The Snake's Den

Chapter 2

Harry lay on the floor, writhing in pain. His entrails felt as though they were going to implode, twisting and knotting in flips he didn't think imaginable. He was clawing at his stomach repeatedly in an effort to alleviate the pain, turning over repeatedly in an attempt to get away from his torturer.

When the curse was finally lifted, he sobbed in relief. Clutching at the cold stone floor, he realized he was on his back, and was facing up. His breath short, he tried to turn over - only to whimper in pain when his body denied him movement through a seizing of muscles.

"There, there," he heard Voldemort say, his voice a mocking coo, "no need to be upset. It'll go away eventually…if I allow it. Sectumsempra!"

Harry screamed as deep gashes ripped open across the canvas that was his chest, the edges of each cut having the jagged ridges that are present whenever something is torn.

Hearing the bout of insane laughter his cry of pain had elicited from Voldemort's mouth, he defiantly bit down on his lower lip prevent anything else from escaping. His chest throbbed, and he could feel blood running down the sides of his ribcage.

"Petrificus Totalus!" Harry heard.

Voldemort appeared in his blurry vision, gazing down at him with pure pleasure dancing in his slivered eyes. Leaning over, Voldemort raised one long-nailed finger in front of Harry's face and whispered, "I've waited so long to hear your delectable sounds of pain. Have no doubts that I will string this out as long as possible, my dear little torture toy." He then slowly took that one finger and dragged it over the edge of one cut, before bending it into a hook form. With a feral gleam of anticipation in his red eyes, Voldemort dug savagely into the cut with his homemade hook.

All thoughts of defiance flew from Harry's thoughts as a haze of searing pain flooded his mind and his chest at the vicious tearing of tissue. Unable to truly scream through his frozen, shut mouth somehow made it hurt all the more, and black spots began invading his vision.

Voldemort cackled before peering into Harry's eyes and smirking at the incredible pain he could see communicated there.

"Finite Incantatem. Take him to his cell," Voldemort's voice said. "Let's give him…a bit of time to think, shall we?"

He heard footsteps, and then a hissed spell in Snape's voice.

The footsteps walked to the doorway, and Harry wondered vaguely just how Snape was planning on bringing him back to his cell.

Suddenly, his feet felt as though they were being pulled and he was sliding along the floor.

He groaned in pain as he was dragged out of the throne room, with Voldemort's amused chortle ringing in his ears.

Harry's imprisonment went on as such for three and a half weeks – to Harry, however, it all seemed to run together.

Harry lost count of days and nights in his continuous cycle of pain. His watch batteries died, and he was left without knowledge of time.

He was stunned often, probably to give Snape a chance to eat and rest. Every time he came around, however, Snape was standing guard once again.

It was much like it was now. He had been stunned a while before, and was now leaning against the cell bars in pained silence, his muscles aching. Dried blood was caked onto his hair and clothes, and the now black looking liquid was dried right under his nose. It was also right below his ears, the blood having oozed out during his latest session. He'd been given the bare minimum of food, if one could even call it that. It looked more like mud than anything to Harry.

"Finite Incantatem."

With those words, Harry awoke with a small jolt as his consciousness flooded back into his body.

The door to his cell opened and an emerald eye meekly opened.

Sweeping black robes, greasy hair, quick steps…Snape. Of course, he hardly expected anyone else since Snape seemed to be his main, and only, caretaker.

Harry heard the swish of a wand and he flinched, though no pain came to him. If anything, his cold body – which had been losing temperature in his freezing place of confinement – began to warm.

The teen opened his other eye to see Snape staring down at him, his wand hand moving down. In his other hand, he held a small tray.

"...wha...what're...you doin'?" the younger man asked as Snape knelt beside him. His voice was raw and pained, his parched throat making him sound groggy and weak.

Through his pain he smelled fresh, warm bread, and milk.

"Eat," Snape said, his tone emotionless and stiff. His eyes, however, seemed slightly softer. More gentle than Harry had ever seen, anyway.

Harry stared at him. Why was Snape doing this? Reaching a stiffened, sore hand up, he took the bread that Snape was offering him. He began to eat it without question after that. Taking a bite, he disregarded Snape's queer behavior in favor of focusing on the most delicious food he'd had in weeks.

When Harry finished, he closed his eyes. The feeling of real food in his stomach gave him a rush of strength that Harry hoped to hold in reserve.

A glass was placed in Harry's hand and the boy looked up to see Snape looking at him.

