A/N: WHOLY CRAP! You guys rock! That is the most reviews I've ever gotten for a single chapter. I'm blown away. I'm also really sorry I didn't exactly live up to my promise of posting soon. I have had the worst writers block in the history of the world. If this chapter sounds like crap, I'm truly sorry. But, please don't let me know if it is bad. I hate flames. They make me sad.
Now! On with the chapter!
Peace Love and Peanut Butter,
Tad
P.S. To the cunning reviewer who found out my fetish: yes, I do love fire. But fire is not in all of my series. I don't know if you have read Harry Potter hits Broadway or The Love Children (NOT THAT I RECOMMEND YOU TO DO SO, those are awful stories) but they don't have any fire in them. And if they do I've forgotten…
~* ~* ~* ~*
"You, boy." A guard growled the next day. "Come here." Harry stood up from his bed and walked over to the door.
"What do you want?"
"This is your breakfast." He said. Something was slid under the door. Two bowls of porridge were on a tray.
"Is this edible?" Harry asked the guard. The guard stared at him.
"What?" He said. "How dare you even ask that!"
"Well, I don't want to be eating bird poop. That's certainly what it looks like."
"It's grits."
"Gross." Harry said. "Can't I have something better?"
"You can have nothing at all if that's what you'd prefer!"
"Right then." James had awoken. "Harry, shut your hole and accept the food."
"Thanks." Harry said with fake sweetness to the guard. He picked up the tray and gave a bowl to James.
Harry sat down on the uncomfortable bed and stared at the grits. James watched him out of the corner of his eye. He seemed to be concentrating on the food.
"What are you doing?" James asked.
"Nothing that you care about." Harry said. James sighed. The night had restored Harry's coldness.
"Okay."
"Come on!" Harry muttered. He was still staring at the food. "Change into something I'm not going too gag up. Something that won't give me hives! Something that I'm not allergic too! Toast and butter! Frosted Mini Wheat cereal with milk! Steak and potatoes!"
James chuckled and took a bite of the cold grits.
Suddenly there was a pop.
"Eggs and bacon!" Harry groaned. "Out of every breakfast food out there- eggs and bacon?"
"Harry what are you talking about?" James asked.
"My food." Harry said. "I'm allergic to grits. I learned that the hard way at the Dursley's a few summers ago. So I have to change the food to something I like. Doesn't work very well." He scowled at his eggs.
James thought for a moment before saying, "Do you hate the life I left you?"
Harry snorted. "You know what? You get all mad at me for snapping at you. But you really set yourself up for it. Of course I hate it!"
"I'm really sorry."
"I'll bet you are." Harry said flatly. He picked up a piece of bacon that was under done. "Go back to where you came from!" He commanded it.
James didn't see he was talking to the bacon, which had disappeared out of Harry's hands.
"I can't leave, and I don't want to."
"I wasn't talking to you."
(A/N: Hey, I know you must think this food thing is crazy, but I don't care. It's interesting to write about.)
"Right." James said. The conversation ended there.
The guard had returned for their empty bowls. He took them and then opened the door to the cell.
"You- boy. You're coming with me."
"No I'm not!" Harry said loudly.
The guard had dealt with annoying captives before. He said nary a word, just grabbed Harry's wrist and yanked him out of the cell.
"Let go!" Harry yelled. "Let go! Let go! Let go!"
"Shut up, boy!" The guard said.
"Not unless you let me GO!"
"That's it!" The guard said. "I've had enough of you!" He grabbed the sleeve of Harry's robes and ripped off a line of fabric. He tied it around Harry's mouth. "That'll teach you to shut up.
"I ca stiw alk ou oh." Harry choked out. The guard held up a large fist and Harry shut up.
They were going up a flight of stairs now. They were old and dusty and creaked under the weight of Harry and the guard. Harry's scar began to twitch, and then burst out into full pain like he had never known. Voices could be heard.
"Where are Harry and James, Tom?" It was Dumbledore! Harry never thought he'd be happier to hear the old man's voice.
"Safe in my custody."
