Chapter Two – Rescue
Harry didn't know where he was or when he was. He wasn't able to count how many days had passed since the portkey had activated and brought him here, to Voldemort's clutches. Harry Potter had been handed to Voldemort by a simple yet effective way, a portkey. Just like fourth year, Harry tiredly thought. You win some and you lose some, was Harry's next thought.
Harry had been kept alive by spells and potions over the course of his stay at Hotel Voldemort. The bed consisted of having shackles around your wrists and being up by them from the time you checked in to the time of which you either died or were miraculously rescued. Meals consisted of spells and potions to keep you alive and awake the whole time you stayed at Hotel Voldemort. Some potions were used to heal the wounds one accumulated while staying. The days' activities provided by the hotel were few and far between for the people staying while the hosts' activities were one right after the other. The activities of the host consisted of torturing the days' occupants of the Hotel Voldemort by various means.
Boom. Harry lifted his head towards the ceiling to listen to the sounds. He may not have been able to see anything in the total enveloping darkness, but he could still tune into the sounds. By the sound of the boom to Harry, it meant that someone was angry. However, Voldemort rarely slammed the doors or at least that was what Harry had noticed while he was staying at Hotel Voldemort. The Death Eater also knew better than to slam doors or make any loud noises at all or else Voldemort might punish them. Must be a new recruit, Harry thought.
Yells of pain and anguish sounded outside the torture chamber's door and down the hallway. I guess there is a first time for everything; Voldemort is slamming doors, but nothing new with the torturing of everyone. I wonder what Albus did to set him off. The dungeon door is thrown open and a flood of light enters the room into Harry's now sensitive eyes. Blinded by the light he can only hear spells and hexes called out. It sounds like one person against all of the Death Eaters.
The hexes hit the stone wall in which Harry is chained to. The next spell hits his exposed ribs, the Cruciatus Curse; excruciating pain flashes throughout Harry's body and a horrid scream escapes his lips. The pain was enough to knock Harry into unconsciousness, the torture sessions over the past days helping to put him over the edge into unconsciousness.
Harry's unconscious state did not allow him to witness the next spell to hit him, hitting him in the head. Nor did Harry see the white robed figure come into the dungeon after all the Death Eaters had been stunned.
The white robed wizard gazed at the hanging, unconscious, semi-nude body of Harry Potter with his lavender eyes. The white wizard shook his head sadly wishing he had been able to get here sooner. Coming out of his reverie, the white wizard unshackled Harry from the floor and gently laid him down onto the dungeon floor. The already skinny boy was now even skinnier with abrasions and lesions lining his body both on his chest and back. The white wizard took out a potion from his robes and tipped it into the boy's mouth. The potion wouldn't heal everything, but it would help heal most of the wounds. Next, the wizard took out a rock from his pocket and made Harry grab it.
"Good luck Harry Potter, you will most certainly need it on your journey especially on your recent set back," the white wizard whispered to Harry before the portkey-rock activated and took him back from where he came, Hogwarts. The white wizard cast one look around before disapparating with a pop.
Harry nearly instantaneously appeared in the middle of the great hall where only one professor was located this early in the morning before all of the students arrived, Professor Snape. Snape was roused from his dark thoughts towards one raven-haired Gryffindor that currently had the school in an uproar. Snape raised his head to see the missing Gryffindor un-missing anymore.
Any animosity Snape had towards Harry at that moment and time was thrown out the window as he saw numerous cuts and bruises on the young, scrawny boy's body. Snape swept towards the boy not unlike his usual demeanor of a large, swooping bat and picked the boy up intent on getting him to the hospital wing as soon as possible. Snape ran into the hospital wing nearly a full seven minutes later calling out Poppy's name and setting the unmoving Gryffindor upon a bed, ironically the one he normally was put in if injured.
Madam Pomfrey, who seemed to be up at every hour of every day, came running out from her storage closet. She gasped at the sight of the missing student of two weeks barely taking in the clearly worried expression on the usually stoic face of the Potions Master. She quickly came to her senses and rushed about the storage supplies looking for all the potions needed and that might be needed.
