Right, then. I Made Kolya a bit more like...I dunno, someone else, in this one. P Don't be hating, but...yeah. I know he isn't the nicest little boy in this one.

"It is only for a couple of days. You know what my brother is like, Nic." Tessa reached out to fluff her son's straight hair and smiled. "We'll be back Friday. Pavil will take good care of you, I promise. I love you, kiddo!" Taking the hand offered by her husband, she hurried down the steps, pulling the door closed behind her. Crossing his arms, Kolya turned away from the door and kicked at a worn spot of rug.

"I do not know vhy zhey haff to leave me vizh him. I vant to see Uncle Jared, too." He kicks the rug again before looking around and sneaking to the stairs. "Vhere is he," he whispers, glancing at his feet. "Do you see him, Kryillian?" After a second, he heaves an enormous sigh. He starts up the stairs, listening for the footfalls that meant something horrible waited just around the corner. He made it into his room, though, without a hint of the old man.

Closing his door, he ran over and jumped onto his bed, reaching under his pillow. The letter in his hands had arrived almost on their heels of their return to Yorkshire, and he had read it at least eighty times. Hogwarts. The name itself sent a shiver of excitement through him. His grandmother, of course, still wanted him to go to Ukraine--after all, it was only a short trip from Odessa to Tagil, compared to Scotland, but still...

"Vhat do you think," he asked the empty air, not fur the first time. "Vell, Kryillian, surely you must haff some idea of vhat you vant me to do." He sighs and sits up on the bed, looking at the blue hat on his bedpost. "It vould take me farzher from Baba," he says after a moment, "but maybe I can actually meet people from around here. Make friends in Britain." He runs his fingers through his hair, hanging past his eats as his parents had been to busy to cut it for him, and after the past time, Grandfather was forbidden. Of course, everyone thought that it had been an accident. But the two of them knew better.

The creak of a floorboard, the one at the top of the stairs, made him jump and stuff the letter back under the pillow. Sliding from the bed, he turned to run for his balcony, from which he knew how to escape, for a time, from the old man's ravings. Truth be told, while he always feared the old man, he never really thought that anything horrible would happen, until after Tagil. Pavil's last hope had been his family nabbing the estate, and he had long made it clear that Kolya was not considered to be such.

"Boy!" He paused--for a moment, he hoped that his door would look dark, and the man would leave--a pause far too long. The door opened with a crash, and Grandfather stumbled in, a glass in one hand and a wand in the other. Immediately, Kolya knew he had been drinking, hard, and was very afraid of the waggled wand. "Zhink...zhink you are clever, boy?" The drink swirled once. Now in Russian, the man continued. "A halfblood like you should never have received such a valued estate. That woman was mad, and you are...you are worse! At least she had a respectable family line. You only have muggles."

Kolya risked a step backwards, but the wand snapped out immediately, a lancing pain crumpling the boy in tears, as though everything was burning, and then...it was over. "Vhat haff you made me do? To the cupboard." Unfrozen, he wafted into the air, clutching at his tee-shirt in fear. "For...for as long as I like."

The slam of the door echoed harshly, the reverberations hurting his ears. The snake, too, seemed upset, but, for once, avoided him. After a moment of waiting, he realized that the door had never clicked with a lock, no jingle of keys indicating that he was, actually trapped. Frantic, he lunged against the door, which opened easily and spilled Kolya across the floor. Panicked, he looked up--and the man was gone. He spun and slammed the door shut, keeping the snake in there. Rubbing his face, he turned and ran for the kitchen, the closest way out of the building.

As he opened the door, looking behind him, Grandfather's voice from the room he was walking into sent a hard shiver down his back. "You, elf, go and find me some vine. Good stuff, not some cheap nonsense." Kolya realized after a moment that the nobby finger was aimed at his chest.

"Ye-yes sir," he stammered, running for the door to the cellar. Thumping down the stairs, he caught sight of his father's cabinet, standing beside the wine rack. Grabbing a bottle--he didn't know which one the old man wanted, but he was drunk enough he wouldn't notice. He looked at the cabinet again, wishing that his father was there to help him. Light from the door caught a bottle on the shelf, a little one, and the boy paused. Something about it reminded him of...of something. His mother, and a warning.

