Disclaimer: JKR owns it all... except the plot, which is mine, so don't take it... duh... but, er, yeah, all the characters you recognize are definitely JKR's. So there.

Author's Note: Wheeee! I'm mildly sleep deprived at the moment, running on caffeine or else I wouldn't be up just now. Well, that's not true, since I wouldn't allow myself to sleep until I'd posted this chapter, in any case, as it's already much later than I wanted to have it out by. If there are any glaring mistakes I blame myself completely and will fix them in the morning when I am actually COHERENT. And I'm rambling and not making sense. Fwee. And last chapter I had more reviews than any before it! Hehe.

review responses deleted

o.o.o.o

Voldemort knew about the scheming of the Minister -- he should, considering he'd had one of his servants put the idea in the man's head in the first place -- he knew, and was deeply amused.

So he decided that maybe he'd make things just a bit worse for Potter. He sent young Harry a vision. Or, he tried to. He got no further than the standard, taunting greeting.

"Glad to see me, Potter?" he sneered. He could sense the pain Potter was already feeling -- through the ache in his own hands.

Harry did not seem pleased by the intrusion. Voldemort felt a wave of anger, and the aching of his right arm blossomed into agony. "Oh, not now," snapped Harry, as Voldemort's hands started bleeding.

The wand Voldemort had been holding on one of his less loyal servants, poised for the Cruciatus (to torment Potter further), suddenly went off. But the phantom Crucio that should have gone to the boy, did not. It went to Voldemort himself.

The scream Harry loosed hadn't been his own; it had been the Dark Lord's, released for the host by the mind inside it.

Harry hadn't simply managed to repel this attack on his mind, but had turned it around.

Anything he did with intent to hurt Harry, or anyone else, backfired tremendously. He spent a dozen and a half minutes trying to regain something that he hadn't yet realized he'd never had to begin with: control of the situation.

Then Harry spoke inside Voldemort's mind, "Sod off, Tom. I haven't got time for you at the moment." And Harry was gone.

The Dark Lord looked around, only to see that he was surrounded by a large group of his followers. All of them were staring at him uncertainly.

"What?" he demanded, unintentionally spitting blood on the nearest of the Death Eaters.

"Are you all right, my lord?" the individual asked, extremely cautious.

"Why would I not be?" Glowering, Voldemort wiped his mouth on the edge of his sleeve, before realizing that it was covered in blood, as well. And his wand hand was completely wrecked. (He'd have to get Severus to make him a potion for that, damn it.)

The Death Eater swallowed audibly, and it was one of his fellows that answered, "You were screaming, my lord."

"It was the boy's scream!" lied Voldemort, pounding his fist into the armrest of his chair. A lance of pain up to his shoulder let him know the action had been a mistake. He covered his grimace with a scowl. "The boy's, not my own!"

"... Of course, my lord," the crowd of Death Eaters murmured in unison.

It didn't sound like any of them believed him. They were worried, he could tell; they were scared, because they had reason to doubt their master's power, for the first time.

Voldemort, understandably, was pissed off.

o.o.o.o

Harry hadn't intended to let himself be taken to Azkaban, and he still didn't want to. But he had seen something in Voldemort's mind -- something he hoped Voldemort didn't realize he'd seen.

As the first act in his new campaign of terror, Voldemort was planning to attack Azkaban. He intended to claim the dementors as his servants once and for all, set free those of the inmates he had use for, and kill all anyone else there... especially anyone who got in the way. He didn't seem to be aware that Harry was being sent to person there.

And that, Harry felt, was an incredible advantage.

Which was why he was suddenly cooperating with the Ministry, being easy and agreeable as you please, just going along and doing what he was told. He had a feeling that his complacency was getting on the nerves of the Aurors around him. Or quite a few of them, anyway; the ones it wasn't scaring. But he had something of a plan now, or at least the suggestion of one, and he felt he had to go through with it.

The weight of his wand in his pocket, causing a slight drag on that leg of his trousers, was reassuring. It gave him a sort of confidence that the comfort of familiar faces like Tonks and Shacklebolt, hadn't been able to provide. That was how he knew he could carry off his plan, if only he could figure out the rest of it, since he only had the beginning so far.

