Delusions- Chapter Seven
I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I receiving a profit from this.
A/N: Long wait for this, I know…
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He is giving me my instructions. Master… Master wants me to go to the secret place. The hiding place. He cannot go in without my help; it is too well guarded. With Master's powers guiding my wand, they will not be able to resist. They will fall dead at my feet, and the force opposing my Master will become weaker and weaker. And we will triumph over all. Stop it, let me out, who are you? Let me out, damn you! LET ME OUT!! He is struggling. He is strong. I must fight, I must fight.
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Voldemort surveyed his prize with pride. Glittering scarlet eyes peered back at him, his eyes. Eyes that had changed through magical transformations that had been deemed to hard to attempt. But Voldemort had been the exception to the rules for a long time. He eyed Potter for a long moment, recognized the insane glint in his eyes. Smiling slightly, he waved his hand a few inches and unfurled his fingers to their full extent. He was still watching, amused, as the scarlet iris of Potter's eyes flickered back to their original bright green.
"What?" Harry gasped croakily, glancing wildly around the clearing. His eyes flooded with terror as they centered on Voldemort, but Potter's face set itself into a defiant expression, his hand snapping to his wand. He had just pulled it out of his right pocket by his fingertips when Voldemort disarmed him. The wand flew lazily in an arc and landed at Voldemort's feet.
"Ah, ah, ah, Potter. We can't have that, now, can we?" Voldemort was scolding him as though he would chastise a child. Harry was breathing heavily, and he clenched his fists uselessly. Without his wand, he found himself helpless. "You won't need this; I just want to—what's the phrase? Oh, yes. Why don't we have a little 'one-on-one'?" He picked the fingerprint smudged wand from the ground and placed it in his own pocket.
"What do you want?" Harry said quietly, his voice powerful with hatred.
"You're hiding things, Potter. Your mind is privy to my intricate thoughts, but I know nothing of your secrets. You can penetrate places I cannot and you are therefore useful. And I will use you to your extent and dispose of you as I intended to fifteen years ago."
"How?" Harry's voice was harshly accusatory. "What are you doing to me?"
"My, my, your powers of deduction are weak tonight, Potter. You know I can possess things; I've told you this and you've experienced it firsthand."
"But when you possessed me… when you possessed me, it hurt. It hurt until I wanted to die. Now, now…"
"I, as I am now, am not controlling you. Do use your common sense. Snakes obey me, and Nagini… you do remember my snake, do you not? She has powers that I alone know about, that I alone control. It is her spirit that controlled you five minutes ago. She obeys me faithfully, and she is strong. You do realize it's impossible to try and escape? You will waste you energy fighting it. And as you are trapped inside your own mind, she will fulfill my demands. She can enter Dumbledore's hiding place, because she knows what you know when she possesses you. Dumbledore will not hurt you, and his followers will not harm you." Voldemort's mirthless laughter filled the clearing, making the sparse hairs on Harry's neck stand.
"Why are you telling me this? Why didn't you just leave me in there?"
"Because, Potter, although Nagini can use your knowledge, she cannot tell anyone what you keep in your mind. I wish to ask you something, something she could not answer. Tell me, Potter, do you know the contents of that particular prophecy I was seeking?" Voldemort heard a sharp intake of breath, but Potter's eyebrows simply knotted rebelliously.
"I won't tell you." Voldemort knew that he was withholding the information not because it contained anything that would put him in more harm than he was presently in but because it would incense his captor. "Kill me, because I won't tell."
"I thought you might think like that, Harry, so I have an offer. Tell me and I will set Severus Snape free. If you don't, I shall kill him in front of you; I will make sure you can hear the agony I give him in his final moments. Decide, Harry. Will you willingly keep a prophecy from me to kill the man who followed you into my lair, who risked his life? You hate him and he hates you, but he did not leave you to me alone. For whatever reason, whether it was for selfish purposes or not, he followed." Voldemort paused to allow the words to penetrate fully. "I will allow you one hour to think on it, Harry Potter, while confined in your body. Choose wisely, for there are no second chances."
~
"How can you say we should stay here?!" Ron was standing with both freckled hands palm down on the kitchen table of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, as though he wished to push it into the ground. "We don't know what You-Know-Who is doing to him, maybe we could find him…"
"You don't realize what you are saying, Ron. We have no idea where You-Know-Who is hiding. There are a million possibilities," said Mr. Weasley warily.
"There has got to be something we can do!"
"The only thing we can do now is to wait here—"
"If you think I can just sit here—I can't do that."
"You won't help Harry any by getting yourself into danger, Ron, you know that." Ron hung his head, pale and shaking, defeated after the twenty minutes he had spent arguing his point. His hair was still disheveled from sleep—the four Weasleys who had been at the Burrow had immediately relocated to headquarters for safety reasons, and Mr. Weasley had taken it upon himself to tell Ron why exactly they had had to live their home. Arthur didn't think he had ever seen his son so defeated as he did then, staring into Ron's face.
"Can I owl Hermione, then? Shouldn't we go get her?"
"Professor Dumbledore does not think she is in immediate danger," Mrs. Weasley said as she entered the room. "We've just talked to him in the fire."
"But if he could go to the Burrow, couldn't he go find her?!"
"He's never been to her house; You-Know-Who wouldn't risk sending him there."
"And, no, you cannot send her a letter," Mr. Weasley continued heavily. "Interceptions."
"So we're supposed to leave her there with no clue at all?" Anger was steadily creeping back into Ron's face.
"For the moment we are following Dumbledore's instructions. We need to trust in his judgement." A knock suddenly sounded at the door, signifying the entrance of more recruited Order members. Ron stared at his parents for a long time before he left the room, trudging through the hall.
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End of chapter
A/N: Mostly dialogue in this one—urgh! I can't write Ron and the Weasleys. And Harry, come to think of it…