The room was almost silent afterward. Harry couldn't see outside the tank any longer, but he could hear pained moans, Bellatrix's hacking cough, and Pettigrew whimpering. Mostly, he felt pain. When he pressed a hand to the wound on his side, he found a strip of flesh hanging on by an inch of skin, torn away by Pettigrew's spellcraft hand.

His head spun nauseatingly.

How much blood had he lost?

Not far away, Lucius Malfoy was explaining (in a voice vibrating with fear) what had happened. He blamed the escape on Bellatrix's carelessness; on Pettigrew's poor dueling skills; and on the utterly inexplicable appearance of Dobby, without whom Harry's friends wouldn't have made it out of the Manor.

"The elf was an old one of mine that I freed some years ago, my Lord, though how he knew to come here to rescue Potter's friends is a mystery." It was the closest Lucius had come to admitting to any fault of his own.

Harry's torn gills vibrated with every movement. Black spots were swimming in the red.

"See that it does not happen again, Lucius," Voldemort hissed. "Bellatrix, after you have seen a Healer, you and Draco will explain to me how you were ambushed by a beast confined to a tank."

Her response was rasping and weak. "Of course, my Lord."

"Lucius, lock down the Manor wards until you have figured out a way to prevent another servant from breaking in. Mulciber, Nott, and Rowle, get these incompetents to Jugson. Gibbon, find Rookwood and track down where the prisoners escaped to. I want that goblin and the Lovegood girl alive. Now!"

Harry considered dragging himself out of the tank if only to get his death over with. He'd rather die staring down Voldemort's wand than bleeding out from a wound inflicted by Wormtail. His head was so… spinny. Dizzy, yes. Merlin. He didn't feel good.

"Ah, but how could I neglect our guest of honor?" Voldemort asked, closer than before. "Seperatum scleris."

Magic tingled against Harry's skin. The water swirled; pulled past Harry towards the surface. Or, no - the blood in it was separating and flowing up, while the water itself stayed in the tank. Harry blinked up, seeing little orbs of red hovering over the surface, flowing together to form a larger clot at the tip of Voldemort's pale wand.

Voldemort's distorted face surveyed Harry for a moment, the emotion in his eyes difficult to read from under the shifting water.

"My, my, Harry. Why was it that your friends left you behind? Was the tail too much to handle, or was it the dark magic saturating your voice?"

"Piss off," Harry whispered, barely able to hear his own voice warble in the water. Now that the tank was clean, he realized just how dizzy he was. His head was probably about to spin right off his neck, he thought, but at least then it might not hurt so much.

Voldemort didn't say anything for a stretched moment. Then, a threatening whisper: "Who injured him?"

"P…Pettigrew, my Lord." Lucius Malfoy was evidently still in the room, though he didn't sound happy to be there.

"I ordered that he not be harmed, did I not?"

"Y…Yes, my… my Lord. You did. Quite clearly."

"Have him come to me this evening along with Bellatrix and Draco." Voldemort's eyes hadn't left Harry this whole time. "Bring me Jugson, then recall Severus. Immediately."

"Yes, my Lord."

Rapid footsteps indicated Lucius's escape. Voldemort leaned over the tank, eyes flicking over the length of Harry's body, his lips compressed into thin lines.

"Death may still be in your immediate future, Harry Potter, but you shall not escape me unless I will it," the dark lord said softly. "I hope that I am wrong and that I may still avenge myself on you, but you should hope that I am correct. If so, your life shall be significantly prolonged."

Harry blinked slowly, the words swimming through his mind hazily. What was Voldemort on about? Wrong and death and right and life? Why hadn't the dark lord so much as twitched his wand in Harry's direction yet?

Voldemort crouched, looking through the wall of the tank, meeting Harry's half-open eyes.

"You're an irritatingly nosy brat," Voldemort hissed, his lip curling. "And yet you never wondered at our connection? It goes beyond circumstantial similarity, surely you've realized that. Your being a Parselmouth despite possessing not a single drop of Slytherin blood, the link between our minds, the reason your scar can tell you when I am near… you have never asked yourself why?"

Harry's confusion must be showing on his face, because Voldemort smiled - a slow, cruel thing.

