A/N - I'll start commenting frm the oldest reviews first I guess, hmm, damn, spent 11 hours in school today. First a 2hours lesson, Linear Algebra then after lunch 2 hours of exercising on what we learned on the 2 horus lesson. Then working on a project report, then me and a pal went to buy some pizzas and then on the evening I started sewing on my Overall. Haven't painted my nick on the left leg yet though.
Anyway, comments coming up.

rosiegirl – Again I thank you for your positive comments, though not two chapters in one day, it's enough work reading through one at a time and check for typos or silly stuff. And I fear that I won't be able to upload one on friday thanks for a small pub that evening at school. Gonna put up x-mas decorations in our pub/lunchroom on friday, drink Glögg (which swedes always does during x-mas) and sing x-mas-songs, ahhh.

Dj Rodriguez – Yeah, still seven chapters left actually, a lot of stuff will and it'll get a bit intensier soon, a calm part is coming now.

captuniv – Yeah, I happen to like France, don't ask me why though, except for good food, nice weather and good whines.

Lady of Masbolle – Why, thank you very much my Lady, actually it's really fascniating that Harry and Voldie had similare youths, though Voldie turned out evil not Harry, my theory is that the "Love-protection" his mother put on him is the reason for that. Thanks for your tips about that with "so" too, gonna think on that when reading through this and the next chapters.

Pleione - Thanks to you too, but yeah, I've seen really REALLY dark fanfics, dark as black holes. Though now when I was reading this again when checking it I noticed how it felt... silly somehow, but maybe it's just me as I like dark fanfics too :)

Oh btw, the weapons the police-guys had were the french standard military gun Fa-mas and there clothes which I treid to describe were much like SWAT-clothes. - A/N

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"So Bright..."

Harry tried to look around, but it was too bright for him too see anything thus he closed his eyes again. He had been in total darkness for more than a month and couldn't even look around in a room with all lights switched off and just the evening sun shining in through some windows on his left.

He could still feel and hear though. And noticed that he didn't feel any pains now. His arms and right leg actually felt numb but it was still very comfortable for him. He was lying in a nice soft bed with warm sheets.

He opened his eyes very little again. Bright and blurry, but he could see more now. There was a transparent plastic bag hanging to the left of his bed with a tube running into his left arm. His arms he noticed now were in casts, his right leg too. The leg was also hanging a few decimeters above the bed.

He noticed several bandages and plasters across his chest and stomach. Also on his left leg. He also felt some plasters on his head and saw some cords attached to his chest from a small machine standing on a table to his right. He noticed how it beeped with his heartbeat.

"A muggle hospital, a lot of machines here instead of some quick magic... I can't be safe here! I have to make them contact the police so Dumbledore will know I'm here somehow, wherever 'here' is"

Harry now instead tried to look around in the room as he felt a small feeling of panic rising. It was getting darker thanks to the sun getting lower making him able to see more. But he was constantly reminded by the absence of his glasses.

He noticed there were six beds in this room. One to his left, one to his right and three along the opposite wall. There was a door in the wall to the right and some big windows in the wall to the left. The bed infront of him was occupied by someone sleeping. Snoring too, painfully reminding Harry of Ron.

The bed to his left also had a boy in it who was also sleeping, but silently. He had a broken leg which was hanging much like Harry's right leg.

The beds on Harry's right side were both empty but the bed to the left infront of him had someone in it. Harry couldn't see the person in it because there was a doctor and two nurses standing in the way. They were talking silently and Harry couldn't hear what they said.

Harry felt rather helpless and lonely again, couldn't move his arms nor one of his legs. No one around to talk to. No one probably even knew who he was and none that Harry knew probably didn't even know he was alive and saved. For now anyway.

One of the nurses, he noticed, started to move. She walked towards the exit and Harry who understood that he needed to contact Dumbledore somehow took the oppurtuninity and tried to shout "Hey! Wait!" before he remembered the curse on his throat, there came no other sound other than a craxing and immense pain in it. He had to close his eyes and swallow hard to keep the coming and very painful cough down but failed. The taste of blood again came into his mouth. He did manage to get attention though as the doctor and both nurses turned around to check on him.

"Vous vous êtes réveillé finalement" the doctor said in a quick french but Harry couldn't understand a word.

He was a rather suntanned man with black short hair and a white doctor cloak. The nurses were both females. Also with dark hair and brownish skin.

The doctor put a hand on Harry's forehead and checked on the plastic bag, casts, bandages, cords and tubes.

"Ça va?" he asked and watched Harry's face strangely as he noticed how Harry seemed to neither understand or be able to say anything.

Harry himself was feeling rather frustrated by not being able to understand nor to say anything and tried to calm himself by lying back and watching the roof.

"Vous ne comprenez pas le français? Pouvez-vous parler?" he continued to ask.

