A/N: Trigger Warnings for Suicide and Torture via Sensory Deprivation.

It was a rare sight indeed to see Severus Snape, Potions Master and newly minted Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor, sitting in the Leaky Cauldron. If asked, Professor Snape would list a dozen places he'd rather be on a rainy Thursday evening in mid September.

Of course, no one would consider approaching the man to ask. Some of his colleagues wondered if he had perfected a magical aura that made him utterly unapproachable, or if he just had to work at it.

Walking across the room, Snape saw his target. The man was sitting quietly, nursing a pint of muggle beer, of all things. Without a word, Snape took the seat across from the man.

"Augustus," he said in his usual drawl.

Augustus Rookwood glanced up, before taking a long pull of his beer. "Sev'rus." The former unspeakable's voice was already slurred, and the empty glass sitting nearby told the Professor that this was not Rookwood's first drink of the night.

After a moment, Snape spoke again. "As much as I would enjoy watching you drink yourself to death, Augustus, I really do have more important things to do."

"No, you don't," Rookwood muttered. "You really, really don't."

"The Ministry may be helpless to track our revels, but you surely don't expect them to ignore a pureblood girl who goes missing from Hogwarts itself?" Snape asked, incredulously. The story was already public, with the Prophet calling for Dumbledore's head. A fifth year girl, vanishing during a Hogsmeade weekend ten days ago. Snape leaned forward. "Tell me what you know, Augustus."

Rookwood glared at Snape, and then drained what was left of his beer. The table shook as he slammed the glass mug onto the table. A bartender Snape did not recognize brought a new beer for the death eater, who barely acknowledged the service as he set himself to work on the full pint before him. Then, he returned his icy glare to the Professor.

"Look me in the eye, Severus Snape, and tell me that Astoria Greengrass is the only missing student at Hogwarts this week."

oOoOoOoOo

Astoria Greengrass woke up in darkness.

Even with her eyes open, there was no light, nothing to discern about the dark room. She listened closely, and realized that she could hear nothing at all, in a manner that reminded her of the silencing charms on the beds at Hogwarts.

But Hogwarts, this wasn't. Her foot stretched out as she moved, and found not the wood of a normal bed, but cold metal. She jerked her foot back, even as she realized that her feet were bare. The movement rattled the bed, telling her that the mattress she was on was thinner than she expected. Was this something of the muggles? Had a muggle taken her?

She had no memory of that day after leaving the castle with her older sister and her sister's friends. Everything beyond that was a blur.

"Hello?" She asked, quietly. Her words did not even leave the vicinity of the bed, which also matched up with a silencing charm of some sort.

Tentatively, she sat up, taking stock of her situation. She seemed to be wearing her school robes, apart from her stockings and shoes. There were no injuries that she could feel. Her hand went to the pocket of her robes, not really expecting to find anything but needing to know for certain.

As expected, her wand was missing.

Her feet reached the floor, and she found that it was just as cold as the bed frame had been. The surface was smooth, and she could not tell what the surface was. It was not slippery, however, and she stood easily. Her arms outstretched, she took a tentative step forward.

It was obvious when she passed the edge of the silencing charm, as sounds came to her. Nothing distinct, of course, but the miscellaneous sounds that fill silence. The brush of her feet on the floor, the shifting of her robes, each sound she made seemed to fill the space.

She could still see nothing.

"Hello?" a voice called, in front of her and to her left. She heard the wooden creak of a chair as the wizard stood up. If she listened closely, she might have heard her own heartbeat quicken.

She knew it was a wizard, because she recognized the voice. The last time she had heard it, the wizard had promised to meet her and her sister for lunch in Hogsmeade. Then he had kissed her and walked off with his own group of friends.

"Harry?" she asked, not daring to hope that it was anything more than her imagination. But then she heard footsteps approaching rapidly. Then she felt strong arms around her. Then she felt a kiss to her forehead.

"Tori?"

oOoOoOoOo

"The muggles experimented with some really nasty shite, Severus," Rookwood said quietly.

