Part Three: The Mark
High up in the nook of his tree in a Little Whinging play park, Harry Potter shivered in the fits of a dream.
Down on the carousel of the play ground below, sitting on the damp cold metal, Harry felt arms around him. He could feel her warmth against him.
"It's all right," she whispered in his ear. He wanted to look up at her. He knew who she was now. He drew in a breath and could smell her. She smelled of parchment and the perfume of her hair. "You don't have to come back if you don't want to, Harry."
He could feel his heart thumping in his chest as the unnatural breeze slid across the playground again. Behind them the swings creaked in the wind and silver wings fluttered somewhere in the trees. The arms around him pushed him away gently and the brown eyes examined him through their tears.
"If it's too hard, you don't have to come back," Hermione whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks. "We'll understand." She touched his face. "I'll just . . . We'll miss you, Harry." She hugged him hard and everything faded away in a flash of green.Harry woke up sometime later, sunlight filtering through the leaves above him. His chest felt hollow and empty; the memory of his best friend telling him she would understand if he decided to simply give up and die made him shiver. The truth was that he didn't know how long he could hold on; that part of him wanted to give up. He felt sick and shaky and wished that he could see Hermione and Ron again. He wondered where they were right now. Did they have any idea what was happening to him?
He gazed up through the tree branches and thought longingly of his four poster bed at Hogwarts and his favorite lumpy armchair by the Common Room fire. He could see Ron and Hermione hunched over their homework, bickering over some stupid detail that had been so insignificant to him before but seemed to mean so much now.
Feeling utterly out of place in his own skin and still unable to shake Hermione's hurt face, Harry climbed down the tree and into the play park again. He stood there in the orange light of sunset. How long had he slept? It must have been at least twelve hours, which meant that it was now Saturday night and he still had over twenty-four more hours before Mr. Weasley would arrive. He couldn't stay alive for twenty-four more hours. He knew that. He was lucky he had survived one night; another night was too much to hope for.
Harry walked deeper into the play park, the sun sinking lower on the horizon, throwing the world into a deep blood red. He made his way over into the lightly wooded area of the playground, where two hills sloped down on either side of a small creek and he could see the junction of Magnolia Road and Magnolia Crescent. He stood there for a moment, watching the empty street as the blood-red sun sank even lower. Above the sign that read Magnolia Crescent, there was a much smaller sign swaying slightly in the breeze. "NO OUTLET" was all it said. His muscles were shaky from climbing fences all night and his tee shirt had dried to the blood on his back. He leaned against one of the slanted trees and looked out at the houses of Magnolia Crescent, but the red roofs and square gardens only stared unperturbedly back at him. Silently, Harry made his decision: he had to try. Even if it cost him everything, he had to get back to number four, back to his Firebolt broom and back to his friends. He wanted to come back.
Harry didn't know how long he had been standing there waiting to see some movement on the street, but as the world was still bathed in red it couldn't have been very long. Harry finally turned away from the creek to make his way back when he heard the sounds of scuffling and whispers. When he turned back to face the play park something hard hit him in the chest.
"Stupefy!"
There was blinding red light and Harry was knocked off his feet and flung into unconsciousness.
When the world swam sickeningly into view again, it was a very cold, very close view of dirt. He must've been out for a while because the red sun was gone and it was dark out. He was face down on the soft, wet, mossy ground and could feel dew soaking into his shirt. He tried to breathe in but something was constricting his lungs and that something, he found, was a full grown Death Eater who was sitting on his back like he were a rock in the woods.
"Damn it, Bella, you're treading on dangerous ground," a man said and Harry closed his eyes quickly to hide that he was awake.
"I deserve my revenge!" Bellatrix hissed.
"The Dark Lord gets him first," the man said.
"Oh, I won't kill him," Bellatrix said in a sickly sweet sort of way. "I just want to hurt him a little and then we can turn him over."
"Our orders are to send up the Mark when we've found him."
Bellatrix smiled; Harry couldn't see it but he could hear it. "What's five minutes?" she simpered. "He'd never know."
With Bellatrix arguing to have him tortured, Harry knew he couldn't waste any more time listening. He tested his right hand slowly and found it was free. Moving slowly to avoid attracting attention, he slipped it into his pocket. The See Sphere was digging painfully into his thigh and the Snitch was wriggling under him but his wand, as he expected, was gone.
