As ever, standard disclaimers apply.
A door slid open allowing two young men access to the small cell. They grabbed the prisoner by his arms and hauled him more or less upright in order to drag him out of the room. The prisoner did not resist. Then again, it could hardly be said he even noticed, despite being fully conscious. Trained to be wary, they nonetheless were fairly confident the dark haired man would give them no trouble and indeed, all the way down the hall and into the lift, this was so. Then the lift doors closed and the small box began to descend with a small shudder.
Suddenly the prisoner stiffened and tried to pull away but the two guards held him fast as his weak struggles were nothing to them but an inconvenience. The only thing either of them thought odd was the fact that the prisoner never made a single sound. In any case, once the lift had settled to a halt and the doors opened again, they resumed dragging the prisoner to the designated destination, a somewhat largish laboratory containing a large tank of warm salt water and a variety of machinery and equipment neither guard knew the workings of.
Dr Sellinger was already there conversing with the lab's technician. They both glanced up as the prisoner was brought in and Sellinger's eyes passed over the trio stopping only to linger on the prisoner's face. Her own expression hardened and betrayed a surprisingly fierce loathing such that even the guards were taken aback. Quickly she returned her attention to the technician and finished the discussion. Then she stood back and watched in silence while the now pliant prisoner was stripped and reclothed in the modified diving suit, tubes and electrodes planted as required. The prisoner made several feeble attempts to resist especially when the mark on his left arm was revealed. But these came to naught and soon enough he was plunged into the dark nothingness of sensory deprivation.
Sellinger smiled in satisfaction. The old drugs were almost completely out of his system and thanks to the most recent tests she had reformulated her plan into one she was more than sure guaranteed success.
--
It was not unpleasant, the all consuming silence, the lack of pain, and the absence of brightness. Not at first. At first it was quite restful, a respite from the frigid water that rained down upon him, a respite from the shocks that jolted his body with lancing pain. At first it was quite a welcome change and he almost fell asleep.
Almost.
Except Something wouldn't let him and he didn't know what it was and it was too quiet and too nothing and too...
Is anyone there? Here?
Where?
Molly?
Remus?
--
Sound.
Thump thump ... thump thump ...
It impinged on his consciousness for only a moment, only long enough for him to realize he heard something. And then it was gone and there was again only silence.
--
He tried to bite his tongue. He couldn't find either tongue or teeth and began to wonder if he'd somehow managed to misplace his body.
Or maybe he was dead. At last. But... was this death? To be aware with nothing to be aware of?
He would have laughed if he'd had a voice to laugh with.
It must be death, there was no hunger or pain only the dull throb of constant unremitting exhaustion.
So this was death.
Boring.
Boring.
Why couldn't he have been a ghost at least?
A ghost?
Like the Bloody Baron.
Who?
--
Please father let me out. Please...
--
A whole week had passed since Snape's second disappearance. Albus Dumbledore was hard pressed to keep up the façade of tranquil joviality even through the welcoming feast. But the children deserved that much, especially the incoming first years. So he did his best and his blue eyes twinkled merrily behind his half-moon spectacles. Professor McGonagall herded in these newest additions to the school with her usual composed severity and the Sorting Hat sang its song while everyone waited, the first years, as usual, with varying degrees of anxiousness and terror, the older students with affected boredom and very real appetite (as they anticipated the piles of delectables to come).
The Order was at an impasse. They knew who had Severus but not where she (or perhaps 'they' was more applicable at this point) held him. Was he even alive? Both Moody and the Headmaster agreed that he probably was. At Moody's suggestion a constant watch had been set up at the woman's residence. So far she had not appeared, but neither had she packed up and left. The problem was that there was no way to know when she would return. It could very easily be far too late by then. But no other actions were turning up anything of use. Though they had not an ounce of magic in them, these Muggles were more than adept at hiding themselves from any, and all, prying scrys.
Equally disturbing in its own way was the silence from Tom Riddle and his Death Eaters. Not a single attack all week. The Daily Prophet had run out of things to write about on that front and was now devoting itself to the financial drain of having so many Aurors and paying for their retirements and medical care.
A loud round of applause signaled to the Headmaster that the last student had been sorted and he brought himself back to the activities of the feast.
--
As she had done everyday twice a day for the past week, Margaret Sellinger checked the readouts, then the tubes of fluids being pumped in and withdrawn. The subject was responding almost exactly as she had anticipated. Perhaps a bit more weight loss than calculated, but nothing life threatening. Only a week. Purebloods were so much more fragile when confronted by science and technology. Perhaps it would be easier than she had anticipated to purge the world of them.
She watched the technician take the daily blood samples and label them for overnight analysis. She did not expect any surprises, but was not one for shoddy work. Indeed, she expected that one day she would be able to publish a veritable suite of papers on this adventure. She did not notice the tiny smile that began to play about her lips. The technician did, but merely assumed the senior scientist was in a good mood because all did seem to be going very well.
She replaced the clipboard and turned to the technician, "I'm going to make the initial short contact, wait outside. I don't to chance any stray vibrations."
The tech complied with a curt nod and while he retreated to the outer observation hall, Margaret picked up the thin microphone wire that snaked out from the primary workstation. As soon as the door snicked shut she toggled the mike to send.
"I am Control."
--