Snape kept his response to himself. Here he was, having been summoned by Augustus Rookwood, hoping to learn if the Dark Lord's pet unspeakable knew anything about the missing Greengrass girl. And now, he had been told that there was another student missing as well - something even Dumbledore had not told him.

Damn that man and his secrets, thought Snape.

But then he considered the problem - and reasoned that the Professors would have to know to search for two students, rather than just one. If the Headmaster thought to keep one disappearance secret, he risked his search parties finding the wrong victim, so to speak. No, there was no way Dumbledore knew.

His eyes drilled into Rookwood, even as the man nonchalantly continued drinking.

"The Ministry bound the magic of seventeen adult wizards in the last hundred years," Rookwood continued. The man's voice reminded Severus of the times when Rookwood would train the newest recruits in the Dark Lord's army, back during the first war. The former unspeakable steadied himself down as he spoke, as if he had prepared this little speech. The only reminder of his lack of sobriety was the growing collection of empty glasses sitting on the table.

"Did you know that they bind your magic first, before they take your memories of being a wizard?" Rookwood asked. "There's nothin' in the binding ritual that requires that. It's just how they do it." He shook his head, before taking another drink. "The fuckin' Ministry, Snape. They want you to know what you lost, what they took from you, before you lose yourself to some poor sod casting the obliviate charm on you."

"I am not familiar with the process, thankfully," Snape remarked.

"Want to know how long those seventeen wizards lasted, Sev'rus?" Rookwood asked, slurring his speech once more. He raised his mug of beer, as if to emphasize his point. "The longest was five months, before the man took a walk off a bridge."

"Do you have a point, Augustus?" Snape was rapidly reaching the edge of his patience.

So was Rookwood, apparently. The man slammed his hand down on the table, and growled angrily. "Take someone's magic, and they spend the rest of their short-arse lives with a feeling of loss so fucking profound that they cannot live with the pain." He sat back in his chair, a look of regret crossing his features. "The muggles, now, they don't have magic to lose. They don't know that there's anything there to miss. So what do they take away, to torture their undesirables, d'you think?"

"I am not keen to guess," said the Professor, drily.

"The muggles know what true pain is, Snape. They can't take magic, so they just take everything else."

oOoOoOoOo

The first thing Harry had done, on that first day, was lead Astoria to the one chair he had found in the room. It was a rickety old wooden chair, one that would not support both of them. So Astoria sat down and leaned forward, sobbing into Harry's shoulder as he leaned over her.

Even the comfort of sitting in his lap was denied her.

When she calmed down, she attempted to lead him to her bed. There, they learned that the silencing charms that had kept him from hearing her were actually a ward scheme that prevented him from passing. He could not sit on her bed, or lay down beside her, or comfort her in any way as they slept.

Harry's bed was, from his description, similar to her own. A poorly-built muggle bed, with the barest imitation of a mattress. No sheets, no covers, not even a pillow.

Had they realized what their captor had in store, they would not have worried about sleeping.

The mattresses were firmly attached to the beds with some sort of sticking charm, so moving them into the main area of the room was out of the question. Despite that, Astoria had begun to feel sleepy, and Harry conceded that he was weary as well. So the pair of them laid down on the hard floor, their robes bunched behind their heads to serve as pillows.

As the room grew quiet once more, Astoria heard the even breathing of her boyfriend, and assumed that he had gone to sleep. She knew she was exhausted from stress and worry, but found that she could not go to sleep herself. She fought the beginnings of a panic, knowing that anything she did could wake Harry, and they would both need him if they expected to escape.

Next to her, Harry heard her even breathing, and realized that Astoria had fallen asleep almost immediately. Try as he might, however, he could not join her in slumber. His eyes simply stared into the darkness, only his iron discipline keeping the panic at bay. He could not afford to wake her, not with how tired she had seemed. They would make it out if at least one of them was able to rest. Astoria was more powerful than she thought, and smarter than any three witches in her year.

If anyone could get them out, it was her. Harry took a deep breath and waited for sleep that never came.