The weight on his back suddenly disappeared and a callused hand seized his upper arm in a vice. "Look whose up!" the man above him said, standing up and wrenching him to his feet. He was planted upright and his hands were pulled out of his pockets, the Snitch still clasped in his fist.
"Well, well," said the nasty voice of Bellatrix Lestrange. "Little Harry Potter." Lestrange sauntered closer to Harry, starring at him nose-to- broken-nose. The sight of her was so horrible that Harry wanted to back away but the man who had pulled him up was now holding his arms behind his back. Lestrange's huge white eye now had a swollen ring of purple to go along with its twisted scar and her nose was over twice its normal size and nasty shades of black and red.
Harry turned his eyes from her and gazed around him. There were twelve of them. Twelve black cloaks standing around him in a loose circle. None of them spoke, just seemed to stare and Harry had the chilling sensation of being surrounded by a council of execution. They were still in the play park, not far from the creek, Harry noticed. The man behind him had pinned his arms behind his back with a hand on each of Harry's elbows. The only other people inside the circle were Bellatrix Lestrange and a tall, thin man with a long brown pony-tail who was standing just behind her and twirling Harry's wand idly.
Lestrange grabbed his face roughly and pulled him back to look at her, her nails digging painfully into his cheeks. She glared into his eyes, enjoying the pain she saw there. "I owe you, Potter," she said. "I owe you big." And without warning, Bellatrix Lestrange's bony fist collided hard with Harry's nose.
The was a sickening crunching noise and the world suddenly went as red as the sunset. Harry felt as if she'd taken his nose right off his face. He felt the bone break between his eyes and was overcome by a wave of pain. He shouted in surprise and agony and could only stare blearily around the circle of shadows.
Blood was now pouring freely down the front of his face and neck and had soaked into a macabre ring in the collar of his tee shirt. He tried to breathe in through his nose, gagged, coughed and spat a large wad of half- congealed blood into the dirt.
Lestrange laughed; a horrible, high pitched cackle that made Harry shiver even through his haze. At that moment, Harry's mind began formulating his way out.
"Are you satisfied, Bellatrix?" asked the man holding Harry's wand.
Lestrange absently wiped the blood from her hand on the hem of her robe. "That wasn't revenge," she smiled. "That was fun. Now this," She pulled out her wand with a threatening kind of flourish.
Harry's mind raced frantically as he made his plan. He could see in her remaining eye what Bellatrix was about to do but could do nothing to stop it.
"This is revenge," she said, her wand only an inch from Harry's face. And Harry waited for it. "Crucio!"
Harry Potter screamed and screamed, but they fell on deaf ears. It was as if someone had taken hold of every muscle in his body and ripped them away from the bones at once, as if every nerve was suddenly grated through rusty barbs. His entire body contracted in a spasm and he jerked violently against the man who was holding him. It seemed like an eternity before he heard anything over his own screams.
"THAT'S ENOUGH, BELLA!" and suddenly it all stopped and Harry felt himself go limp, held up only by the strong hands on his arms. The thin man holding his wand had grabbed Lestrange's wrist, wrenching it into the air. "He's not yours to torture!"
Through a haze of the worst pain he'd ever known, Harry Potter worked frantically back to consciousness. He had a plan, he knew what to do, but he may not get another chance to do it. Slowly, Harry's legs found their hold on the ground and began to support him again.
Bellatrix rounded on the man, her white eye glittering in the moonlight. "I owe him," she snarled, snatching her arm away from him. She rounded on Harry but the man stopped her again.
"Bella!" he barked. This wasn't an argument, this was an order. "Your orders are to find him and present him to the Dark Lord!"
They were fighting and the Death Eaters were watching them fight. No one was paying Harry the slightest bit of attention. If he was going to run, it had to be now.
Harry's body suddenly went very taut. He shoved back hard with his right foot, catching his captor's knee in a powerful kick. There was a horrible crack and the knee bent the wrong way. The man screamed as Harry pulled arms forward as hard as he could. The man went forward too, his face slamming painfully into the Harry's spine, and he quickly released his hold.
Harry's right hand lashed out, catching Bellatrix in the back of the head and throwing her forward onto her knees. Before anyone knew what was happening Harry's right hand jerked forward again, releasing its hold on the Snitch. The little gold ball streaked at the man holding Harry's wand and smashed into his face. He cried out and dropped the wand, falling to his knees. The ball bounced off him and zoomed to the other side of circle, colliding with a second Death Eater and whizzing around again.