Dumbledore snorted. "I hardly call you safe."
Harry began making a racket promptly. "Hewp muh! Hewp muh!" (Help me)
"Wormtail, go find the source of that noise!" Voldemort ordered. Harry kept yelling and he pounded his feet down loudly on the steps.
Peter came out of a room and seeing Harry, went pale and rushed back into the room. Voldemort was sitting in his favorite chair. Albus Dumbledore's head was in the fireplace. Peter leaned forward and whispered something in Voldemort's ear.
"Damn that boy!" He stood up and walked out of the room.
Harry glared up at Voldemort. "I swa ull kull ou!"
"You'd like to think that, wouldn't you Potter." Voldemort sneered. "But it's not going to happen and we all know that. Now, I have your headmasters head in the fire…he wants to speak with you."
Harry nodded.
He lowered his voice. "Now, I'm warning you Potter. If you say one wrong thing- you will be punished. All you're allowed to tell him is that you are both alive, we feed you and that you're scared. Got it?"
"Mm ot sard!" (I'm not scared)
"Yes you are." Voldemort said. "Avery, take off the gag please."
The guard untied the gag and Harry moved his jaw around.
"Remember boy- one wrong word." Voldemort marched back into the room. "Well Dumbledore, I've brought him up for you. Come here Harry." Avery kicked Harry and he stumbled into the view of the fireplace.
"Professor Dumbledore!" Harry winced.
"Oh thank god, you're alive. Is James alive?"
"Yes."
"Are they feeding you?"
"A little." Harry received a kick in the shins from Avery. "Yes, they're feeding us."
"Where are you?"
"We're at the- the-" Harry tried to remember the name, but failed. "We're far away. I don't know. It's where I was after the third task."
"CRUCIO!" Harry hadnt expected that. He fell to the floor and screamed. Voldemort just laughed and took it off him. "Think you're so smart now, do you, Harry? I hope that teaches you to disobey me. Guard, gag him again. Tie his hands too."
"You won't win Tom." Dumbledore said from the fireplace. Harry was dragged out of view.
~* ~* ~* ~*
A week went by. Neither of them talked too much. Harry knew trying to melt the bars of the cell wouldn't do much anymore. The guards had the whole cell rigged. They could see and hear everything going on. So Harry kept turning his grits into bacon and James sat on his bench all day making little dolls out of the hay on the floor.
It was boring and both were growing thinner and thinner from the two meager meals they received each day.
"Harry." James said one day.
"What."
"I was thinking, we could use this time to just talk. You know- father to son."
"You aren't my father." Harry said simply. "I don't know you at all and you don't know me. It's hopeless to even try. Especially since we don't even get along."
"We get a long."
"We get a long." Harry said and laughed. "We get a long now that were locked in a cell together and it's our only human contact except Avery out there who just is * such * a conversationalist. Face it Krikor, we're at last chance Texaco."
"You're right, I know your right." HE said. "But you can call me by my real name now."
"I think I like Krikor." Harry said. "It fits your personality. Sneaky and quirky."
"Should I take that as a compliment?"
"No." Harry said. "Look, where is this conversation going?"
"No where."
"Well, I rest my case." Harry said. "We have nothing in common either."
~* ~* ~* ~*
"LET US OUT!" Harry yelled strait at Avery's face the next day.
"Shut up Potter."
"No seriously!" Harry said. "LET US OUT!"
"You're losing it."
"Could be." Harry said and crossed his eyes. "But you won't know unless you LET US OUT."
"Oh, you'll be coming out soon."
"Avery, look, all I want is a decent meal and maybe a quill and some paper." Harry said. Avery hated Harry, it was obvious, but Harry? Harry based his day around annoying Avery.
"And what would you do with that quill?"
