Chapter 1:
Harry fell hard onto an unforgiving flat surface.
He was sure that he heard at least one of his bones crack when he hit what he assumed to be a floor of some kind.
He didn't know why he fell, or even why he was in any position to fall, his mind was too fuzzy at the moment to know much of anything.
It could have been worse though, he pondered absently, what he assumed to be a floor could have been made of concrete. Which would have been much, much worse. It was small comfort, but comfort nonetheless, from what he could tell he had fallen from a fair height.
He could hear shuffling all around him and he opened his eyes, only to have the colours surrounding him whirl in protest. If he had actually had anything in his stomach after weeks of Voldemorts followers questionable hospitality, well let's just say, it wouldn't be in his stomach any longer.
A dry wretch was the best he could manage under the circumstances; needless to say, it didn't help his situation any. He nearly choked on the horrible taste the action left in the back of his throat. Being incapacitated on his back unable to move much more then his head voluntarily was not helping matters either. No matter what he did he couldn't escape the ghastly tang that hung in his mouth.
He could hear someone speaking to him but he could not make out the words.
He could feel a hand on his face and fingers ghosting over his body.
Desperately he tried to calm his breathing and to forget about the horrible feeling in the back of his throat, and the taste of the air, and well it wasn't helping much at all he was still struggling to breathe at all.
Every time he inhaled or exhaled air he could feel a sharp point sticking into his lung. Broken ribs no doubt.
It was surprising really given all his injuries he had the will to live at all. He remembered when he was younger he had the flu in conjunction with fluid on his lungs, at the time he was so miserable he wished that he would just get on with it and die. Ultimately he had recovered, though the recovery time was significantly longer than normal due the Dursley's treatment, he had never forgotten however how he had felt during that time. This was different though, every nerve ending, every limb, every organ was screaming for him to give up, yet his mind was still going strong, still urging him to fight, to survive.
Opening his eyes once again he fought his exhaustion, starvation, injuries and general bad health in favour of trying to gat a good look at his surroundings.
Well the fact that the world was still spinning would have been somewhat comforting if he was actually spinning with it, Harry thought a little darkly as he tried to fight the sensation he now associated with opening his eyes. Gradually though he was able to make out his surroundings, well vaguely anyway.
There was a man in robes kneeling above him, poking and prodding at him with a wand, there were others, fuzzy outlines on the edge of his vision, all dressed in robes of some kind.
Wizards.
Small comfort considering just who sent him here, Voldemort was hardly likely to have sent him any place he would actually want to be, like say Hogwarts, where potential allies would surround him and he might actually have a chance of survival.
Though it was a positive sign that they hadn't shot the killing curse at him on sight.
Something the man, a medi-wizard he would hazard a guess, had done cleared his vision for a moment. Another positive sign that the medi-wizard seemed to be trying to heal him rather than speed the process along. They could do that, legally, in terminal cases, Madame Pomphrey had told him.
He had asked her on one of his many visits to the hospital wing, out of morbid curiosity. He knew that muggles did not allow euthanasia.
When the world stopped spinning he noticed he was surrounded by the magical world's version of aristocrats, dressed up to the nines in dress robes with what he assumed was incredibly expensive jewelry practically falling off both sexes, it was a grandiose display of opulence if he had ever seen one.
He only really noticed the jewelry because it was shiny, and looking up from the floor onto the sparkly jewelry made his head swirl again. He probably got a better look at the jewelry than faces or robes really.
But it was a welcome sight. He had landed in the middle of some kind of social gathering, and unless this was a private little Death Eater party he was most likely in luck. He knew that most supporters of Voldemort kept their loyalties very quiet until not long before his defeat. Which meant that even if this was the home of a Death Eater they could hardly leave a mysterious someone who turned up out of nowhere to die on the floor.
It would blow their cover.
With a final feeling of something that resembled triumph Harry gave into his body's protests, and fell unconscious.
It seemed like he might live to see another day after all.
