Harry lay curled up on the deserted street corner, his ragged oversized clothing wrapped tightly around his body in a futile attempt to keep warm. A slight breeze lifted the hair off his forehead for a split second as a stranger walked by, but that was enough.
"Harry?" A small girl inched closer to the broken body, "Harry, is that you?" Harry stirred slightly, his opening briefly before squinting shut again because of the bright white light. A small moan escaped his lips. He was so soar from his bruised and battered body having to spend the night tensed up on the cold sidewalk. The voice spoke again and this time he was able to open his eyes slightly and concentrate on the person standing in front of him.
She was a girl of average height, maybe a little on the short side. Her mousy brown hair was pulled up into a messy ponytail. Her dark eyes focused fixedly on Harry's face. He couldn't tell much more about her in the early morning light, but the one thing that left a lasting impression on his mind was the expression on her face, concern. He could vaguely remember her face, but he couldn't put a name to it. He tried to ask who she was, but all he could manage was a very gruff, "who?" Luckily the girl understood.
"Harry, it's Solenne," she knelt down beside him, "Do you remember me? I went to your school. We haven't heard from you in a long time." The memories were beginning to come back now. She had been the quiet girl in his class. The one who was dressed almost as poorly as he was, which, Harry thought to himself, would probably explain her being in this neighborhood. Solenne was now turning Harry over slowly, so that his stomach was facing up, she gasped at his condition when the light hit his face. "Harry! Oh my god, are you ok? What happened?" She listened for a moment to his incoherent mutterings and decided to take action. She pulled slightly on injured arm so that s he could help him up, but that just seemed to cause him more pain. He winced as he tucked his arm protectively into his chest.
Solenne made a few more ineffective attempts to get him up, but she just couldn't do it alone. "Come on Harry," she begged, "I can't help you when you are out here on the street. You need to get up so I can bring you back to my house." She didn't know if he had heard her because he lay still for a few moments. She was about to ask him again when he began to slowly stand up. His bones creaked and groaned under his minute body weight. It felt as though he hadn't moved in ages. He bit the inside of his cheek when he had to put pressure on his broken femur.
She led him carefully down the street. She could sense Harry tiring after a few blocks and encouraged him to continue. "Don't worry Harry; it's only one more block." "That's right; just ease yourself up those stairs. I'll get you a drink once we're inside." She guided him into the living room and lay him down on the couch. She hurried into the kitchen to get him a glass of water. When she retuned he was laying peacefully on the couch, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. Shaking her head sadly she made her way back into the living room. Harry looked so feeble and frail lying there on the couch. She quickly handed him the glass and started fussing over him when he tried to sit up. "Oh Harry, you really should stay lying down. It might be better for you." Harry smirked at her Mrs. Weasley like actions. "Yes ma'am" he mumbled hoarsely, the humor still evident in his voice. Solenne scowled at him and rolled her eyes. He finished the rest of glass in one gulp and was about to speak again when he started to have a huge coughing fit. Solenne began to rub his back sympathetically, but he just recoiled away again. "Sorry," he apologized, his voice still a little dry but getting better as he spoke, "My back hurts a little bit." Solenne nodded understandingly and brought her back down to her lap. She gasped at the sight of it. The palm of her hand was a bright crimson. "Harry!" She remarked, shocked at the state of her hand. He flushed embarrassedly and mumbled something unintelligible. Her hand was forgotten momentarily at Harry's strange reaction to her outburst. "Harry," she asked softly, concern evident in her voice, "what happened?" He mouthed wordlessly for a few moments before starting, "Well I, err, well, um, it's just that, well, it was nothing" he finished flustered. "Harry," she responded condescendingly, "I need to know what happened if you want me to help." He sighed resignedly and there was a moment of silence before he took a deep breath. She settled back expecting a long dialogue, and was surprised when he only said two words, "My uncle." She stared at him confusedly for a second until the meaning of his words sank in. Harry lived with his relatives; she cringed at the memories of Dudley. They had done this to him. "Oh Harry," she began, but eh interrupted her, "no don't, I deserved it. I am such a bother to them, ruining their reputation, eating there food," she snorted at this one because it looked as though he hadn't eaten in months, "and," he added as an afterthought, "I have murdered seven nearly eight people." Her eyes widened as she jumped off the couch. "You've what?" She asked shakily as she backed away from the couch. His face saddened at the memories, "I haven't actually murdered them, I've just been the cause of it. First there were my parents, they died saving me. Then there was my friend Cedric, he died because he followed me into the wrong place at the wrong time, and finally there was the Creevey family. They were murdered because their son, Colin, might have known my whereabouts." The room was filled with a disheartened silence and Solenne couldn't help but become unafraid as her gaze landed in his dejected, mournful face. "Oh Harry," she sighed, her voice expressing a mere fraction of the misery he was feeling, "I am sure that you did not cause those murders." Harry just shook his head, "You don't know though, I did, it was all my fault." Solenne was speechless at his passion. She knew no words that would comfort him so she just sat back down on the couch for a few minutes until she remembered what she had brought him back to her house for. "Harry," she startled him out of his reverie, "We need to get those injuries of yours taken care of. Here, I can't clean them properly like this, take your shirt off." He hesitated slightly, but the look she gave him convinced him to continue.