"Well." Harry brought his voice down to a whisper. "Promise not to tell, but with the quill I'd start scratching a hole through this cement. Ever so slowly. It may take months, even years. But then, someday, the hole will be big enough for me to slip through and then I'll be free." Harry's voice had been getting steadily quieter so Avery leaned in to listen to Harry's voice now. "But before I go to sleep every night I'll cover up the hole with the paper and some sellotape. And nobody would ever know what I was up to." His voice was barely a whisper. "Unless you'd just like to spare me some trouble and LET US OUT OF THIS GOD DAMNED CELL!"
Avery cursed, and drew his ears away from the bars on the door to the cell. "I'm reporting you for that one."
"Okay, sir!" Harry said. "But what will they do to me? Throw me in a cell and never let me out? …Oh wait. It's too late for that one."
Avery left at that.
~* ~* ~* ~*
Voldemort had done some thinking. Dumbledore would know where he was hidden soon enough and he didn't have enough defenses to hold him back right now. So he developed a plan.
"We need to get rid of them." Voldemort said.
"Kill them?" Avery said. "Are you going to kill them?"
Voldemort said. "I was thinking I'd let James go."
"You're just going to let James go?"
"And before I let him go, he's going to see Harry die."
"You're going to kill the boy?"
"And he will be there to see him die." Voldemort said. "Go and get Harry for me now."
~* ~* ~* ~*
Harry sat back on the hard bed and looked at James who was snickering in the corner. "I couldn't wish for a better cell mate, I'll give you that much."
"The felling isn't mutual." Harry said.
"Why's that?"
"You snore." Harry said.
"Oh."
"And you drool."
"I see."
"And you have this really bad habit of--"
"I get the point." James yelled.
"Talkinginyoursleep" Harry finished his sentence quickly. James glared at him. Harry grinned innocently.
"Your a real jerk sometimes you know?" James said, sighing as he laid down on his "bed".
Harry snorted. "I've always been told I'm just like my father."
James smiled, but Harry didn't see it. "You acknowledged I'm your father."
Harry pretended he hadn't heard.
Then there was a new sound. Avery laughing evilly. He came into the room, banging the door open. "Will you please stop laughing like a hyena?" James said.
"Good one" Harry said.
"I learn from the best." James replied with a wink.
"Awww. Father-Son love. That's so sweet I think I'm going to hurl." He started walking toward Harry and grabbed his shoulder. "Come on now. Master has some...plans...for you."
Harry easily squirmed out of Avery's grip. "Tell him to re schedule. I'm not going anywhere near him."
"You'd think that, wouldn't you?" Avery said lazily. He grabbed Harry's wrist now and began to tug. Harry, who had small writs, slipped his hand out.
"Because." He continued. "He's a pain to talk to. His vocabulary consists of 'Crucio', 'I'm going to punish you' and 'I'll get you Harry Potter.'"
James added lightly in a high voice, "And your little dog too."
Harry had to laugh at this. No matter how much he didn't want to laugh, he did, and it was his downfall. Avery seized the moment (A/N: No, I don't endorse Kodak ©) and grabbed Harry around the middle.
"No, no Avery!" Harry said. "I was laughing, not choking. Can you please remove your arms?"
"You're coming with me." Avery said. "So, I'm thinking…no."
"I'm thinking." Harry said and looked up at Avery sweetly. "Yes." Harry lifted up his leg swiftly and kicked him in the special place that all boys have.
Avery groaned and Harry stumbled to the other side of the cell. But the burly guard quickly recovered.
"That was a little below the belt there!" Avery said.
"Literally." Harry said snidely. James chuckled.
Avery was advancing quickly now. James forgot the little joke and did what came first to his mind. He ran over to Harry.
"What are you, stupid?" Harry asked.
"Quite." James said through gritted teeth. Avery knocked James to the side and grabbed Harry and slung him over one broad shoulder.
"CAN'T WE NEGOTIATE THIS?" Harry yelled. "WHY CANT WE ALL JUST BE FRIENDS?"
James had gotten up again and rammed himself into Avery's stomach. Avery barely moved to this blow. But he hadnt enjoyed it either. He lifted up his arm and with a sickening crack James had been thrown to the floor. He didn't get up.
"Dad!" Harry cried. Avery laughed wickedly and walked out of the cell, shutting it with an echoing boom.
