Warning: This chapter is NASTY. It contains torture, imprisonment, character deaths and a super-smarmy Voldemort. I even grossed myself out writing one particular part of it. Ten house points if you can guess which bit. Ick!

…………………

Flashback Three and a Half Years

Wednesday, 2:15pm.

The potions laboratory was quiet as the seventh years concentrated their cauldrons, having been assured that this particular brew was a favourite of the NEWT examiners. The only sounds to be heard were the occasional clink of a glass stirring rod, the gentle roar of the flames or the sound of Snape pacing the room with his all-seeing gaze, when suddenly, Harry Potter uttered a little "oh!" and started backwards violently.

"Pay attention, Mr. Potter," chastised Snape lazily. Since the attack at Grimmauld Place on Harry's sixteenth birthday the fierce hatred between them had dissipated, but they were still far from bosom buddies. "No seventeen year old should be lax enough to burn his fingers like a first year. Potter?"

Harry was not listening. Wand out, his eyes were darting around the room wildly as though searching for something. He exclaimed again as his body gave a shudder.

"Harry?" Hermione, instinctively drawing her wand too, touched his shoulder lightly. When he did not respond, she looked up at the professor.

"Miss Granger, let us be overcautious. Please go through to my office and ask the Headmaster to floo down here. Class, please extinguish your flames and neutralise your solution by adding…" he was cut off as Harry whole body began shaking and he clapped his hand to his scar, groaning horribly. Hermione sprinted out of the room. The rest of the class had their wands drawn now and Snape stood in front of the boy, alert but perfectly calm.

"Mr. Potter? Can you tell me what is happening?" Harry was still groaning and shuddering.

"Him. Pulling. Voldemort. Ow!" he began screaming and thrashing wildly, falling all over the room and knocking over stools and cauldrons as though having a fit. Snape was alarmed to feel the dark mark stabbing at his arm but had no time to wonder what it meant as Harry's body began to shimmer at the edges.

"Finite Incantatem!" yelled the professor, wondering what the hell was happening and how the hell to stop it. The spell had no effect and Harry began to blur and flicker as though he was being tuned out of existence. Dumbledore appeared from the office and let his mouth fall open in shock for a fraction of a second.

"Severus! Riddle is using the scar to summon him! He should not be able to do that!"

Snape, clutching his left forearm against his chest in pain, spat out,

"How do we stop it?" The ancient wizard sprang into action uttering spell after spell, binding, holding, anchoring, snatching; but Harry continued to flicker and scream. The students were backed against the walls in terror when their classmate vanished entirely for a heartbeat then reappeared, clawing at the bench in front of him with blurry hands.

Snape could not believe this was happening. After all the struggles over the last two decades, the Dark Lord could not simply bypass all the wards of the castle's ancient magic and drag Potter out of his class, under the very nose of Albus Dumbledore. This should not happen. It could not. He had to do something. Without really knowing what he intended, Severus reached his throbbing left arm out, allowing Harry to take hold of it. Relief flashed briefly in both their eyes before pain shot through every cell of Snape's body, and with Dumbledore's yells ringing in their ears, they shimmered one last time and vanished.

The sudden silence in the classroom was horrible. Dumbledore was utterly dumbstruck at his impotence.

"Sir?" asked Hermione, fearfully. "What…what just happened?"

Dumbledore buried his face in his hands, allowing himself a moment of despair before he had to rally and think of a plan. He slowly turned to look at her, seeming suddenly very old.

"Voldemort has taken my boys."

…….

2:20pm.

A small stone room – cold, bare walls, hard floor, no windows, one door, possibly underground.

Current occupants – one teenage boy, one Gold Standard potions master, one rodenty little man with a silver arm, one Dark Lord.

Voldemort could hardly contain his glee.

"You see, Wormtail," he grinned, addressing Severus and Harry rather than Pettigrew, who was shivering nervously behind him, "The best things come to those who wait. More than a year of intensive research has paid off, and brought us face to face with this little nuisance here, for the final time. And a delightful bonus, to boot! My treacherous little viper displaying full-on impetuous griffindor behaviour in his old age! It's so very good to see you in your rightful position, prostrate at my feet in fear, my dear, misguided Ssseverusss. I cannot bear to see you wasting your genius on those fools! It ends here."

