area in Harry's mind were his closest friends and family were kept.

It was now seven days after the first attack on his mind, and Harry was walking towards the aisle. He had tried before not to walk forward but all that did was keep him in the vision longer, as he was unable to wake up until he was shocked enough (usually by seeing who was being tortured). He was close enough now to tell the voice that was screaming was a girl's.

He turned the corner and what he saw sicken him; Voldemort wasn't alone with his victim this time. It was a wild looking man that had matted gray hair and yellow pointed teeth and nails. He laughed as Voldemort cursed the person by his feet, who Harry finally noticed was Hermione.

Voldemort turned to look at him, a grin spreading across his face, "Greyback, it's your turn."

Harry felt his heart drop as he realized that the other man was the infamous werewolf that was known for his viciousness. This was the man that had turned Remus, but that thought didn't really register with Harry as all he could think of was what Greyback was said to do to people, both as a person and when he was a wolf.

Greyback was smiling, licking his lips as he walked towards Hermione, who was backing away from him, but she was in a corner. There was a look of pure terror in her eyes as she begged for help … begged Harry to help her.

"STOP IT!" Harry screamed, his blood boiling as he glared at Voldemort …

He opened his eyes suddenly, snapped out of the vision. Though this was about the time that he had torn himself away from the vision the other times, it had felt different this time. Usually he felt almost hopeless when he was in the vision, he knew he was supposed to try to fight Voldemort, but he never could before. This time though, he was enraged by Voldemort's newest form of torture and when he yelled he felt like something had flashed within him. There was also something different about the way his scar felt. It didn't throb like it normally would, and when he closed his eyes he didn't see anything. Somehow, with his rage he had pushed Voldemort out of his mind for the first time in days.

O

"Damnit Dumbledore! We have to do something!" Sirius shouted, banging his fist on the desk. "It's been a week and Harry has been attacked constantly. He can't sleep! Whenever he does, he's taken to that psychopath's mind and forced to see the people he cares about most tortured! No one can live through something like that for long. There has to be something we can do!"

"I suggest you keep yelling, that seems to be helping so far," Snape said snidely.

"Watch it! I'm still angry with you for what you did!" Sirius growled at him.

"What I did," Snape glared back at him, "as I have explained ten times already, I was following the orders–"

"Voldemort's effing orders!" Sirius growled again. "You shouldn't bloody care about that …"

"I would have thought your years as an Auror would have given you some clues on what it means to be a spy, but apparently you are still as thick as you've always been," Snape snarled back.

"Enough," Dumbledore said calmly. "I understand that you are both worried about Harry, but snapping at each other is not helping. Sirius, you know that Severus has to keep his role as spy active. And frankly, the fact that Voldemort had set Snape the task of watching my office for how quickly Harry came to see me the first night has not hurt us at all, though it has confirmed our theory about what Voldemort is doing."

Sirius gritted his teeth and fell into one of the chairs near Dumbledore's desk. "What can we do?" he asked again, his voice was calmer now, though he was still feeling rather panicked.

"There is nothing that we can do," Dumbledore said gravely, "we can not prevent Harry from seeing what Voldemort is making him see. I supposed we could try to give Harry some dreamless sleep potion so that he can get rest. However, that is risky since what is happening to Harry isn't really a dream, which means the potion might have no effect on keeping Voldemort out, but could make it possible that Harry wouldn't be able to wake up."

"So that's a no on the potion," Sirius said. "Harry can't be stuck in a vision like that. It's bad enough that he's being exposed to such things, but to leave him stranded there … no way."

"Yes, I was thinking the same," Dumbledore sighed.

"I wish we could just give Voldemort the damn prophecy, he's made it clear that's what he wants," Sirius muttered bitterly. Noticing Snape giving him a loathing look and Dumbledore's expression turned pitying, he quickly stated, "I said I wish we could do that, but I know it would do nothing to help the situation. If we try to give Voldemort anything he's just going to become more vicious in his use of the connection. I just want Harry to be out of this."

"I'm sorry Sirius," Dumbledore said, "but right now, the only one that could make Voldemort stop is Harry himself."

"You mean by that attacking Occlumency, or whatever the hell it's called," Sirius said, looking at Snape, "well he's been trying to do that since the second day and it isn't working at all."

"I wouldn't say that it's not working at all," Snape said, "I think it might be part of the reason that Potter is able to break out of his visions the way he has but obviously it's not working as well as we hoped."

"Are you suggesting that Harry hasn't been trying hard enough," Sirius growled.

"No, I'm not saying that at all, he just hasn't found the key that will make him able to push the Dark Lord's effort back onto himself," Snape said. "Though, I fear once he does find that key, things will only become harder on him."

"Harder!" Sirius gaped, that couldn't be possible. "Harry is in constant pain, how could things get any worse for him?"

"Because he's going to have to fight … and fighting against the Dark Lord and his Legilimency is not easy," Snape said with a faraway look, thinking of his own struggles in such matters. "It will take a lot to get out of the Dark Lord's mind."

Sirius banged his hand on the desk again, he hated how completely useless he was … how useless this talking was. Mostly though, he hated that he could do nothing at all to help Harry.