A/N: This chapter goes out to Seeker 2000 who helped me out big time with a scene back there. She pulled me out of my writers' block. Three cheers for her!
Now! On with the chapter!
Peace Love and Peanut Butter,
Tad
P.S. To the cunning reviewer who found out my fetish: yes, I do love fire. But fire is not in all of my series. I don't know if you have read Harry Potter hits Broadway or The Love Children (NOT THAT I RECOMMEND YOU TO DO SO, those are awful stories) but they don't have any fire in them. And if they do I've forgotten…
~* ~* ~* ~*
"You, boy." A guard growled the next day. "Come here." Harry stood up from his bed and walked over to the door.
"What do you want?"
"This is your breakfast." He said. Something was slid under the door. Two bowls of porridge were on a tray.
"Is this edible?" Harry asked the guard. The guard stared at him.
"What?" He said. "How dare you even ask that!"
"Well, I don't want to be eating bird poop. That's certainly what it looks like."
"It's grits."
"Gross." Harry said. "Can't I have something better?"
"You can have nothing at all if that's what you'd prefer!"
"Right then." James had awoken. "Harry, shut your hole and accept the food."
"Thanks." Harry said with fake sweetness to the guard. He picked up the tray and gave a bowl to James.
Harry sat down on the uncomfortable bed and stared at the grits. James watched him out of the corner of his eye. He seemed to be concentrating on the food.
"What are you doing?" James asked.
"Nothing that you care about." Harry said. James sighed. The night had restored Harry's coldness.
"Okay."
"Come on!" Harry muttered. He was still staring at the food. "Change into something I'm not going too gag up. Something that won't give me hives! Something that I'm not allergic too! Toast and butter! Frosted Mini Wheat cereal with milk! Steak and potatoes!"
James chuckled and took a bite of the cold grits.
Suddenly there was a pop.
"Eggs and bacon!" Harry groaned. "Out of every breakfast food out there- eggs and bacon?"
"Harry what are you talking about?" James asked.
"My food." Harry said. "I'm allergic to grits. I learned that the hard way at the Dursley's a few summers ago. So I have to change the food to something I like. Doesn't work very well." He scowled at his eggs.
James thought for a moment before saying, "Do you hate the life I left you?"
Harry snorted. "You know what? You get all mad at me for snapping at you. But you really set yourself up for it. Of course I hate it!"
"I'm really sorry."
"I'll bet you are." Harry said flatly. He picked up a piece of bacon that was under done. "Go back to where you came from!" He commanded it.
James didn't see he was talking to the bacon, which had disappeared out of Harry's hands.
"I can't leave, and I don't want to."
"I wasn't talking to you."
(A/N: Hey, I know you must think this food thing is crazy, but I don't care. It's interesting to write about.)
"Right." James said. The conversation ended there.
The guard had returned for their empty bowls. He took them and then opened the door to the cell.
"You- boy. You're coming with me."
"No I'm not!" Harry said loudly.
The guard had dealt with annoying captives before. He said nary a word, just grabbed Harry's wrist and yanked him out of the cell.
"Let go!" Harry yelled. "Let go! Let go! Let go!"
"Shut up, boy!" The guard said.
"Not unless you let me GO!"
"That's it!" The guard said. "I've had enough of you!" He grabbed the sleeve of Harry's robes and ripped off a line of fabric. He tied it around Harry's mouth. "That'll teach you to shut up.
"I ca stiw alk ou oh." Harry choked out. The guard held up a large fist and Harry shut up.
They were going up a flight of stairs now. They were old and dusty and creaked under the weight of Harry and the guard. Harry's scar began to twitch, and then burst out into full pain like he had never known. Voices could be heard.
"Where are Harry and James, Tom?" It was Dumbledore! Harry never thought he'd be happier to hear the old man's voice.
"Safe in my custody."
Dumbledore snorted. "I hardly call you safe."
Harry began making a racket promptly. "Hewp muh! Hewp muh!" (Help me)
"Wormtail, go find the source of that noise!" Voldemort ordered. Harry kept yelling and he pounded his feet down loudly on the steps.