"Give it up I can't understand a word you're saying damnit!"

"Do you underztand... le english?" he now asked with a french accent. And Harry suddenly looked straight back at the doctor and nodded.

"Bon, uhm, you cannot speak?" This time Harry shook his head.

He said something to one of the nurses he walked out of the room.

"You 'ave been zleeping for a 'ole day since le GIGN arrived with you" he continued to say to Harry after the nurse left. "You are very lucky to 'ave been rezcued. You were dizcovered by chance."

The doctor looked around and grabbed a chair which he dragged up to Harry's bed and sat down.

"Donc... My name iz Pierre, Pierre Giroux, and.. well, 'ow you were dizcovered, There were these, uhm, campers in zat forest. And zey discovered zese... ruins which zey explored. When zey heard zese screamz of pain zey saw zese openingz by ze ground where zey saw you lying, ztrapped to a table and ztrange people around. One of zem were causing pain to you zome'ow... anyway. Donc, zese campers 'urried to the police and zey inveztigated and dezided to call in ze GIGN, zpecial forzez. 'o rezcued you from zese kidnappeurs ."

Now Harry remembered the openings by the roof. Of course, every light gives some hope and those openings with the light they gave the room also gave him a small chance of hope.

Suddenly the nurse came back in with some papers and a pencil. She gave them to Pierre who went around Harry's bed, lifted the blanket over his right arm a bit. Then he put the papers under his right hand and pressed the pencil into it.

"Écrivez... write, s'il vous plaise" he said.

Harry now understood and silently thanked the quick thinking of this french guy. He started to write 'I'm Harry Potter, from Great Brittain. Been kidnapped for over a month, I think. Please contact authorities in England, they think I'm dead.'

When he finished Pierre took the paper and read it.

"Do not worry, I will take care of zis, now you should rezt, you 'ad many wounds sérioux."

Harry lay back in the bed and closed his eyes. Another night of peaceful sleep he hoped on but didn't know if Voldemort and his Death Eaters would come storming through that door this night, killing everything in the way and then letting Nagini crawl upon his helpless body, putting her poisioned fangs into his throat. Injecting the poision, watching him suffer until death. Harry felt rather nervous as he closed his eyes and let the exhaustion consume him.

Again he stood in the graveyard, in front of him was Voldemort waiting for him to go over there for death. Behind him was Dumbledore waiting for him to go to him. Harry looked back and forth, wondering which was best. Dumbledore meant some happiness but mostly pain and if he against all odds were able to win against Voldemort, then what? He knew in his heart that he wouldn't be happy anyway. Voldemort meant certain pain and death, but then happiness. He would be happy.

Harry looked back at Dumbledore but then took a step towards Voldemort. Suddenly there were immense pain in his scar.

Harry opened his eyes. It was dark everywhere as it was still night. His scar hurt so badly that he couldn't keep in loud groans. The pain wouldn't stop, neither did the anger he felt stop. Voldemort was angrier than ever, they were probably back from their mission and they had discovered that he wasn't there anylonger.

Suddenly some lights switched on. Nurses went into the room, turned on a light and noticed how Harry was lying there, sometimes groaning. He face was wet by sweat and had a very pained expression.

He saw how they hurried over to him, checking his temperature and bandages, also seeing how the heartbeat had doubled. Wondering why he was in pain but it was subsiding. Voldemort was getting calm again, probably at the cost of one or more Death Eater's life. Harry relaxed again, the beeping got calm again. The nurses were talking fast and quietly in french. He closed his eyes and let the tiredness come over him again, making him fall asleep. A seamingly dreamless sleep.

Slowly Harry opened his eyes. It was a rainy day outside. His mouth, lips and throat were excruciating dry. Licking his lips he saw how there were people around again. Pierre, checking some papers and another person who looked familiar. He had normal muggle clothes but was rather musculare and had a tough expression. There was also a nurse there, she seemed to have noticed that Harry just licked his dry lips. She asked Pierre something who nodded and she took up a plastic glass, filled it with water in a nearby sink and went over to Harry, helping him to drink a bit. She was saying something to him, like comforting him or something, Harry didn't know.

When finished she checked the plastic bag hanging to Harry's left while Pierre went over to his right side.

"Bon, you are awaken 'arry, uhm, zis man 'ere might interest you" he said.

"Oui, je m'appelle, uhm, I am Sergeant Christophe" he said as he reach out his right hand as if to expect a handshake. Before he remembed and embarrased took it back. Harry noticed how he was able to stand very straight.

"Donc, I was in the GIGN-team assigned to save you" he said in a lot better english than Pierre had. "And well, I was the team leader and it was my first mission to save a kidnapped kid" he almost seemed embarrassed if it wasn't for the fact that he was standing as if facing a superior. "Anyway, I was given the orders to question you about the events you 'ave been through."

