AN - Back at work and the update schedule is obviously less than every other day now. Aiming for once a week. Hope everyone is staying safe out there!

Harry leaned his head back against the Gryffindor common room couch, trying in vain to get comfortable. He was stuck here, waiting for his best friends to finish the duties required of newly minted Prefects, namely showing the first years around the school so that they could get to classes on time tomorrow. It wasn't yet over, but the day had been exhausting.

Jason, Sara, and Eric had accompanied the three of them on the train ride, and it had been great to catch up. Owl mail was good and all, but there was nothing like being there with your friends in person.

Ron and Eric had apparently spent most of the summer in increasingly brutal strategy game tournaments, both muggle and wizarding in origin, culminating in a tie that neither acknowledged. While Ron had come out ahead in Wizard's Chess and a few others, Eric had reigned supreme in the rest and each insisted that they were the overall winner. Though there was an edge of competition to them, he got the sense that the hostility was mostly theatrical.

The most significant changes had been in Hermione, however. In fact, the only reason he'd recognized her at first was because she was standing arm in arm with Sara. Her hair, normally bushy and controlled only in the most generous sense of the word, had been pulled back into a tight bun behind her head. While that alone would drastically change how she looked, it was her physique, evident though the tight jeans and t-shirt she'd arrived in, that really surprised him. She was lean. Her slender arms showed defined muscle and when he glanced down at the ring Mike had given her, he saw that her knuckles looked calloused and rough.

He'd been relieved to see how friendly she still was, but there was definitely a harder edge to her now. She simply wasn't the same since Mike had been taken. He learned during the train ride that she had been practicing sparring and hand-to-hand fighting with Sara throughout the summer, letting off steam and at the same time becoming fitter and stronger.

Through the train ride, he also saw close the two girls had become. They sat closely together, giggled at inside jokes, and they were nearly to Hogsmeade before he realized that they looked like sisters, something he knew neither of them had grown up with.

Once the train arrived in Hogsmeade, things moved fast. The operators, dressed in student cloaks, bade them a quick and underwhelming farewell before ducking into the crowd. He didn't see where they went from there.

When they'd arrived in the Great Hall, the first of his real anxieties began. He'd of course heard that the Ministry made an unsuccessful attempt to arrest Dumbledore. Still, it hadn't really hit him until he saw a short, plump woman in bright pink sitting in his seat, looking pompously at the arriving students. The image was completely wrong.

After an ominous warning by the Sorting Hat, which Nearly-Headless Nick insisted had rarely occurred before, the woman introduced herself as Headmistress Umbridge. She droned on for a good long while, mostly about cooperation and how the Ministry is here to help get things on track for the school. The Headmistress hadn't taken her eyes off him during the portion of the speech that spoke on how someone dedicated to their own fame could damage a society.

The rest of the students picked up on that as well. When it was finally time for the meal, they ate, but Harry could feel the eyes on him throughout the school. The Slytherin's especially had made a number of comments just loud enough to be picked up over the din of the Great Hall.

At the end of the meal they were dismissed. Ron and Hermione, Prefects for Gryffindor, departed to show the first years around, all the while arguing over how to handle the responsibility. Harry, for his part, had to follow the rest of the Gryffindors to the common room.

In general, the students seemed more or less split. Many of his fellow Gryffindors had been friendly and shown him some support, while many students from the other houses called him names. It was like they'd forgotten how the previous year had ended.

What did they think had happened during the last event of the Triwizard Tournament? He couldn't fathom what they thought he gained by lying about the return of Voldemort, what Dumbledore would gain by it, or MACUSA and the the soldiers from Task Force Ansible.

The wide conspiracy didn't make sense to him, but then it didn't matter, did it? It seemed that it made sense to a huge chunk of the student population, and that meant he was in for an unpleasant time.

He heard the portrait slide open and watched a bunch of wide-eyed first years walking through. To a person, they stopped in their tracks upon seeing him sitting there.

"Oy, get a move on!" Ron bellowed from behind them. The students surged forward, making room for his two friends. Hermione elbowed Ron in the ribs.

"Girls, up the stairs to the left. Boys, to the right please," she said more kindly, still giving Ron a severe look. Harry chuckled at the sight, glad his friends were back.

"What do your friends call you?" drawled a comforting Southern accent.

"Mike," he replied easily. It was so good hearing a voice that came from home that he couldn't help the smile from forming. He thought about his friends...he missed them.

"Mike, I like that," the voice commented, and Mike felt glad for the approval. He'd spent a long time around British accents. Hostile British voices that often brought pain and discomfort. He didn't want to think about them. "Mike, what are your friends' names?"

"Well," Mike said, smiling again. He liked thinking about his friends, especially Hermione. "There's Harry, Ron, and Hermione." Images flashed through his mind at the mention of each name. His friends.

"Who else?" he asked patiently. Calmly.

"Um," Mike stammered a bit. More images flashed through his mind. Heavy vests, rifles, helmets, and night vision. "Brad, Jaso-" Mike stopped. It didn't feel quite right, saying their names. For one thing, they weren't just friends. They were his brothers.

Through the crucibles of intense training and combat, they'd become closer than family. So answering that they were friends didn't do it justice. But there was more to it than that. He wasn't supposed to answer questions like that, especially if he felt confused.

Instructor Martinez had drilled them over and over again on this, and each time had been more painful than the last. He winced at the new images flashing in his mind. Clamps and a battery, a scalpel, a wooden baton...fists.

He didn't like the images, so he opened his eyes. He knew the eyes of the tall, skinny, balding man. Howard Eden. He'd spent a few months looking for that man along with his team.

Like a dam bursting, a wave of clarity washed over him. He was captured, a POW. Howard Eden was interrogating him. He balled up a fist and quickly reared back for a punch when an intense wave of pain washed over him.

He felt his head smack against the back wall as he slid to the ground, every single nerve ending on fire. Distantly, he heard a vicious cackling. The pain went on for an extremely long time. At first he was angry, tense, and waiting for the pain to subside so he could strike back. It didn't.

He writhed and waited, listening to the cackling laughter. After a long, long while, he promised himself he'd settle…if it would just stop.

He wasn't sure how long it had been when it did stop. He didn't have the energy to move, he just laid there, each of his nerves protesting at their previous and lengthy mistreatment.

"I could listen to that sound forever," a feminine voice crooned. He recognized it as Bellatrix. She'd been spending more and more time there, alongside Eden. He could remember being asked questions. All the time...questions about the Task Force, about Harry, and Hogwarts, the United States. And always she was there to entertain herself at his expense.

"You truly are spectacular, Ms. Lestrange." Eden complimented. Mike, who was finally stirring, saw her flash a genuine smile at him. "The Monet of nerve endings."

The two stood there and looked at each other for a long time, evidently savoring the moment, the only movement was Eden twirling his wand between his fingers. Finally, Eden turned his attention to Mike, who had only just made it to his elbows. "Imperio."