"We're going to turn right a few doors along," one of the Aurors informed him snappishly. Harry had been far from ideal as prisoners went; he acted too much like everything was his idea, which was highly unsettling.

Harry shrugged, smiled a little from one corner of his mouth, looked a little more confident than anyone else would have liked. "Thanks."

An Auror behind Harry sneered unpleasantly at the back of his head, clearly unhappy with the manners of the young man she was helping escort. There was no way Harry could have known.

But a second later Harry turned right around as he walked, going backwards. He caught the eyes of all the Aurors trailing him, and though his eyes never seemed to move at all, they all could have swore at the same time that he was looking straight at them.

"This is very kind of all of you," he said, the sweetness of his smile and the outright pleasantness of his tone a mockery of the finest, most subtle kind. The Aurors didn't catch it.

"... the hell? This guy is crazy," exclaimed one Auror, young and -- it seemed -- male. His black hair was spiked messily and his sea-green eyes glared at the world. Harry felt almost as if he was looking at a skewed image of himself, and wondered absently if the Auror realized how ironic his appearance was. Probably not.

"Yeah," agreed another, nodding with disgust. "The Minister was right about him, after all." He looked familiar, and seemed vaguely disappointed. "Come on, we're wasting time."

o.o.o.o

The moment he reached the isle on which Azkaban Prison sat, Harry realised he'd made a terrible mistake.

In all the calculations he'd made for the plan that was now almost fully formed inside his head, Harry had completely left out the dementors. But when he got there, he had to face the terrifying reality that they affected him worse than they ever had before. He wasn't even inside, there wasn't even a dementor in sight, and all ready he could sense them, feel the cold, hear the voice... voices.

Two memories warred with his mind -- one he couldn't remember, one he wished he could forget.

Lily Potter's screaming, pleading voice was repeatedly drowned out by the almost-silence that had accompanied the death of Sirius Black. The very fact that he couldn't decide which was worse meant they both kept coming back. This was a kind of torment Harry had never been able to bear well.

Harry fell to his knees, a soundless wail ripped from his throat, stealing breath he could not spare. Rocks shattered around them and the Aurors backed away in fright.

With a barely-thought plea for forgiveness from something he wasn't sure of, Harry allowed himself to succumb to the darkness waiting for him. He'd rather suffer anything than being forced to witness their deaths again and again.

o.o.o.o

You couldn't Apparate, or perform most kinds of magic on the Isle. When the Aurors succeded in dragging Harry all the way to the prison gates, where the dementors happily took over, most of them immediately Portkeyed back to the Ministry. Two hung back, standing near the gates. They were the friends who had confronted Harry back before they'd reached Departure.

The shorter, black-haired one looked around and, seeing no one watching, slowly morphed into the recognizable figure of Nymphadora Tonks. She shook her head as if to clear it, wrapping her arms around herself.

"Well," Tonks murmured. She sighed and reached into her pocket, pulling out a small, ordinary looking pebble. This she dropped, right up against the wall of the prison, with what might have been a whispered prayer -- or promise.

The man next to her sent her a curious look, while discarding his 'Auror' robes. He neatly folded and balanced them on the crook of his arm. Very softly, he inquired, "So, that's what we're doing this for, then? That piddling little rock?"

Tonks snorted. "That piddling little rock could mean things you never imagined, if what Dumbledore says is true," she snapped, regarding him with annoyance. "And I think it's worth saying that you didn't have to come with me. It wasn't my idea."

"Kingsley Shacklebolt -- who is, believe it or not, a good friend of mine -- told me to keep an eye on you," the man explained, taking a step away from the imposing fortress that was Azkaban Prison. He appeared to be repressing a shudder.

"Thanks, I'll know who to yell at when I get back," Tonks quipped dryly. She yanked the Auror robes from the man's grasp, swiftly grabbed her Portkey and was whisked back the the Ministry.

The man stood looking at the spot she'd been, thoughtful. Then with a short laugh, he reached for his own specialized Portkey. Within a few seconds, he was back in his office as if he hadn't just been off attempting to subvert the will of the idiotic peacock who was playing at being Minister.