Harry and Snape were immobilised on the stone floor, unable to do more than blink, both utterly homicidal with rage and humiliation. Just you wait, Harry tried to bore the thought into Voldemort's puffed-up serpentine face, It may well end here, but it ends on my terms. He was not sure whether the thought had been fully understood, but the murderous look in his eyes had obviously been conveyed. Voldemort laughed.

"So pathetic, and such a griffindor! To make empty, heroic threats when lying at the mercy of one's enemy, incapable of even flaring one's nostrils. A true slytherin," he sneered contemptuously towards the prone form of the potions master, "Would strike a bargain with me. Would admit that being unable to beat me, he would prefer to join me, and help me establish wizards as the natural masters of the world. You are a powerful wizard, Harry James Potter, this you have proven time and again. But you are young, and naturally follow the lead of those around you. Did you ever stop to question what you learned? Did you never question the blind devotion they demanded from you?" he was now leaning inches from Harry's face, speaking softly to him.

"Since time immemorial, leaders of men have created loyalty in their subjects by setting up enemies, forcing them to unite in order to defeat the outside foe. You are just another pawn in their game, Harry. The dashing, young figurehead who is infinitely more adorable than that shrivelled old man. They care nothing for you. Ten years of abuse by your relatives, watched and noted down every day by the squib. They abandoned you and me both to the muggles, Harry, and we both suffered for it, but despite their neglect we both grew into powerful wizards."

Harry was still glaring, hating having anything in common with this monster, but unable to deny his assertions. Voldemort muttered a spell and Harry was able to speak again.

"That's all in the past! You can't change it now by torturing and murdering everyone to get some twisted sense of revenge!"

"This is the birth of a new world order, Harry, as with any birth, there is pain and blood. It is soon forgotten, once the miraculous new life is brought forth."

"Oh, don't give me that revolutionary crap, Tom. You're just a sick freak."

Voldemort was not taken aback by the words. Instead, he said gently,

"Remember, Harry, together we can change the world. We can discuss what must be done, and act as we see fit. Anything we like. Wouldn't you like to be rid of Fudge? Umbridge? I daresay you would wish your ginger friend's bumbling father to become Minister of Magic instead? To limit the legal injustices against werewolves? All this and more, Harry. We can do it all."

Severus' face betrayed no emotion, but inside he was worried. He knows exactly which buttons to press, he thought in alarm. Merlin, Potter, you must know better than to trust that snake.

"Fuck you, Riddle!" spat Harry. Severus sighed in relief. Apparently he did.

3:20pm.

Voldemort returned after hour, knowing that they would have tried everything in their power to escape, and would have failed. He was enjoying this. He had planned it all perfectly. There was no way they could get out, no way anyone else could find them.

Striding into the room, he renewed his offer of a partnership with Harry. As expected, it was met with venomous profanity.

"I shall take that as a refusal," he said mildly. Turning his attention to Snape, he launched into a long and threatening speech about the terrible mistake he had made in turning spy, in getting all the Death Eaters captured with his amazing potion, in saving Harry's life so many times. Snape said nothing.

"So really, you deserve everything you are about to get," he concluded, motioning at Wormtail, who crept forward and handed him a hammer. With a cheery smile at Harry, Voldemort swung round with speed and smashed it straight into Snape's face. Shocked by the suddenness of the action, Harry cried out in horror. Snape was gaping, but made no sound, as blood poured from his crushed nose and split upper lip. Still smiling benignly, Voldemort reminded Harry:

"Of course, Professor Sssnape is only here because he was trying to save your life."

He left.

4:20pm

Harry was miserable. He understood perfectly now. Voldemort was to be thorough, harming his mind as well as his body. He would be forced to watch his teacher being tortured to death, before experiencing the same fate himself. The worst part being, that the sick bastard was right, Snape should not have been there in the first place. But he wasn't giving him the satisfaction of showing how upset he was. He was muttering to a still-silent Snape that Dumbledore would somehow find them, when Voldemort returned again.

He inspected the smashed-in face carefully, still with that sickening smile. Swollen eyes glared back at him with immeasurable hatred. The hammer, Harry and Severus both observed, was peeking out of the pocket of his robe. He noticed them looking, and removed it, twirling the tool between his thin fingers.

"Crude, I know," he said apologetically. "And not terribly wizardly. But so satisfying to use." He swung it towards Snape again, this time stopping just short of his mangled nose. Snape did not flinch.

