Harry stumbled to his feet in the most unpleasant possible place he could imagine. It looked as if it could have once been a dungeon of the worst sort, where people were tortured to death. Bits of chain and rust colored stained marred the walls, and there were several well preserved peices of what looked like ancient devices to inflict pain. Unless of course, the devices were new, and had been brought in by Lord Voldemort himself, or one of his equally twisted minions. It was dark, and unnaturally cold as well. Colder than it had been outdoors, in fact. Harry was not certain whether this was caused by the location of this place, wherever it was, or by some trick of the intensity of evil within Voldemort himself, destroying the light and warmth as effectively as the presence of a dementor.
A few candles and torches flickered inneffectively along the walls. Scarcely any of their light reached Harry, and he would almost just as rather have done without it, as it served only to illuminate fresh bloodstains on the floor, and Lord Voldemort's hideous face, which resembled that of a snake far more than it did anything human. No, Harry thought suddenly, it was worse than a snake's. A snake was just an animal, no more evil than any other. Certainly the snake he had freed at a muggle zoo once, a long time ago, had borne no resemblence to the leering, twisted visage he saw before him now.
"Well, well well." Voldemort hissed. "If it isn't the famous Harry Potter. How considerate of you to come and visit me."
Harry drew his wand and pointed it at Voldemort. "Where are Ron and Hermione? What have you done with them."
"Oh, they're quite safe for right now." Voldemort sneered. "Though I will kill them soon enough. Right after I've killed you. Draw your wand, Potter. I have another one I've been learning to use for just this occasion. There will be no Priori Incantatem or any other such lucky tricks to save you this time."
Harry drew his wand and tried casting 'Expelliarmus' on the tan wand Voldemort held pointed at him. With a lazy flick of the wand that hardly seemed enough to do magic, the Dark Lord easily diverted the spell away from himself.
"Is that the most powerful spell you can do, Potter?" Voldemort sneered in a manner reminiscent of Snape. "I learned more effective ones when I was still in my first year at Hogwarts! Incendio!"
"Protego!" Harry cast the sheilding charm, barely protecting himself from having Voldemort's fiery curse burning his face off. He was forced to cast it again and again as Voldemort rained dark curses down on him. Harry had to spend all his effort to keep the evil spells from hitting him, and was not given a single opening to cast any more offensive spells of his own on the Dark Lord. Even at that, he sensed that the magical power behind Voldemort's spells was much greater than he would be able to shield himself against for long. The vicious curses battered against his magical protections, forcing him backwards as easily as a pit bull would batter a kitten. Had he had time to think, he now would have understood Snape's contempt for his abilities. He had thought he was a powerful wizard, skilled at defending himself against the Dark Arts, but he had been comparing himself with his fellow classmates, not with a full-fledged Dark Wizard. Voldemort had been honing his magical abilities for decades, whereas Harry had spent almost all the spare time he had in the few years he had known he was a wizard engaging in such pursuits as chasing Quidditch balls and window shopping with his friends in Hogsmeade village. More amusing than learning silent magic or how to cast two spells at once, perhaps, but not very useful when it came to survival. Some people, perhaps, might think it cruel to force a boy to grow up to quickly, and learn the deadly skills needed to defend his own life when he is no more than a child, but how much crueller is it to deny him the knowledge that he is going to NEED those skills, and as a consequence, deny him the chance to live to grow up at all? As it was, Harry had as little chance of defeating Voldemort with his inadequate magical skills as he had of stopping a bull elephant from stampeding by standing bodily in front of it.
"Pathetic." Voldemort sneered as a spell of his broke through Harry's magical shields, and cut a nasty slice across his left arm. Harry was covered with sweat and gasping for breath, barely able even to lift his wand. Voldemort on the other hand did not look at all tired, he could just as easily have been swatting butterflies, for all the apparent exertion he showed after fighting Harry.
He raised his wand and cast 'Crucio' on Harry, licking his lips as he did so. A true, remorseless sadist, he was physically aroused by the sight of human suffering. Harry was far too naive to understand this, and writhing in pain, in no condition anyways to look for the signs of such things even if he had understood it. He only comprehended that it felt like his internal organs and muscles were simultaneously being ripped out, dissolved in acid, and burned. That, and a dim spark of awareness that he had failed completely. He was going to die, and then Ron and Hermione would die next. He hadn't been a very good wizard, he had failed all the faith Dumbledore and everyone else had had in him. Then, after several unbearable minutes, he became aware through a miasma of red that the pain had finally stopped. He would have thought he was dead, but then he would have been with Sirius. Instead he was still trapped with Voldemort gloating down at him.
"I tire of this game, Potter." Voldemort said. "You are as poor at bearing pain as you are at everything else. I shall kill you now, and then go on to deal with the rest of my enemies."
He raised his wand to cast his final spell, the Avada Kadavra, but did not get the chance. For just then, the universe played one of the peculiar jokes that whatever dieties who shuffle the cosmic deck of life are so fond of, and all hell broke loose.