Neither of them felt the wards of the room adjust as they laid down. Even as a sixth year, Harry Potter had never learned enough about wards to know that one could easily be crafted that prevented sleep.

oOoOoOoOo

Snape leaned forward. "So, the muggles prevent their captives from sleeping? Why?"

Rookwood shook his head. "You always refused to brew in the evenings, Snape, I remember that about you." Again he gestured with his drink. "Would you try to brew a potion after being awake for two days? Three?" Rookwood took another pull of his beer. "No, you'd be fuckin' useless, you would."

"Yes," Snape agreed. "But a single potion or a charm would solve the problem, at least temporarily."

"Yeah, maybe, if you had your wand, and if your casting was up to snuff after three fucking days awake, doing Merlin knows what. But the muggles? Nah, mate, they go fuckin' nuts."

"I am not your mate, Rookwood," spat Snape.

"I know it," Rookwood agreed. "A good fuckin' thing for you, too, that is." He lifted the drink to his lips, then paused. "What was I saying?"

"Muggles keep their captives from sleeping," Snape said, tiredly.

"Right, right, muggles. Well, just not sleeping isn't the worst of it. Think about it, Snape, what happens if a man goes blind?" Rookwood did not wait for an answer. "His other senses balance it out. He hears better, he might be more sensitive to smells, his magic helps him move about, and so on. With me so far?"

Snape again rolled his eyes. "I suppose so."

"Right." Rookwood said. Then he finished his beer. "So, what if that man lost all of his senses at once?" He leaned toward Snape, bringing his voice lower as he did so. "What if that man could see nothing, could hear nothing, could feel nothing. The only smell he smelled was himself. No food, so nothing to taste. And certainly, no magic."

Snape's eyes widened as he realized exactly what that might do to a man. Or a wizard.

Or a young witch.

"Tell me, Per'fesser." Rookwood said. "How long would you last if someone took everything?"

oOoOoOoOo

Contrary to his captor's intentions, Harry Potter was not in a silent room, devoid of sound or touch.

All he could hear were Astoria's sobs as she wept from exhaustion and hunger and fear. All he could feel was her arms as they held onto him for dear life. All he could taste were her tears on his cheek. Or were those his tears?

After four days of this, he wasn't sure anymore. All told, he wasn't sure of anything anymore. For all he knew, it might have been forty days, or four hours. Everything blended together.

It was Astoria who noticed the light first. A dull red glow from the table caught her attention. She moved to rise, but her legs were shaking from her ordeal, and she fell. Harry made it to his knees, and helped her to do the same, before they both supported each other in rising to their aching feet.

The glow was from a piece of parchment. The letters were just distinct enough to read, but dim enough to be illegible unless held close to the face. Harry reached for the document first, before he realized that he did not have his glasses on. He had no idea when he had taken them off. If they were not on his person, he had no idea how he would find them in the dark of this prison.

Astoria's shaking voice drew his attention. She had taken the parchment, and was reading.

"Potter," she began. "Your defiance in the face of the Dark Lord's will grows tiresome. Thus, learn the wages of your so-called bravery. The wards placed on this room are powered by your young friend's magic. So long as she lives, the wards remain. So long as the wards remain, she lives. Once the wards fall, you are free to go."

The parchment dropped from her shaking hands. Harry surprised himself when he managed to catch it before it fell. Holding it close to his face, he managed to read the dim words for himself.

"I'm so sorry, Harry…" came the quiet voice of Astoria Greengrass.

Harry carefully set the letter down, and reached out. His fingertips brushed Astoria's robe, and both of them froze.

"Don't, Tori, please." Harry's voice rasped as he stumbled toward her.

"You need to get out of here, Harry, you have to." She pleaded. But she stood still as he approached her. His arms once again wrapped themselves around her, and he held her as tightly as he could.

"I'm going to. I have to," Harry said, his voice more calm than he felt. "And so are you."

"I can't let you throw your life away!" She almost shrieked at him.

"Do you expect less from me, then? Because my life doesn't matter if you die here." Harry replied.