"Very good," praised Voldemort. "You won't be able keep that up for long." He swung again, but at a different angle, this time producing a small crunching sound as the weapon connected with Snape's elbow. Harry bit hard on his lower lip, glancing up to see the other captive doing the same. He tuned out whatever taunting words the Dark Lord was saying to his former servant. Why don't they come, he thought angrily, I can't stand this, and he's barely started yet!

5:20pm.

They were establishing a rhythm. Every hour, offers of a partnership with Harry, taunts to Snape, followed by a terrible blow from the hammer.

This time it was a collarbone.

"Nothing to say, Harry? But then I suppose you're accustomed to people dying because of you, by now."

Snape allowed himself a groan of pain once Voldemort was not there to hear it.

Harry's bottom lip was bleeding. I will not cry, he repeated. We will get out of here. We must.

6:20pm.

Crack! Other collarbone.

"James, Lily, Diggory, Black. I hope you're worth it, Harry."

7:20pm.

Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, crack! All the fingers on his left hand.

Voldemort was flicking the hammer as though playing a glockenspiel.

"We can stop this anytime, Harry. I could even spare his life, if you wished it. Join me."

"Never!" his voice was still steady.

Voldemort left again.

Snape groaned for a few minutes this time. Then swallowed and managed to speak.

"Well done, Mr. Potter. Do not believe him. Not for a minute."

"I don't," he promised.

8:20pm.

Thump! Ribs, possibly. Harry had his eyes closed.

This time Voldemort left without speaking.

9:20pm.

Thump! More ribs. Snape could no longer stifle the whimpers, even breathing was painful now.

"Oh, very good, Severus!" simpered Voldemort, removing the paralysing spell so that he could watch him squirming in agony. "That's an amazingly high pain threshold!" He leaned towards Harry conspiratorially, "One of slytherin's finest, in his day, you know. Such a pity he's been kissing Albus' pink bunny slippers for so long."

"Dreadful," Snape gasped out in agreement, through a haze of pain. "How the fluff sticks in one's teeth."

Voldemort laughed in delight.

"That," he explained to Harry, "Is what we call 'gallows humour'. My favourite kind."

10:20pm.

Both Harry and Severus were ashamed at their flinch as the door creaked open.

Voldemort stared at them imperiously for several moments, watching their fearful faces as they wondered what horror he was about perpetrate. Merlin, he was enjoying himself. He took a deep breath.

"I have decided," he proclaimed to his audience, "To let you both go."

Harry could not believe it. He released a sigh of relief. At last! But…there was something wrong. Harry glanced up at him, eyes wide.

"Really?"

Voldemort froze in his pompous attitude for a few minutes. The broke into a grin.

"No!"

And he left, cackling.

Harry was livid with rage. He felt like kicking and screaming and killing people because of his own stupidity. In his immobilised state, however, all he could do was swear and give himself a headache. From the floor next to him, he heard a wheezy little chuckle.

"You did ask for that, Mr. Potter."

"Shut up!" he hissed.

In between the little interludes with the Dark Lord, Harry and Snape had been racking their brains for something they could do to escape, or to get in touch with the Order. The only actual thing Snape had been able to do was to embed some of the dirt from the floor under the fingernails of his undamaged hand, in the hope that it might provide some clue to Voldemort's current location when his body was found. Pathetic, he thought, but the best I can do for the moment. He wasn't about to tell the boy, either. He seemed convinced there was some way out of this, and Severus wanted him to cling to that youthful optimism for as long as possible.

Snape felt as though he was floating on waves of pain. So many bad injuries, alternating between persistent throbbing and sharp electric stabs of agony. He was whimpering like a kitten already, and it could only get worse from here. He wondered how much he could take, knowing that only when he died would the Dark Lord turn his attention to killing Potter, and vowed to hold on for as long as possible.

11:20pm.

Harry became immediately suspicious when Voldemort returned, removing the immobilising spell and binding him to the wall instead. He was up to something.

Drinking in his victims' apprehension and finding it delicious, he smiled and left the room without harming either of them. It was all in the anticipation, he decided.

Thursday, 00:20am.

This time, they both tensed and began squirming as they heard the footsteps outside.