Pierre suddenly looked like he just remembered something and took out a small notepad and a pencil from his coat pocket. He put the notepad under Harry's right arm and putted the pencil into his hand as the nurse had done the earlier day.

Harry suddenly felt sick, they were going to question him, just as the Death Eaters had questioned him for over a month now. He dropped the pencil and felt anxious, scared. It was totally illogical but he couldn't help it. His heart started beating faster, he breathed faster and he started to sweat violently.

"'arry?" someone said through a haze. "'arry!?" and everything went dark as shapes started to move around quickly through the darkening haze.

He didn't know how long time had passed. Everything was just a big jump in his memory from when Christophe wanted to ask him questions to now when he felt calm again. He opened his eyes slowly and noticed how Pierre wasn't there but Christophe sat in a chair to his left.

"What happened?" Harry tried to ask but remembered his throat as he felt the pain and the upcoming, painful cough.

"It'll never heal if I keep forgetting that I can't talk"

As he craxed and coughed painfully, feeling the taste of blood in his mouth yet again Christophe seemed to wake up and looked around at Harry. He had bloodshoot eyes and looked worried.

"'arry!" he said. "vous vous êtes réveillé."

He suddenly stood up and hurried to the door where he shouted "Docteur!"

As he came back Pierre was with him and Christophe sat down again. The doctor started to check Harry's health.

"You 'ad an 'ysterical attack 'arry" it was Christophe who was talking. He leaned closer and took what was reachable of Harry's left hand in his hands. "I need to know what 'appened with you over there. 'o were the kidnappers? You don't 'ave to write it down now, wait until you are ready. But it troubles me to see someone I risked my life to save, though I would do it again any day. To see you diminish and maybe die in an 'ospital bed. Are you ready to tell me what 'appened?"

Harry looked away from his face and looked at the roof shortly.

"If I get hysterical attacks just by being reminded by what happened... maybe I have to tell them, but I have to keep the wizarding world secret somehow."

He looked back at the military officer and nodded shortly. Even before the minute was over he had the notepad and pencil in his right hand again.

"uhm, let us start with 'o they were" Christophe asked carefully.

Harry thought for a short while before starting to write.

'Somekind of mad cult, called themselves Death Eaters. Their leader called himself Voldemort.'

Both Christophe and Pierre read the note. Pierre showed a sign of anxiouty but Chrisophe stayed calm and controlled.

"What did they want with you?"

'They wanted to know things. Strange things I didn't know. They mostly wanted to...'

Here Harry stopped. He didn't know those memories would have this affect with him. But thinking back on all those times in that chamber made his heart beat faster again. He had been beaten before of course, but Vernon never did anything like what Bellatrix did to him.

He let out a whimper and felt how tears he kept in started to force themselves out.

"They mostly wanted to do what?" Chrisophe asked.

Suddenly Bellatrix' face appeared in Harry's mind. The evil grin, her fingers stroking his face. Or the first time she used a scalpel on him. He remembered how helpless he felt as he saw how she pressed the knife down into his skin for the first time. Felt the pain and saw how blood came up from the line she had cut in his arm.

Suddenly another whimper was let out and with it a tear. He remembered how he hardly ever cried for feelings. Once when he was a kid, once when Sirius died. But the hell he had been through had really broken him.

Harry tried to calm himself as he picked up the pencil lying in the bed again. His view was blurrier than normal even without his glasses thanks to the tears. He put the pencil to the paper again, blinked a few times.

"Do I really wanna tell them this? I'll just show myself weak if I tell them how much they tortured me" he thought.

"But you have already shown yourself weak by crying like a little baby" a nagging voice said in the back of his head.

"I don't want to live this life, not with this past and this future I have..."

He started writing as both Pierre and Christophe, who both looked really sad and worried watched the paper. '... wanted to torture me' he wrote.

"I... I will contact the police, Pierre 'ere 'as already brought forward the message you gave 'im yesterday. They are contacting a special group in Brittain assigned on finding you, but they apparently 'ave almost stopped since they found what they thought was your body."

Christophe stood up, put a hand on Harry's forehead and said quietly.

"You can be calm now, no one will hurt you anymore"

"You should just know how wrong you are"

He ripped of the paper that Harry had written on and left the room. Pierre found a chair himself and sat down too. He was mumbling to himself in french while Harry wrote some more on the notepad.

He had to tap on the notepad to get back the attention of Pierre. He looked up and read what Harry had written. 'Where am I and what day is it?'

"Oh? You 'ave really been isolated 'aven't you?" he said as he took up a towel and dried away sweat and tears from Harry's face. "Zis is l'Hôpital du Bordeaux and it is ze 15th of septembre"

"The 15th, and I disappeared the 28th July, I wonder what's happening at Hogwarts, I didn't even have a chance to receive the OWL-grades."