She could see the ache and pain in every one of his movements, and at the rate he was going it took him nearly two minute sot get his tattered shirt off. Solenne was horrified at the sight of him. His ribs with sticking so impossibly far out and his skin was stretched so tightly over them that she could actually see the cracks where six of his ribs were broken. She couldn't tell if he had any other internal injuries, but his skin was so covered in bruises and cuts that there was hardly a patch of normal skin. She wasn't going to ask him to take off his pants but she could already see several maladies on the lower half of his body. His ankle was horribly discolored and swollen and he had as many if not more lacerations on his legs than on his upper body. She cringed to see what his back looked like. She knew from experience that it was the primary target in a beating. "Harry," she spoke softly, fearing the consequences of her request, "would you please lie down on your stomach." He nodded, his face set in a grim expression. He slowly lowered himself down face first onto the couch. She closed her eyes as a single tear made its way down her cheek. Not only was his back more cut and bruised than the rest of his body, but it looked as though there were burn marks as well. Down on his lower back there was one huge gash that was surrounded by horribly discolored swollen skin. The red cut was bleeding freely, and it was then that she remembered the blood on her hand. "I'll be right back," she whispered as she slowly got up, being careful not to bump the couch. She went in to the kitchen and turned on the hot water, horribly morbid thoughts filling her head as she mechanically washed her hands free of the blood. Most of her thoughts were focused on the very little she knew about the Durselys. Oh how terribly wrong she had been about them. She had never much liked Dudley and his little gang, and the only time she had ever seen Vernon was when he had to pick Harry of early from school for climbing on the school roof. He had grabbed Harry angrily by the hair and dragged him out of school. She figured that he had just been interrupted while doing something important, or been in a bad mood or something. Never in a million years would she have guessed that he acted that way towards Harry all the time. She just sighed sadly and turned off the water. She wiped her hand on the dish towel that was hanging of the cabinets under the sink, and made her way back into the living room. "Harry?" She called out in timid tones as she approached the couch. She touched him slightly on the shoulder and he shied away, remaining once again immobile after that. He turned his head sideways and she saw that his eyes were closed. She allowed a small smile to grace her lips. He needed the sleep. She walked back into the kitchen and opened the fridge. She wanted to prepare a sandwich for herself and him. He would no doubt be famished when he woke up. After that she sat down on one of her kitchen school with a mug of coffee and her book, she would be skipping school today.
She sat there for a few hours, no sounds except for the occasional car driving by and Harry's constant labored breathing. She was about to continue on to the next chapter when she noticed that Harry had started breathing faster than before, she listened for a moment, but thought nothing of it, so she continued to read. Her hand was just turning the page when a terrified scream rang through her house. His tsuris was obvious is every second of the scream. Her book flew to the floor and she fled into the living room. Severely shaken, the scream still reverberating in her ears she made her way over to the couch where was sitting upright, his hands clutching his forehead. "Solenne," he muttered, his voice hoarse as she approached, "you have to leave, now, get out of the house and start running. Run towards that little shop about three blocks away." He looked up, searching for some sign of comprehension on her face. She was surprised to see a small trickle of blood carving a path down his face, its origin, that funny shaped scar on his forehead. It took her a moment to come back to the present. "Wait, what? Leave? Why?" He was staring at her steadily and it was more than a little unnerving. "Someone is coming, you have to leave now, grab a bag, shove some money and some clothes into it and start running." His tone was so serious that she didn't think twice about how he knew what he knew; she just complied as quickly as she could with his orders. She ran into her room grabbed a bag and shoved her wallet, her scrapbook, and some clothes into it, gave Harry a quick hug, and bolted out of the house. She was about one block away from the store when a blood curdling shriek reached her from the direction of her house, without a second though she flipped around and headed towards Harry.