So far, Harry considered he had behaved as well as he could under the circumstances. But when Voldemort, with agonising slowness, used an unintelligible dark curse to gently bend back Snape's knee in the wrong direction, with the most horrendous squelching, splintering crack; Harry was violently sick.

Voldemort was laughing loudly by the time he finished retching. Looking up shakily, he heaved again as he saw the leg, bent backwards at a ninety degree angle. Snape, mercifully, had blacked out, and Harry found himself wishing he could do the same, wishing he could close his eyes and not have to deal with this, wishing he was still a skinny muggle child in suburban Surrey with no idea about the magical world.

Voldemort pointed his wand at Snape again.

"Ennervate!" he commanded. Snape stirred and cracked open one swollen eye, moaned piteously, and promptly passed out again.

01:20am.

Harry wished he could stop the trembling in his body when Voldemort returned yet again. He hated showing his captor how badly this was affecting him. The Dark Lord was delighted, and launched into some wonderful taunts and reproaches, also thrilled that Snape was now only semi conscious and had begun sporadically murmuring unintelligibly to himself.

"What's that, Severus?" inquired Voldemort with mock concern, leaning close to the bloody, swollen face.

"Nnngmahufka," muttered Snape, eyes glassy and unfocussed with pain.

"No sorry, didn't quite catch that, son."

"Shut up!" yelled Harry. "Shut up! Just shut up! Shut up and leave him alone!"

"Oh dear. Something upsetting you, Harry?", glancing critically at the unnaturally twisted limb. "Yeees, it is pretty unsightly, I agree." He took hold of the ankle and rotated the mangled joint with a nauseating grating sound. Snape gave an un-snapish little squeak and fainted again.

"I should probably put this back to how it was?" he asked Harry enquiringly, who glared, but couldn't help nodding.

"Very well," said Voldemort cheerfully.

Harry's whole body began dry retching again as the knee was bent back to its proper position, splintering through the swelling as it was damaged even further.

"Don't be silly, Harry. It's not as though he'll ever need to walk again."

Hogwarts, Headmaster's office, 02:20am.

"Very well," Deputy Minister Bones nodded to Dumbledore. "It's the only plan we have at the moment."

"It won't work," snorted Moody, folding his arms across his chest.

Dumbledore ignored the old auror, hoping that he was wrong.

"Miss Granger, Mr Weasley," he asked as cheerfully as he could, "Would you please go to the owlery and fetch Hedwig?"

03:20am.

"Crucio!"

Snape screamed, then, unable to bear the agony, passed out silently.

03:21am.

"Ennervate!" Snape struggled back to consciousness.

"Crucio!"

Screaming. Silence.

03:22am.

"Ennervate! Crucio"

Screaming. Silence.

03:23am.

"Ennervate! Crucio!"

Hoarse screaming. Silence.

03:24, 03:25, 03:26, 03:27, 03:28, 03:29, 03:30, 03:31, 03:32, 03:33, 03:34, 03:35. It continued endlessly. At 03:44, the ragged screaming stopped, Snape's larynx ruined for ever. The curses continued, received with harsh gasps instead.

Tears poured down Harry's face. We're never getting out of here, realisation dawned on him. There's no hope.

03:50am.

Harry wondered how long it had taken Bellatrix Lestrange to destroy the Longbottoms' minds.

Hogwarts, Headmaster's office, 04:20am.

"That's miles away!"

"What if she's wrong?"

"It's a bloody owl, for Merlin's sake! It probably just found an extra-juicy frog or something!"

"We have to do something!"

"Please, Sir! She's his familiar! She's never let him down before!"

"What if it's a trap?"

"We do this!"

"No way! It's madness!"

"If there's a chance, no matter how slim, that we can get Harry and Severus back alive, then we take it!"

05:20am.

Harry's ears were ringing. Every muscle ached, and Voldemort hadn't even touched him yet.

"S…sir?" he asked the spasming figure on the floor. No answer. He didn't have the will to even cry anymore. He also seemed to be having auditory hallucinations. It almost sounded as though some kind of battle was taking place, muffled and far away.

"Harry!" a loud echoing yell from the other side of the door.

Great. Never mind Snape, he thought. I've already gone mad.

"Harry, it's Remus! Are you there? Severus!" Banging on the door. Harry, suspecting one of Voldemort's schemes, said nothing.