Peter came out of a room and seeing Harry, went pale and rushed back into the room. Voldemort was sitting in his favorite chair. Albus Dumbledore's head was in the fireplace. Peter leaned forward and whispered something in Voldemort's ear.
"Damn that boy!" He stood up and walked out of the room.
Harry glared up at Voldemort. "I swa ull kull ou!"
"You'd like to think that, wouldn't you Potter." Voldemort sneered. "But it's not going to happen and we all know that. Now, I have your headmasters head in the fire…he wants to speak with you."
Harry nodded.
He lowered his voice. "Now, I'm warning you Potter. If you say one wrong thing- you will be punished. All you're allowed to tell him is that you are both alive, we feed you and that you're scared. Got it?"
"Mm ot sard!" (I'm not scared)
"Yes you are." Voldemort said. "Avery, take off the gag please."
The guard untied the gag and Harry moved his jaw around.
"Remember boy- one wrong word." Voldemort marched back into the room. "Well Dumbledore, I've brought him up for you. Come here Harry." Avery kicked Harry and he stumbled into the view of the fireplace.
"Professor Dumbledore!" Harry winced.
"Oh thank god, you're alive. Is James alive?"
"Yes."
"Are they feeding you?"
"A little." Harry received a kick in the shins from Avery. "Yes, they're feeding us."
"Where are you?"
"We're at the- the-" Harry tried to remember the name, but failed. "We're far away. I don't know. It's where I was after the third task."
"CRUCIO!" Harry hadnt expected that. He fell to the floor and screamed. Voldemort just laughed and took it off him. "Think you're so smart now, do you, Harry? I hope that teaches you to disobey me. Guard, gag him again. Tie his hands too."
"You won't win Tom." Dumbledore said from the fireplace. Harry was dragged out of view.
~* ~* ~* ~*
A week went by. Neither of them talked too much. Harry knew trying to melt the bars of the cell wouldn't do much anymore. The guards had the whole cell rigged. They could see and hear everything going on. So Harry kept turning his grits into bacon and James sat on his bench all day making little dolls out of the hay on the floor.
It was boring and both were growing thinner and thinner from the two meager meals they received each day.
"Harry." James said one day.
"What."
"I was thinking, we could use this time to just talk. You know- father to son."
"You aren't my father." Harry said simply. "I don't know you at all and you don't know me. It's hopeless to even try. Especially since we don't even get along."
"We get a long."
"We get a long." Harry said and laughed. "We get a long now that were locked in a cell together and it's our only human contact except Avery out there who just is * such * a conversationalist. Face it Krikor, we're at last chance Texaco."
"You're right, I know your right." HE said. "But you can call me by my real name now."
"I think I like Krikor." Harry said. "It fits your personality. Sneaky and quirky."
"Should I take that as a compliment?"
"No." Harry said. "Look, where is this conversation going?"
"No where."
"Well, I rest my case." Harry said. "We have nothing in common either."
~* ~* ~* ~*
"LET US OUT!" Harry yelled strait at Avery's face the next day.
"Shut up Potter."
"No seriously!" Harry said. "LET US OUT!"
"You're losing it."
"Could be." Harry said and crossed his eyes. "But you won't know unless you LET US OUT."
"Oh, you'll be coming out soon."
"Avery, look, all I want is a decent meal and maybe a quill and some paper." Harry said. Avery hated Harry, it was obvious, but Harry? Harry based his day around annoying Avery.
"And what would you do with that quill?"
"Well." Harry brought his voice down to a whisper. "Promise not to tell, but with the quill I'd start scratching a hole through this cement. Ever so slowly. It may take months, even years. But then, someday, the hole will be big enough for me to slip through and then I'll be free." Harry's voice had been getting steadily quieter so Avery leaned in to listen to Harry's voice now. "But before I go to sleep every night I'll cover up the hole with the paper and some sellotape. And nobody would ever know what I was up to." His voice was barely a whisper. "Unless you'd just like to spare me some trouble and LET US OUT OF THIS GOD DAMNED CELL!"