Harry ducked, the Snitch singing over his head as it rocketed around the circle, careening into anyone in its path. Death Eaters were shouting now as no one knew what was happening. Harry grabbed his wand and his memory went back to the Quidditch World Cup two years earlier. He raised it into the sky and hissed.
"Morsmordre!"
A green skull with a serpent for a tongue erupted from the tip of his wand and rose into the air and all of Little Whinging was suddenly lit up as if by a brilliant green sun.
Bellatrix Lestrange gave a blood curdling battle cry as she threw herself at Harry. But this time he was ready; he threw out his wand and shouted, "Expelliarmus!" and Bellatrix was thrown through the air, landing awkwardly against the metal rails of the carousel.
In the circle of Death Eaters the Snitch was still rocketing around, smashing into anyone still standing and there was such a state of panic that no one seemed to notice as Harry Potter disappeared into the trees near the creek and sprinted up Magnolia Crescent.Harry's lungs screamed at him as he tried desperately to breathe through his swollen nose. He tore blindly up Magnolia Crescent, his wand in hand and the wind whipping his hair away from his forehead. It was bold to go running down the middle of the road but now he had nothing to loose. If he met a Death Eater, he would have to stand and fight. The time was now; it was escape or die trying.
He turned left and streaked down Privet Drive. From somewhere in the night he heard a woman's angry shriek and the side of a house on Magnolia Crescent blew apart in a violent show of red sparks. Not allowing himself to look back, Harry focused on the ever closer number four. He could see a crowd of black cloaks running from the house and across Aunt Petunia's green-lit garden, all running toward the Dark Mark and all Disapparating with a series of loud cracks. Just as Harry had planned, they were all following the Mark, leading them away from Privet Drive.
Harry barreled through the glass front door of number four and slammed it behind him. "Colloportus!" It squelched shut.
Harry turned back toward the stairs as a loud crack sounded to his left. There was an explosion and the living room door was blown off his hinges, flying at him, followed closely by Bellatrix Lestrange. Harry dove up the stairs to avoid it and tried desperately to scramble up to his bedroom but Bellatrix landed hard on top of him, crushing him against the steps.
Lestrange was nothing but a blur as she landed blow after blow into Harry's face and chest. He couldn't breathe! He wanted to shout, to kick, to hit her back, but his flailing arms were doing nothing to fight back and very little to protect him.
And then it happened.
A flash of red and a massive hollow thump sounded. The glass front door bowed in for a moment and then blew out in a spectacular shower of shimmering shrapnel. Bellatrix ducked for cover, her attack on Harry forgotten. Harry raised his head limply and felt something cold rush from his hair all the way down into his sneakers.
He seemed, if anything, even bigger than before. His towering frame was silhouetted by a billowing black cloak, making him look like a monstrous bat. He stepped through what was left of the door frame and the red, snake-like eyes of Lord Voldemort turned to glitter down at Harry.
"Harry Potter," it hissed. "Once again."
"Master," Bellatrix gaped. "Master, I---"
"Silence!" he hissed, reminding Harry of his Potions Master, Snape. Voldemort's eyes flashed dangerously as his wand flicked in her direction. Bellatrix was instantly silent.
"The Great Harry Potter," the Dark Lord grinned, tilting his head to one side like a dog as he looked down. "Flat on his back, bloody and broken like his poor parents before him."
"Master, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt him, I only---!" but she was cut off by her own scream. Her Master's wand lit up a bright green and Bellatrix screamed, her body jerking, throwing her head back and revealing a long, slender, white throat.
Without a second thought, Harry reared back and sent his fist hard into the center of that throat. Lestrange flew backward into the wall, her scream cut short as she gagged sickeningly and Harry scrambled up the stairs, desperate to escape.
Behind him he could hear the coughing and thudding of Lestrange as she continued relentlessly after him and the hiss of rage from Voldemort. Harry got to his feet at the top of the stairs and lunged for his bedroom door. He threw it open and he heard it.
"Avada---,"
"NO!" came a hiss.
NO! Harry thought. I'M SO CLOSE! He barreled into his room.
"Avada Kedavra!"
There was a massive cracking in his ears and the world was suddenly a dazzling green. Something slammed into his back; he was thrown forward and crunched into the far wall. Harry Potter's world went to the deepest black as he slid down his bedroom wall, leaving a smear of blood all the way to the floor.
Everything was darkness.
The rest was silence.TO BE CONTINUED . . .
PART FOUR: "NO OUTLET"