Harry stood up shakily and walked slowly towards the front door. He knew that they would be apparating a short distance away from there. He limped heavily in the last few steps, and the past few hours of sleep he had gotten had done nothing but could his mind. He heaved the front door open, having to unlock four or five locks in the process, and stepped into the afternoon air. He stared at the blank space in front of him for a few seconds before five loud pops announced the arrival of several death eaters. He dodged four of the five curses that were thrown at him immediately, but the fifth one, the cruciatis, hit its target dead on. He endured the pain for a few minutes in silence before Lucius jumped on his broken leg, he couldn't help it. He let out one loud cry of pain before succumbing to the silence once more. After a few more minutes the other death eater lifted the curse and Harry lay on unmoving on the ground, still in the obviously contorted pose the curse had left him in. He began to rise slowly; he was not going to take this lying down. The death eaters laughed as he staggered to a standing position. He raised his green eyes and they locked with the steely gray of the nearest person. "Do not think you can win potter. The Dark Lord will kill, and he will do it painfully. Stretching your agony to its fullest extent and right before you snap, he will let the entire wizarding world know won. He is going to project your pitiful image onto one of the walls in the great hall." Lucius Malfoy was smirking sardonically and a bitter laugh escaped his lips. He was still reveling in his triumph when Harry asked the one question he hadn't been expecting. "Has he told all of his servants about this?" Lucius stared blankly at him for a few seconds before spitting out his response, "Why of course! It had been his plan for months, granted, your uncle beating you helped the plan along a bit." He lauged again at the expression on Harry's face, oh yes, we know all about your uncle's drunken escapades, and soon everyone else will know too. About how a mere muggle helped destroy the prodigy of the wizarding world." Harry sighed resignedly, "ok, well as long as all the death eaters know." He began to turn around but what he saw stopped him in his tracks. Solenne was running as fast as she could through the kitchen and towards the front door. Towards all of the death eaters. He tried to stop her but it was too late. Lucius's cool voice sounded behind him, "Oooh, and what do we have here? A pretty little helpless muggle girl." Harry cringed inwardly. Didn't he tell her to run? Why was she still here? Solenne, not watching where she was going, ran out of the front door right into Lucius's outstretched hand. He gripped her upper arm forcefully. "Let's have some fun with you shall we?" The sinister look on his face made the look of determination on her face turn to one of sheer fright. "Imperio!" Lucius shouted, his wand directed at Harry. Harry felt the blissful sensation fill his mind and he almost laughed at the death eaters' stupidity. They obviously didn't know that he could fight off the Imperious curse quite easily. He heard Lucius's voice in his head, commanding him to take the girl into the kitchen. He complied immediately so as to make it appear real. Solenne paled considerably as Harry's face went blank and he grabbed her arm. She was so confused and alarmed. Who were these people? What was with the funny sticks? How did Harry know them and what was Harry doing? Harry started to lead her into the house on Lucius's command. He walked into the kitchen and grabbed one of the knives out of the drawer. Solenne shrieked and started to struggle. She could hear the men in her front yard laughing at something, presumably her. Harry began to whisper at her through the side of his mouth. "Scream now!" She hesitated, but with a reassuring squeeze from Harry she screamed. "These people," he continued whispering, "are wizards, they can do magic, so can I. Right now, they are think they are controlling my mind, but they are not, scream." Solenne screamed, "When we outside, I am going to try and apparate us, scream, to a different part of town. If that doesn't work, run as fast as you can, I can handle these people, scream, myself." They had just reached the backyard and Harry faced Solenne towards him, taking both of her hands in his. "I am going to try in, three, two, one." Harry attempted to apparate. He had read a few books about it during the school year, but he had always been too frightened of splinching himself to try, but at this moment, it was now or never. Harry opened his eyes and found himself standing in the backyard, and Lucius racing towards him through the house, but Solenne was no where to be seen. He hoped that she was somewhere safe because he was in big trouble. He turned to face a furious Lucius. "What are you doing!" Lucius snarled at him, "you were supposed to me under the imperious!" Harry just smirked at him, "I can block the imperious, I thought you evil gits would know that, guess not." Harry knew he shouldn't have, but it was just so tempting. Harry sighed as Lucius raised his wand, "Crucio!" Harry was once again in excruciating pain, he managed to keep himself standing albeit unsteadily. He bit his lip, he would not give them the pleasure of hearing him scream. Lucius stopped, " and I thought you, you stupid boy, would now that you can't apparate while the imperious is on you, regardless of whether or not you can fight it off." Harry just stood, steady now that the cruciatis was not being cast, and stared jadedly at Lucius. Solenne was safe, that was all that mattered, and now he was willing at ready to accept the consequences of his stupidity. Lucius continued, "but don't worry, we'll be taking you to a place where you cant apparate. The wards at Voldermort's Manor are even stronger then they are at Hogwarts." He sneered again before subjecting Harry to a few more unmemorable moments of the cruciatis curse. After he had finished, he grabbed Harry by his dislocated shoulder and yanked him towards the group of death eaters, setting him down harshly on his snapped femur. "Now," he scowled, "lets see what My lord wants to do to with you." An eerie silence filled the backyard and if you listened hard enough you could still hear a several odd sounding pops.