Chapter 3: Dead...

"You know, I'm in an exceptionally good mood today, Harry. Would you like to know why?" asked Voldemort bouyantly.

"Shut your God da--" Harry began in a wave of fury, but almost immediately stopped.

His wrists had just been cut again.

Voldemort laughed shrilly.

"Language, Harry, language..." said Voldemort. "If you keep on, you'll have no blood left, and you'll die a much more painless death than what I had planned for you. We wouldn't want that, now, would we?" He laughed again, showing oddly pointed teeth.

"Besides, what fun would that be for me?" he continued.

As Voldemort began to laugh his hardest yet, Harry heard a roar of muffled laughter.

For the first time, Harry looked down at the rest of his body.

But as he saw his own feet - his left footwas bent in an odd sort of way - he saw a dark green, stone staircase covered with moss and ivy, about a foot wide and one hundred feet long. The staircase descended from the tiny platform he lay on to ... nothing, it seemed.

He wanted to gasp, but hel himself back.

He was in a circular room, and as Harry looked upwards, he saw that there was virtually no celing, but just blackness. Along the walls were cages. These cages had black bars, with large metal contraptions attatched to where the lock should have been.

Branching out from the contraptions were wires that seemed to be alive - they were flinging themselves around in the air and wrapping about the bars of cages. As each wire-like creature hit the cages bars, they let out electrical shocks and sparks that momentarily lit up the enormous, vast, empty room.

Voldemort had stopped laughing now. He looked at Harry, a wide smile forming on his pale face at the look of suprise and question on Harry's face.

"Those are my 'Shocking Snapper-Serpents'." Voldemort smiled wider. "My own creation. Like them?"

Harry couldn't believe this was happening to him... What about his Guard? Wasn't a member of the Order supposed to be near him at all time? Where wer they now and what was happening to him?

"Now, Harry, I'd like to play a little game. I am going to open up those cells," Voldemort waved a flourishing hand toward a particularly nasty tangle of Shocking Snapper-Serpents, and they abruptly became motionless and fell limply, banging against the cage. "And you are to identify what is in them for me. I'm sure you will find this very entertaining." He motioned toward the cage where the Serpents were loosely hanging, and waved his hand again, this time in a beckoning motion.

The cage began to slide out of the wall with an ear-piercing grate, floating in the air. It was slowly levitating toward Harry.

When it was about three feet away from Harty, the cell stopped, and just floated there...waiting for further instruction.

Now that itwas closer, Harry could see that there was a black metal barrier directly behind the bars of the cage... From a distance it had looked as if the cage was empty.

"Now for the rules of our little game. One: No screaming, yelling, or cursing. Two: No flailing. We don't want anymore nasty little cuts now, do we? And three: If you should happen to become so depressed from this game, and reach the point where you believe you can longer 'take it,' then, please remember...you will die soon enough." Voldemort let out a harsh burst of laughter.

"Ready?"

Harry glared.

"One..." The cage door swung open.

"Two..." The black barrier slowly started to rise.

"Three...!" The barrier shot upward, revealing its contents.

Harry stared.

It was Dumbledore. Dead.