"Surely, Dumbledore must have had some idea… but of course, he didn't tell you, did he? Not even his precious Savior could pry the old man's secrets away."

"My Lord?"

Voldemort stood, clasping his hands neatly in front of him as he turned to face a plain-faced man wearing death eater robes.

"See to Potter's wounds. If he dies, I will hold you responsible along with Pettigrew."

"My…my Lord, I've never treated a… and, well, he's… I mean…"

"Nevertheless, your mediocre skill is all we have access to. Now, before he bleeds out and I allow you to suffer the same fate!"

The tank shifted around Harry. The walls shrank down, water pouring over the edges, until Harry was laying heavily on his back, the water only just high enough to come halfway up his sides. Air mixed with water in his gills, and Harry dimly heard himself whine at the sting. His hand had dropped away from his wound, weak.

The death eater knelt on the ground by Harry's side, aimed his wand at Harry's chest, and murmured several spells. Voldemort loomed over him; arms crossed.

"He is suffering from blood loss - "

"You called, my Lord?" Snape's silky tones interrupted the other man's nervous voice, and a moment later the man himself appeared a respectful distance to the side of Voldemort and bowed.

A flash of anger flashed through Harry like an electric shock, but he was too weak to even clench a fist properly.

"Yes, Severus. Jugson is uncertain of his ability to work on a beast. Having assisted with the ritual, I expect you will be able to assist."

"Of course, my Lord. What is the injury?"

Jugson began speaking nervously as Snape knelt next to him. "He has an injury to his side…a torn…gill. It seems large but superficial. Scans indicate he has lost a significant amount of blood, but I do not know any healing spells for inhuman anatomy."

Snape sneered lightly, leaning over Harry and reaching with spidery fingers towards the wound.

"Don't. Touch. Me," Harry breathed, the resulting notes warbling but demanding. Snape froze, eyes glassy, before he shook his head and his expression cleared. Jugson stared at Harry with clear terror.

"He is too weak to sustain mersong," Snape decided, though there was a wariness in his eyes that hadn't been there a moment ago. He withdrew his wand and flicked it at Harry, binding Harry's wrists in rope to the tank walls on either side of him. Harry pulled weakly as Snape reached over again, clearly intent on poking Harry's wound.

"No," Harry rasped, but it was so quiet that he could barely hear it, and Snape didn't even hesitate. A moment later, Harry's vision flashed white as Snape's probing fingers examined the tear in Harry's side.

"…inimal internal damage," Snape was saying what seemed a moment later. "A specialized healing spell is not needed. I trust you can perform a simple flesh-fusing spell on the torn area, Jugson?"

"Oh, well, yes, that… that may work."

"Do go ahead and be useful, then," Snape scoffed. "Alternatively, you could prove that breaking your 'sissy soft-hearted arse' out of Azkaban was a waste, as Bellatrix is so fond of claiming?"

Jugson stuttered, but lifted his wand to Harry's gill, his other hand hesitating over the same area. "He almost killed Pettigrew, Malfoy, and Bellatrix," he said, sweat beading on his brow.

Snape flicked his wand at Harry once more. Ropes cinched down over his chest and tail, pinning him to the glass floor, fully immobilizing him.

"Are you a wizard or not, Jugson?" Snape sneered. "Get on with it before I do it myself and prove your redundancy."

Voldemort was smirking.

Harry's heart pounded as Jugson finally reached over towards his gills. At first, the touch was light, and Harry only gritted his teeth. But then something in his side shifted, and Harry shrieked until his eyes rolled back into his head. Everything flashed black.

When Harry came to, Jugson was standing up, water dripping from his trembling fingertips. Snape was speaking to Voldemort, his arms crossed. If he was nervous to be standing before the Dark Lord, nothing in his bearing showed it.

"I am unwilling to dose him with a blood-replenisher until I am certain it would be compatible with his anatomy," the potions master was saying. "Our healing potions were all designed with witches and wizards in mind, and so may cause adverse results in another species. If you'd like me to begin working on adapting some of the more useful potions, my Lord, I would only need some tissue samples."

Harry was still pinned to the tank with rope. He wiggled, trying to shimmy free, but the ropes only bit into tough skin and between scales. The tank walls had been made taller again so that the water fully covered him once more, and the motion of his gills pumping the water no longer stung. All that was left of the wound was a sharp ache in his side, hardly noticeable compared to the pounding in his scar from Voldemort's proximity. His fingers were trembling, but without his side actively bleeding, his head felt somewhat clearer than before.