The Potions Master stood next to the bed that contained the battered body of the savior of the world. He's just a boy and he has just been tortured by the Dark Lord for two weeks. Snape seemed to come to his senses as he quit standing around and helped Poppy gather the necessary supplies. When the potions and bandages were gathered, Snape left Poppy to heal Harry while he walked as fast he could towards the Headmaster's office. The Headmaster, however, was not in his office and had made his way down to the Great Hall. Snape was not happy with this discovery, but kept it under check under his motionless mask called his face as he walked into the Great Hall.
The general atmosphere of the Great Hall and school was very subdued, as it had been since Harry had first vanished. Five Gryffindors were subdued the most; they had dark circles under their eyes from lack of sleep and were hardly even picking at their food. They had continually mentally berated themselves over the past two weeks on the fact that Harry could die and he had left with them being mad at him. Not the best way to go into the afterlife, several of your closest friends being mad at you while you died.
Snape strode up to Dumbledore very quickly and determinedly causing the blue eyes to dim slightly more. He whispered something in the Headmaster's ear when he leaned over the table before taking on a brief astonished look. None of the professors nearby had heard, but they had seen the exchange as well as the whole of the school.
"Classes are cancelled for the day. Everyone please return to their dormitories for the day and stay there. Anyone seen outside of their dormitories for any reason will be sent into the Forbidden Forest for the night." Dumbledore had stood and now addressed Professor McGonagall softly, where the three professors left the Great Hall and headed towards the Hospital Wing.
"Albus, Minerva, Severus," Poppy started off somberly. "It doesn't look good for Mr. Potter. The things done to Mr. Potter over the past two weeks—they're very extensive and cruel."
The three professors looked at the area that held Harry; his bed was surrounded by a screen and breathing could be heard, but it was faint and ragged. Snape left the small group momentarily as they had lapsed into a silence created by Madam Pomfrey, she was unsure of how to tell her colleagues the extensiveness of Harry's injuries.
Snape entered Poppy's office and used the Floo connection to call the Order's headquarters. Simple instructions were given: two members were needed at Hogwarts immediately; they were not to be Moody, Lupin, or any Weasleys; and they had to come to the Hospital Wing, but knock first on the door. Snape emerged from the office and sat down in one of the conjured chairs. Dumbledore looked to Poppy telling her she could continue.
"The—the injuries Mr. Potter has sustained over the past two weeks, as I have said, are extensive and cruel. It appears many of his bones were broken, repaired, and broken again many time over. His internal organs were crudely healed as well as the many flesh wounds he sustained from his apparent magical torture and muggle torture of whipping." Poppy took a moment to gain back her speech as she had started trailing off. The things she had seen.
"He has a concussion from severe beating against his head with a blunt object or a wall. It could possibly be from thrashing around. His body is severely malnourished in nutrients and sleep. He was given nutrient potions and energy potions to keep him alive and awake at all times, but they have taken a toll on his body.
"Physically, he will recuperate to near full health, but he might have slight pains for a while and maybe a light limp. Mentally, however, is the more concerning part. The torture alone with the Cruciatus Curse should have been enough to drive him into insanity, but if he survives that…the nightmares and mental anguish he will suffer might drive him to insanity."
Poppy now too sat down in a chair no longer able to continue. Dumbledore had his shoulders slumped, but was looking at Poppy calculatingly as if he were expecting more to come to light. McGonagall had a glazed look in her eyes, unable to believe the things her young charge had gone through within the past five years. Snape seemed to be the only unaffected by Harry's state of condition, but behind his stoic mask he was a fury of emotion ranging from pity to amazement to deep seated hatred.
There was a knock at the Hospital Wing doors. No one moved for a moment before Dumbledore moved from his seat to give instructions to the two people waiting outside the door, Tonks and Shacklebolt. The directions were quietly given before the Headmaster returned and took his seat once more.
"There won't be any long lasting damage will there Poppy?" Dumbledore asked softly and gently. Poppy almost looked take aback by the question before a look of fear of answering the question settled in and she shook her head solemnly. Several moments later though, the nurse cleared her throat.
"There—there will—will be one long lasting effect. He—he won't—won't ever be able to see again."
A single tear fell down Dumbledore's cheek and onto his beard while McGonagall cried out all of the tears she could muster in the situation.