The rest of the day passed slowly, the rain stopped and the clouds blew away. Some nurses went in and checked the four patients one time, changing plasters and bandages on Harry, checking his casts if they were still in good shape. The nurses were babbling all the time with eachother while working and laughing sometimes. They even said some things to the patients now and then. The others apparently were french because they did answer and laugh with some jokes. Harry couldn't do much more than to watch the sun getting lower and lower again in the window. Reminding him of the last time he met Dumbledore for a long time ago now.

He did get food though. Good food, felt like he hadn't tasted anything as great as hospital food. But he imagined that the food at Hogwarts was probably much much better. It was just that he hadn't eaten anything else than dry bread, water and a watery soup for a month, also under torture. He had to be fed thanks to the broken arms which was even more annoying for him.

The day passed slowly as the sun went under the horisont, the lights were turned off after some hours.

In time he fell asleep worrying if this would be the night when Voldemort would discover where he was. "Voldemort was right, no one would care to search for me when they think I'm dead. Especially not after they had found my 'body" Harry thought.

Again Harry stood in the graveyard. But things were different, he was tied to the tombstone again and Voldemort stood infront of him. There was an annoying pain in his scar and his heart was beating rapidly. Things weren't as the other times though. It was just him and Voldemort, no Death Eaters, no Cedric, no cauldron or Triwizard Cup. Dumbledore wasn't there either as in the last dreams.

"At last I found your mind Harry" Voldemort said. "Now tell me where you are so I can come and put an end to your misery forever."

"No.." Harry answered.

"No? But did you not take a step towards me last night? Did you not chose death over life and a chance of defeating me? A very puny chance if I may say so"

He smiled as Harry felt confused. "How does he know what I have dreamt about, or was this just another dream?Can't be just another dream, we're talking too much"

"Now tell me where you are before I get angry with you again. Then I promise you a painless death. I hope it is painless anyway but we cannot know because neither of us has ever died."

Harry didn't say anything, he tried to look at something else than those piercing red eyes but he felt the pain rising in his scar as Voldemort's anger rose.

"Tell me!"

He grabbed Harry's head and forced him to watch his red eyes.

"Leave him Tom" another voice suddenly said. Voldemort looked around after it. "Release his mind Tom, you cannot win this way."

Suddenly there was a bird's song, Phoenix song, a feeling of relief washed over Harry as the pain in his scar disappeared. Voldemort released Harry's head and took a step back, looking around wildly as the graveyard became blurry.

"Never! I will never release him!" he shouted and turned back to look at Harry, the graveyard went back into focus. "Tell me where you are boy!"

The phoenix song went stronger and Harry felt his strength rising.

"No" he said. "Be gone from my head!" The ropes disappeared with the graveyard. All that was left was phoenix song, white and a diminishing Voldemort.

Suddenly Harry gasped and opened his eyes. He was still in the hospital and no Voldemort was to be seen. It was still night too and Harry closed his eyes again, feeling calm and safe as he fell asleep.

Several hours later he woke up by somekind of activity in the room. Someone singing was in the room, singing while vacuum cleaning.

Several hours later one of the nurses fed him with breakfast and again they checked over him. Pierre came and went and checked on all patients in the room. Harry somehow felt refreshed and calm again. Voldemort didn't know where he was, but he would find out in time. But for now he could rest, long away from friends though.

Even if Pierre was there talking to him about his life and family Harry still felt lonely. Since Sirius had fallen through the veil he understood that he didn't have anyone left who was that close to him. "All there would ever be for me is friends" he thought.

The morning passed into afternoon, he had just eaten lunch when Pierre went by and said to him that there was a visitor. Suddenly Harry felt anxious, who could it be? Maybe Death Eaters searching every possible hospital for him as visitors. Maybe it was a police officer from England here to check if it really was him. Or maybe someone from the order.

"With my luck it's probably a Death Eater. I should never had told Pierre my name."

Pierre left for other errands as a man stepped into the door frame. He was old, very old, wearing a costume and having a very long white beard and hair. Harry recognised him the instant he saw him "Dumbledore!".

Dumbledore looked straight at Harry, who noticed how he smiled but there was still a tear running down his bearded cheek.

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After,
the cold darkness,
in the heart of the forest.
Where birds are singing,
for the new born sun

In the womb of the leaves,
on the branches of the trees,
lies the treasure of the morning,
the pearls of light.

Carried away by the truculence of my world,
I got lost in the search for enlightenment
The blue rain,
Covered my roots and I forgot where I came from.

/From "Pearls of Light" by Within Temptation

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Cool how I started putting in happier song texts as everything got shinier again. Never thought on that when I wrote all this in the end of last summer.