Avery cursed, and drew his ears away from the bars on the door to the cell. "I'm reporting you for that one."
"Okay, sir!" Harry said. "But what will they do to me? Throw me in a cell and never let me out? …Oh wait. It's too late for that one."
Avery left at that.
~* ~* ~* ~*
Voldemort had done some thinking. Dumbledore would know where he was hidden soon enough and he didn't have enough defenses to hold him back right now. So he developed a plan.
"We need to get rid of them." Voldemort said.
"Kill them?" Avery said. "Are you going to kill them?"
Voldemort said. "I was thinking I'd let James go."
"You're just going to let James go?"
"And before I let him go, he's going to see Harry die."
"You're going to kill the boy?"
"And he will be there to see him die." Voldemort said. "Go and get Harry for me now."
~* ~* ~* ~*
Harry sat back on the hard bed and looked at James who was snickering in the corner. "I couldn't wish for a better cell mate, I'll give you that much."
"The felling isn't mutual." Harry said.
"Why's that?"
"You snore." Harry said.
"Oh."
"And you drool."
"I see."
"And you have this really bad habit of--"
"I get the point." James yelled.
"Talkinginyoursleep" Harry finished his sentence quickly. James glared at him. Harry grinned innocently.
"Your a real jerk sometimes you know?" James said, sighing as he laid down on his "bed".
Harry snorted. "I've always been told I'm just like my father."
James smiled, but Harry didn't see it. "You acknowledged I'm your father."
Harry pretended he hadn't heard.
Then there was a new sound. Avery laughing evilly. He came into the room, banging the door open. "Will you please stop laughing like a hyena?" James said.
"Good one" Harry said.
"I learn from the best." James replied with a wink.
"Awww. Father-Son love. That's so sweet I think I'm going to hurl." He started walking toward Harry and grabbed his shoulder. "Come on now. Master has some...plans...for you."
Harry easily squirmed out of Avery's grip. "Tell him to re schedule. I'm not going anywhere near him."
"You'd think that, wouldn't you?" Avery said lazily. He grabbed Harry's wrist now and began to tug. Harry, who had small writs, slipped his hand out.
"Because." He continued. "He's a pain to talk to. His vocabulary consists of 'Crucio', 'I'm going to punish you' and 'I'll get you Harry Potter.'"
James added lightly in a high voice, "And your little dog too."
Harry had to laugh at this. No matter how much he didn't want to laugh, he did, and it was his downfall. Avery seized the moment (A/N: No, I don't endorse Kodak ©) and grabbed Harry around the middle.
"No, no Avery!" Harry said. "I was laughing, not choking. Can you please remove your arms?"
"You're coming with me." Avery said. "So, I'm thinking…no."
"I'm thinking." Harry said and looked up at Avery sweetly. "Yes." Harry lifted up his leg swiftly and kicked him in the special place that all boys have.
Avery groaned and Harry stumbled to the other side of the cell. But the burly guard quickly recovered.
"That was a little below the belt there!" Avery said.
"Literally." Harry said snidely. James chuckled.
Avery was advancing quickly now. James forgot the little joke and did what came first to his mind. He ran over to Harry.
"What are you, stupid?" Harry asked.
"Quite." James said through gritted teeth. Avery knocked James to the side and grabbed Harry and slung him over one broad shoulder.
"CAN'T WE NEGOTIATE THIS?" Harry yelled. "WHY CANT WE ALL JUST BE FRIENDS?"
James had gotten up again and rammed himself into Avery's stomach. Avery barely moved to this blow. But he hadnt enjoyed it either. He lifted up his arm and with a sickening crack James had been thrown to the floor. He didn't get up.
"Dad!" Harry cried. Avery laughed wickedly and walked out of the cell, shutting it with an echoing boom.
A/N: This chapter goes out to Seeker 2000 who helped me out big time with a scene back there. She pulled me out of my writers' block. Three cheers for her!