"I do not doubt your abilities, Severus, but such experiments are not urgent," Voldemort was saying. "His blood will replenish soon enough on its own, and it may be that I shall kill him yet. In such an eventuality, there is no sense in wasting precious time and resources on remedies for beasts."

"Of course, my Lord. With your leave?"

"Always so eager to be somewhere else, Severus," Voldemort purred. "What is your excuse this time, now that Dumbledore is no longer here to keep an eye on you?"

"Forgive me, my Lord," Snape demurred. "To be in your presence is, of course, an honor, but the school year will be upon us in a matter of weeks, and I prefer to minimize the time I spend in the company of simpletons. I am already forced to endure far too many of them at Hogwarts." This last part was said with an obvious sideways look at Jugson, whose face flushed red but seemed too cowardly to retort.

Voldemort chuckled. "Ah, Severus. Of course, your duties have only grown now that you are headmaster. Tell me, how is Minerva taking the changes?"

"She has not yet attempted to murder me, so I'd say fairly well, my Lord," Severus said, lips twitching. "I have been testing my food and drink at every meal, just to be sure."

Voldemort laughed – a high-pitched, shallow sound that made Harry feel as if spiders were skittering over his skin. "I trust you will not be killed by your own specialty, Severus. Very well. Report to me if it seems rebellion from the professors will be an issue."

Snape bowed deeply, then withdrew from the room, his robes flaring out like bat wings.

Jugson broke the silence. "My Lord, Bellatrix and Pettigrew are still in critical - "

"Crucio."

Jugson fell to the floor, screaming at a pitch that rivaled Harry's new voice. Harry's scar pulsed, blackening his vision for an instant.

When Voldemort lifted the curse, he was staring down at his follower with an expression entirely devoid of the amusement he'd shown to Snape.

"Do not hesitate again or you will be replaced. Go."

Jugson fell multiple times as he attempted to stand, but eventually made it to his feet and stumbled out of the cellar. Voldemort watched coldly before turning his attention back to Harry.

They were alone.

Harry attempted once again to pull free of the ropes as Voldemort crouched next to him, a cruel smile on his lips.

"Well, you're already looking more aware, though I expect you'll remain weak for some time. Not that you don't deserve it. Shredding Wormtail and Bellatrix with your bare hands?" Voldemort tutted. "And to think, you were a wizard just yesterday. How crude you've become in such a short time."

"You don't seem very worried about them," Harry spat with as much strength as he could find. The words still came out infuriatingly beautiful in the water, though there was something violent about the beat.

Voldemort's smile turned into a Cheshire grin. "Ah, Harry, were you trying to say something? You always did have a witty retort, even on the brink of death. It would be endearing if your constant evasions weren't so irritating. That will not be a problem any longer. This time, you are quite trapped." He paused, looking down on Harry thoughtfully. "My ritual was genius, but it was experimental. I wonder, how much of you is still human? Not your body or magic, certainly, but did you also lose your human ears along with your voice? Do you still possess any of your human mind, or has it been replaced with that of a base creature?"

"Let me go and find out," Harry promised, injecting his voice with as much persuasion as he could muster.

Voldemort only chuckled. "Your attempts on my life are flattering, but pointless. You'll have more opportunities to try. For now, it is time to move you to a more secure location."

"Stick your slimy face in the water, you bastard," Harry said, desperate. He felt the magic humming in the words this time, a violent swirl of power.

Voldemort only smirked and waved his wand, conjuring a glass lid over the top of Harry. Another motion and the tank filled with saltwater, before Harry heard a soft hiss as the edges of the lid fused to the tank walls.

Harry jerked, yanking his tail against his binds, but couldn't loosen the restraints. The tank felt tiny. Every time he shifted, he felt the light brush of glass against his shoulders, and his flukes couldn't spread to their full width. The lid was mere inches from his nose. Even though he could see out in every direction, Harry still felt horribly confined.

"Let me out!" he sang, as determined as he could.

Outside the tank, Voldemort stood, seeming impossibly tall from where Harry lay on the floor, and whirled away.