The pair fell to their knees then, leaning against the wall. Their sobs blended together, the only sound in the looming darkness.

oOoOoOoOo

Harry thought he saw something - or someone - moving in the darkness. Leaving Astoria in her place against the wall, he pulled himself to his feet. Starvation was no new thing for Harry Potter, but this had gone beyond anything he had experienced in Surrey.

"Who's there?!" he shouted into the dark.

The dark did not answer.

Harry stumbled forward, swinging his fists as best he could, incoherent rage spewing forth from his parched lips.

The dark did not answer.

His left fist collided with a wall on the far end of the room, and he felt the sickening crack of a bone. He did not know which one, but the shooting pain in his left arm told him that he had made a mistake. In his anger, he screamed into the darkness, begging for something, anything, to help.

The dark did not answer.

oOoOoOoOo

"I don't know what to do, Harry."

"We do what we always do."

"What?"

"We win."

"Harry, we can't win this."

"I refuse to believe that."

"I know."

oOoOoOoOo

"I should've asked you out a long time ago."

"Yeah."

oOoOoOoOo

"Daphne's going to be pissed at me."

"..."

"Tori, say something, baby."

"..."

"I love you, Tori."

"I love…. your face."

"Good enough."

oOoOoOoOo

"One more, mate," Rookwood said, to the exhausted bartender. He set a small stack of galleons on the table as he waited for what would be his last beer.

Snape looked around the bar, and realized that Rookwood had attracted attention. The other patrons had slowly emptied the bar, leaving only the pair of them sitting at their table. Against one wall, the one leading into Muggle London, stood two of their fellow Death Eaters. Perhaps they were there to collect Rookwood?

On the other side, near the entrance to Diagon Alley, were Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks. Both watched with grim expressions. Snape's eyes met Lupin's, and the werewolf gave a slight shake of the head. So no, the Order had not found Astoria Greengrass.

Snape looked back at Rookwood, who was watching his last beer of the night as it was poured. Rookwood had summoned him to a public place, saying that he had information about the missing Slytherin girl. Now he suggested that someone else was missing as well, and that the pair were being tortured using some muggle method. He knew that the drunk man would spill more secrets than a sober one, but the Professor's patience was at an end.

"Augustus, I wish you'd get to the point," Snape drawled.

Rookwood sighed, as his beer was set down on the table.

Snape rolled his eyes. Then he leaned forward. "Tell me, Augustus, who else was kidnapped from Hogwarts?" Maybe changing the subject would help.

Rookwood laughed bitterly at that. "You really have no idea, do you? None at all." Chuckling, Rookwood took out a flask and poured a small amount of a clear liquor into his beer. "Did you know that young Miss Greengrass has just begun dating one of your sixth years?"

"I do not keep track of the love lives of my charges," said Snape.

"You should," Rookwood said, quietly.

"I fail to see why," huffed Snape. "Look, if you're not going to give me something I can use, I need to be going. Do you know anything about what happened to Astoria Greengrass?"

The urgency in Snape's voice, coupled with the clear anger growing there, drew Rookwood's gaze. Snape looked into the man's eyes, and saw nothing but despair.

"I know everything, Severus," Rookwood replied. "It was supposed to go differently, you know."

The tone of Rookwood's voice brought Snape up short. "What do you mean, exactly?"

oOoOoOoOo

The knife appeared on the table, its steel glowing softly.

Such was the magic of the room that the dim light did not even illuminate the wall or table nearby. Everything was shrouded from even the slightest bit of light.

Astoria was laying on the floor, muttering incoherently. It was the closest to rest she had gotten, even though they both knew that she was not actually asleep. This room would not allow that, certainly.

Harry reached up, wrapping his shaking hand around the knife's handle. He managed to slide it to the edge of the surface, before grasping it enough to keep it from falling. Still, its weight pulled his hand down, and he found himself with a steel knife cradled in his lap.

For a long time, he stared at that knife. It was like a beacon to him, a path forward.

Harry Potter looked out into the darkness, and imagined that he could see Astoria. Her brown hair cascading over her shoulders, her bright smile, her eyes filled with life.