"Kingsley! I think it's this one! Help me blast the door!" A tremendous explosion. Clouds of dust cleared to reveal two figures, shrinking back from the cell, presumably from the intense smell of vomit and blood, then Remus was releasing his bonds and bombarding him with questions which he had no strength to answer. At the sensation of being hugged, Harry finally accepted that they had been rescued, and allowed the relief to flood through his exhausted body.

"Sonorus! HEALERS!" bellowed Auror Shacklebolt, kneeling unhopefully next to Snape.

"Is he…" Remus asked tentatively. Kingsley shook his head.

"There's a pulse, but it's pretty feeble. Where are those Mediwizards?" he strode out into the corridor, then gave an exclamation of surprise. Remus turned, and suddenly found himself flat on his back, a powerful silver hand wrapped around his throat, throttling him, scorching his lycanthropic flesh.

…….The magical history books record that moment as the turning point.

Rage flooded through Harry. So pure and intense that he didn't need to move a muscle. Wormtail was lifted neatly into the air, then exploded into tiny fragments of flesh, which splattered everything in the cell. The silver arm rattled onto the stone floor then rolled away. Kingsley staggered in, trying to shake the effects of some curse of Pettigrew's and looked up at Harry.

"Did you do that?"

"Yes."

"How? Do you have your wand?"

"No. I'm a just a teensy little bit annoyed."

"I see."

A healer in the St. Mungo's uniform rushed into the cell, kneeling between the moaning Remus and the motionless Snape. Tears were coursing down her face as she unshrank her bag and began unpacking emergency potions.

"Dumbledore's dead! We've all got to get out of here! They were duelling like mad and he got hit in the shoulder by a blasting curse. He stumbled and You-know-who just picked him off. The old auror too!"

Voldemort's earlier words echoed in Harry's head. "It ends here." Damned right it does. His legs were weak as he stalked up the corridor, but he was determined. He the felt deadly raw magic pulsing through him, the sparks flying from his eyes as thought after terrible thought flashed through his head. He had killed Pettigrew. Because of Voldemort, he was a murderer. Well, he'd done it once, he was going to do it again. It all boiled down to Voldemort. His whole life had been lived in that terrible shadow. His parents. Sirius. Cedric. Neville's parents. Madam Rosmerta. Mrs. Weasley's brothers. Hermione's dad. All the other poor fools who had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Remus and Snape lying wounded, perhaps fatally, in that horrible square room.

Marching up a staircase, he bumped into a bloody-nosed Tonks and another healer heading down to the dungeon.

"Harry, oh thank goodness…" he brushed her aside, not even slowing his pace. "Wait!" she yelled, "You can't go up there! Dumbldore's dead and Voldemort's…!" He didn't listen, but carried on until he reached a sort of entrance hall. They were in a derelict house somewhere in the countryside by the looks of it. The walls were crumbling and the roof had caved in completely. Harry took in the sight of Mad-eye Moody, horribly burnt and lifeless in the front doorway, a few unidentified people taking cover behind the door. Dumbledore managed to look venerable even in death, one scorched arm lying gently by his side, the other folded over his chest, still holding his wand.

Voldemort, standing triumphant in the centre of the room, drew himself up to his full height on seeing Harry, and launched into one of his speeches.

"Well, well. So the two greatest wizards of the age, face to face at last. We, who were abandoned by those who now fear us; we, who…"

Harry was not in the mood to listen. He was so angry now his feet were not even touching the floor. Without a word he unleashed every scrap of emotion bursting inside of him at Voldemort, feeling the world flash green with a tremendous roar of magical energy. Like Wormtail moments before, The Dark Lord was catapulted into the air and blasted to smithereens, shaking the building to its foundations.

A heavy whisp of smoke was curling through the shimmering air in the silence immediately afterwards. With some vague idea that this was Voldemort's soul, searching for a new place to rest, Harry threw his every last remaining fragment of strength towards it. It disintegrated with an inhuman scream, vanishing for ever into the ether.

05:35am.

It was over. It had ended here. He had done it! Harry sank to the floor as Bill Weasley and Professor McGonagall dashed from the doorway to catch him.

"I did it," he slurred at them smugly, before losing consciousness.

…………………………………..

A/N: I am such a drama queen. Poor Severus!

Thanks for reading, and thank you, lovely reviewers. x

Hopgoblen: A kneazle is a magical pet rather like a large, super-intelligent cat. See "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" by Newt Scamander ;-)