"Come back here and get it over with!" Harry shouted, his words echoing in the sealed space. "I thought you wanted to kill me, you sick bastard!"

Voldemort showed no signs of having heard anything. He disappeared through the cellar door without a backward glance.

A moment later, two unfamiliar death eaters came in. They, too, didn't seem to hear him no matter how loudly he shouted or sang. They levitated his prison together and tromped with him out the door, up the stairs, and into paneled hallways.

Harry finally gave up on trying to imperio them as they passed through a well-lit entrance hall, from which they entered a smaller room with ridiculously plush carpets, an uncomfortable-looking settee, and a massive fireplace. Voldemort and Lucius Malfoy were here, the latter looking significantly pale and shaky - a shadow of the regal aristocrat he'd been a couple of years ago.

The two death eaters set Harry's tank down on its side next to the fireplace, next to a trunk and a briefcase. Harry clenched his fists and thrashed once again, a token protest against being placed with Voldemort's bloody luggage. No one was paying him any attention, though, as if he was a butterfly collection pinned to a board instead of Voldemort's living, breathing, lifetime enemy.

Harry fell still a moment later, gulping water breathlessly. They couldn't hear him, and he couldn't get free, and he couldn't hear them talking just a few feet past his head. All he heard was the water rushing in his ears as it swirled from being moved through the halls, and his own heart beating in his chest.

Lucius bowed so deeply that his hair fell forward to brush the ground. Voldemort turned away, his eyes surveying Harry once again with a slight smirk before he shrunk his trunk and briefcase, placing both in a pocket, and nodded stiffly to the death eaters who'd brought Harry here. The two of them levitated Harry while Voldemort took a pinch of Floo powder from an ostentatious blue and gold vase on the gilded mantel and tossed it into the roaring fire. The flames flared green, and Voldemort stepped inside, calling out a destination Harry couldn't hear before spinning away up the chimney.

The two death eaters pushed Harry's tank into the fireplace as far as it would go. Green flames surrounded him. Harry's tail was left hanging out over the carpet, and his stomach twisted nervously as he realized he was about to be Flooed in a watery box through a fireplace that couldn't even fit him. He didn't have time to worry too much before one of the death eaters was stepping into the flames next to him, his hand on Harry's tank, and the room dissolved in a dizzying swirl of green flame.

Harry screamed. His body was being twisted like thread, squeezed in between hard glass, water pressure causing his ears to pop repeatedly. He tasted soot and salt and copper; heard roaring flames and water splashing violently in his ears. Then his tank slammed into solid ground, causing Harry's head to slam forwards and then back again into the glass.

He saw stars. The water around him was as violent as a storm, swirling and sloshing from the violence of magical travel. Harry was vaguely thankful for the ropes holding his own body steady against the pane of glass, thinking he would probably be getting battered around between the confining walls by the power of the water if he wasn't pinned down. As it was, the roar of it filled his ears, and his vision was spinning so quickly that he couldn't make out where they'd come to.

Harry felt a sickening lurch. He caught sight of dark tiles and gilded sconces but couldn't make out anything more. He closed his eyes, nauseated and dizzy, until the tank lowered with another lurch and fell still, the water's swirling having become something tamer.

Harry opened his eyes.

He was in an office. It was luxurious, with bookcases taking up one of the side walls, and a small fireplace with two plush chairs opposite. A finely woven carpet with moving snake motifs covered up dark hardwood floors. A large mahogany desk trimmed with opalescent inlay dominated the far end of the room, and it was at this desk that Voldemort was standing, restoring his briefcase and trunk to their normal sizes. Golden sconces lit the room, and a painting of a sunny glade complete with grazing sheep was set behind the desk, between two windows. Harry squinted at it, confused why Voldemort would have such a peaceful, mundane sort of painting in his office. Then there was a flash of black wings in the painting and a splash of fire. A dragon swooped down on the grazing flock, scattering them, and flew off out of the frame with a squealing ewe.

Harry shuddered. That painting suddenly made quite a lot more sense.

Voldemort turned toward Harry with a disinterested expression and flicked his wand. Harry's tank levitated upwards once again and then floated backward against, no, into the wall. Harry looked around wildly, seeing green and gold wallpaper above, behind, and below. He was being moved into some sort of large shelf set into the wall next to the fireplace, his tail pointed towards the fire and his head near Voldemort's desk.