Shaking it off, he ran up the stairs, clutching the bottle to his chest. "Grandfazher, I haff your vine," he said, holding out the bottle. "I got it for you as quick as I could."

The weary eyes peered at him for a moment. "Zhank you, boy, but shouldn't you be in a cupboard." For a second, it seemed as though Kolya would be let off, but with a sudden flourish, the wand pointed at his midsection again. "Crucio!"

Screaming, the boy fell to the floor, limbs twitching. Somewhere, he knew the spell was already over, and that he was moving across the floor--drunk, it seemed the old man simply chose to drag him instead of using magic--but none of that really mattered. The memory of pain filled him almost completely, froze him, left him unable to do more than cry and scream. Dimly, he realized that he was being thrown into the cupboard, but it still didn't make an impact on him. Blessedly, he finally passed out.

He woke up off and on, each time growing hungrier, thirstier, more desperate and weaker. The snake, too, seemed to be loosing any fear it had ever had of him, brushing closer and closer to him as he moved.

Then came a time when he woke to coils holding his legs tightly. He had no idea how long it had been--that Tuesday night seemed to be someone else's time, as though he had been watching his Uncle's television. He tried screaming, but his voice had long since failed him. The movement caused a sudden tightening around him, his knees crushing together. He turned enough to touch the door, knock, pound on it. He could feel a coil wrapping around his stomach and he managed to find enough voice to moan, reaching down to push on the snake. He knew, though, that he was alone, and that he was going to die.

Tears streaming down him face, more water he desperately needed draining from him, he turned again to claw at the wooden door, beseeching help from anyone, anything. Muffled calls and silence, met his efforts after a few minutes, during which time two more coils took him, one around his chest. The snake began to tighten again, and Kolya heard a rib pop after only a moment. Weeping at the implacable wood, he tried to pound again, his fingers almost too sore to bend after clawing for so long. Another shout, more urgent, then he heard his name, faintly, as though from another world.

He tried to call out, to tell the voice where he was, but could not do it. He had no breath, none. A rattle sounded at the door as he fell to the ground, an arm now caught by the serpent, breath almost spent. A muffled cry, and a click, lead to the opening of the door and sudden removal of the serpent, which struck the wall with a sickening crunch.

"Nicolai? Oh, God, my Nicolai!" Arms pulled him from the cupboard, while two voice now spoke together, jumbled, confusing. His mother's face hovered over his own, and he knew he was safe.

His grandfather, however, seemed to be much worse. The old man had passed out that night, and never woke up. He still had breath, but not much of it. For three days, Kolya was locked in his room, to make sure he got plenty of rest and food, despite his father's more than proficient skills with healing. On the fourth day, he was asked to grab a couple of things for a potion his father was making for the dying man.

Pulling them down from the shelves of the cabinet, he remember suddenly about the other bottle--Essence of Belladona.

"Nicolai, never touch zhis bottle. It can kill you."

"Vhat is it fazher."

"Belladona. Yes, ve haff some, and you cannot go into zhat greenhouse, as you very vell know. But this bottle can kill, if used wrong."

"Yes, fazher."

Stuffing it into his pocket, he gathered the other things and ran upstairs. His parents were waiting for the old man to wake up, to hear his story, before they said they believed he had locked their son in there. Maybe Nicolai had, after all, simply been playing and the door accidentally locked. Or something similar. But Kolya couldn't face living with him any more. The snake...and the darkness, not to mention the lack of food and water, had been too much.

When the potion was done, he offered to deliver it. "I need to stop acting like a child," he said to the unasked question of why. "I can't run from him forever, however much I don't like him." As soon as he was into the room, with the door closed, he pulled out the bottle and looked at it. For a second, seeing Pavil laying in his bed, helpless, Kolya thought of putting the bottle into his pocket again. Instead, remembering the cupboard--two and a half years of the cupboard--he flipped open the stopper and turned the bottle over.

"Grandfazher," he whispered, moving over to stand by the bed. "I haff your potion from fazher..."