He wished that he could see that smile one last time.

oOoOoOoOo

"You gotta do it, Harry."

"I know, baby."

"You gotta win."

"There's only one way we win this."

"We don't win, only you. You have to go win."

"That's what I said, baby."

"I love you."

"I love you, too, Tori."

oOoOoOoOo

"...Harry?"

oOoOoOoOo

"The Dark Lord wanted to torture the boyfriend," Rookwood said, knowing that snape would notice the omission of the boy's name. "All he told me was that the boy was not to be injured."

Snape's eyes filled with horror. "So you took a pureblooded witch, a child, and locked her in a room with this boy?" Then his mind caught up to him, and he almost gasped in shock. "All those things the muggles did, you did to them."

Rookwood nodded. "At the end, I gave the lad a knife. The wards would fall when he killed the girl, and he could walk away." Rookwood reached into his robes, and set a key down on the table. "It was a no win scenario, Sev'rus. He breaks the wards, and she dies. He kills her, and the wards fall." He sipped his beer. "But see, I added a twist. When the wards fell, the knife would become a portkey to the Ministry atrium. So the boy would appear, weak from deprivation, with his hand on a knife and the dead body of his girlfriend at his feet."

"Who was the boy, Augustus?" Snape hissed.

"Leave it to that fuckin' kid to find a way to win in a no win scenario. Give him two doors, he chooses the third one." Rookwood shook his head angrily, and finished his beer in one go. "Fucker killed me, you know that? The Dark Lord will have my head when he finds out."

"Give me a name, Rookwood!" Snape's wand was on the table now, aimed at his fellow Death Eater. Rookwood ignored the gesture, and instead placed a key on the table.

"The girl is upstairs. You'll want to see to her," said Rookwood. His voice was rasping a little, but Snape ignored it. Instead, he grabbed the key and threw it to Tonks, who led Remus up the stairs.

"Leave it to that boy," muttered Rookwood. "The fuckin' chosen one," his voice trailed off.

Snape's voice grew deathly quiet. "Rookwood, tell me you didn't."

"Can't do that, mate," he said, quietly. "The Dark Lord never managed to kill Potter, but I somehow tricked him into doing it himself." He sighed. "Who would've thought?"

Then, Augustus Rookwood slid out of his chair to the floor. Snape was at his side in an instant, a bezoar in hand. He saw the symptoms already, and realized that the man had poisoned himself before his eyes - and he had not noticed!

"I'll not let him kill me, Snape," whispered Rookwood. "If Potter can do it, so can I."

A weary Remus Lupin came down the stairs to find Severus Snape weeping beside the body of a Death Eater, with two more of the Dark Lord's followers looking on silently.

He would not be the last wizard to mourn the fate of Harry Potter.

A/N: This came from a prompt on Discord by Grimjaw, who suggested a locked-room dilemma. The wards were tied to Harry's girlfriend, and would fall only on her death. Similarly, she would die if the wards were somehow taken down. What does he do?

To this I added the sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, and starvation, because anything worth doing is worth overdoing. The key flaw is that the Dark Lord sees everyone as reflections of himself - and he would never even consider giving his life to protect a loved one. Indeed, he would not have a loved one to protect, and so cannot fathom that sort of loyalty. As with many of the Dark Lord's plots, however, they underestimate Mister Potter.

So why did the wards fall? Could be the scarcrux exploding. Could be the willing sacrifice breaking the enchantments on the room. I leave that to you.

The title, of course, references the famous test from the Star Trek Universe, intended to judge how a prospective officer deals with a no-win scenario. Many famous captains deny the existance of a no-win scenario, however, and fight tooth and nail to win by any means necessary. Kirk's solution - rigging the test - is the classic example, but others exist within the fandom. As soon as he and Tori talked the title became a no-brainer.

This is probably some of the darkest shit I've ever posted, to the point that I almost didn't. So... yay? I'll write something more fluffy next time to cleanse the palate.

Stay safe out there. Feedback, as always, is welcome.