The tank kept going until it was backed against another wall and clunked as Voldemort commanded his magic to set it down.

The tank wall suddenly shot away from Harry's face, expanding the tank in a rush of water and vacuum space. Harry felt his ears pop and the water drain from his gills, his own body hanging heavily from the ropes against the back wall of the suddenly much larger tank.

Voldemort appeared, smiling amusedly, watching as Harry squirmed. He tapped his wand on the upper edge of the tank, banishing the topmost wall. Air surged into the vacuum, making Harry's ears pop again, but doing nothing to relieve the sting in his aching gills or the itch of his skin.

"Say please and I'll fill it up again," Voldemort taunted.

"Let me down, you snake-faced git!" Harry screeched, the words grating in horrible chalkboard pitch.

Voldemort laughed, delighted. "Ah, I did forget you can't speak properly anymore. I suppose I'll be generous enough to fill the tank up again, despite your lack of proper manners. I am a merciful Lord, after all."

"I may not be able to speak normally, but at least my new body still has a nose," Harry rasped. The last of the water in his body leaked out of his gills: drip, drip, drip.

"I am sure that would be a sparkling insult, but I fear only a banshee would understand it," Voldemort said calmly as he aimed his wand into the tank. A jet of water shot out the end, surging around into the confines and rapidly bringing the water level back up to almost the ceiling. Air fizzed from Harry's sides painfully as the water surrounded him once again, filling him with the taste of salt.

The tank now matched the dimensions of the space inset into the wall: about four feet deep, six feet high, and just a bit longer than Harry himself, with around two inches of space at the top.

Voldemort flicked his wand again and the ropes holding Harry unraveled. Harry shoved away from the wall and slammed himself against the glass separating him from Voldemort, causing it to thrum from the impact. It did not give, though, and Voldemort's eyes glinted with amusement.

"Let me go," Harry spat.

Voldemort hummed noncommittally, leaning close to the glass and peering at Harry fearlessly. Harry felt his fins stand on end as he was reminded that he wasn't wearing clothes and here he was trapped behind a transparent wall in what seemed to be Voldemort's public office.

"Let me go," Harry tried, softening his voice into something syrupier. No matter the emotion in it, his voice sounded annoyingly melodic, but this was closer to what had worked on Draco and Bellatrix. "Let me go, let me go…"

Voldemort's lips slowly curved into a wicked smile as he listened, his amusement only growing.

"…you slimy, hypocritical, snake-faced…"

Voldemort began chuckling.

"Bastard!" Harry slammed his fists against the glass, making the water thrum with rebound vibration. Voldemort leaned back, laughing the same way he had at Snape's insults now so that Harry felt a shudder race down his spine.

"Oh, Harry. I'm sure that was a wonderful attempt to murder me, but you'll find it quite pointless. Of course, I'll have to take precautions for visitors… though I have a few in mind I know I wouldn't mind you tearing limb from limb. Curses are far more elegant, of course, but being torn so brutally apart sends a certain message."

"I'm not going to kill anyone for you," Harry sang with a snarl.

Voldemort tutted. "It truly is a pity you can't speak. I think I'd find your defiance quite entertaining now that it is so pointless."

Harry slammed his fists against the glass again, but Voldemort only turned away to his desk, ignoring Harry thoroughly. Harry settled at the bottom of the tank, tenderly holding his hand over the throbbing gills that had been injured by Pettigrew, and watched Voldemort unpack books and bundles of parchment from his trunk. The books were lined up on an empty shelf near the desk, while the parchments were magically sorted into drawers. Finally, the dark lord shrunk the trunk back down and tucked it into a desk drawer.

Harry expected Voldemort to come back, whether to taunt him or to kill him, it didn't matter. However, the dark wizard didn't even glance at Harry as he strode towards the door.

"Hey! What are you doing?" Harry demanded, pushing up against the glass.

Voldemort showed no sign of having heard him, flicking his wand to extinguish the sconces before opening the door.

"Let me go!" Harry pushed. "Let me go, I thought you wanted to kill me!"

But the dark lord had disappeared through the doorway, and Harry could just hear the click of it locking behind him.

14