"Drink."

Harry stared at the cold glass in his hands, and quickly complied with the command without complaint. He gulped the milk down, his thirst quenched by the liquid.

When he was done the glass was taken out of his unsteady hand once more.

"…what're you…doin' this…for?" Harry inquired.

Snape didn't respond.

Harry watched as Snape dipped a cloth into a small bowl of water. He reached over and began to dab at the blood on Harry's face, and below his ears.

The cool cloth felt heavenly, but after almost a month of this hell, anything would feel the same way.

Snape began to wipe blood out of his hair, and then moved down to wipe it from around the many infected looking gashes along his chest and torso.

The Potions Master took it away and placed the cloth back into the bowl before dabbing it all around Harry's face. He stopped as he heard the boy gasp, continuing as he soon realized that it was just the shock of the change in temperature – not of pain.

When he was finished, he put everything back on the tray and stood.

"Thank you," Harry whispered. His voice was still raw, despite the fact that he'd finally had something to drink.

Snape didn't reply and crossed over to the door of the cell. Stopping there, he looked down his crooked nose at Harry.

Though Snape's face was completely bland, except for a sneer that seemed to be hovering around the edges, Harry noticed something was off about Snape's eyes. An indefinable emotion seemed to be flickering through the contempt he was infusing his eyes with. Either Snape himself refused to define it, or Harry did. Whichever way, it was out of denial.

Harry was soon distracted from the puzzle, however, by the words that emerged from Snape's mouth.

"Happy birthday, Potter," Snape stated abruptly. Letting the sneer take over, probably in an effort to save face, Snape executed an about face and strode through the cell entrance. Harry stared after him, completely flabbergasted.

Severus stood watch outside Potter's cell, giving a mental sigh. It had now been a month and a week since the teenager had been brought into their midst.

He had been present at each one of Potter's torture session, each of which seemed to get more and more painful as they went.

After the first night of Crucio's, it had just seemed to escalate in level's of pain for Potter.

It started with the pulling of his toenails. Potter hadn't cried out, hadn't made a single move during the whole ordeal. The only indication of his pain was that his clenched fists were shaking, and that sweat was dribbling down his paled out cheeks. Blood was oozing out of the now ripped toes, and was dripping all over his feet, but Potter hadn't made a single move to stop it. It must have been it would have been a sign of weakness.

Then came the pokers from hell, as he had heard Potter grumble after the session, once his stunning spell had been released afterwards. Lucius would heat long spears of metal in the fire, and while Harry was bound and held tightly by Severus himself, Lucius would stab and poke at the boy through his shirt.

Voldemort stood during this particular torture and came over, a brutal expression on his face. He took the spear from Lucius, heated it in the fire, and then turned to Potter.

Voldemort had lifted Potter's shirt and drew the Dark Mark in a larger example on his stomach, all the while the boy screaming in agony.

Two days ago, they had begun to give him a new type of torture – skinning. The Death Eaters would come up, one by one, and dig their nails into his skin. He would scream and writhe under their touch, but it did no good to his situation. They took hold of the skin they had wedged between their own nails, and during a moment of their delight, they were allowed to pull the skin away in patches and, if one was lucky, a strip.

Severus couldn't help but feel a small twinge in his personality as he watched this brutal treatment. He didn't know what it was, but the more torture they put the boy through, the stronger this twinge had become. That was why he would come in with bread and milk for the boy, and sometimes clean the more serious of his wounds for him. He didn't know what this feeling was, but it was beginning to eat at him the longer Potter sat in his dank cell.

Just this morning, Bellatrix had gotten ahold of a whip. As soon as Severus had pulled the boy in, he watched as Bellatrix brought him back to consciousness. With no hesitation, she began to whip him, peeling strips of skin off with it. Her voice cackled in joy as she listened to his cries and yelps of excruciation. She knew that from where he was, he was harmless, and would not be able to get away.

Severus glanced up then – torn from his thoughts of the recent torture they boy had experienced – as he heard a keening sound, and turned to see that Potter had jerked awake, and was now painfully inspecting his latest gashes, which he had received during a brutal whipping by Bellatrix.

Severus had stood by and watched, unable to do anything. He had wished silently and to himself that Bellatrix would just stop, after hearing the numerous begs and pleads for her to stop, the unfaltering whimpers and sobs that had escaped the young teen's mouth.

"Have you…considered…my question yet?" the younger man asked, and Severus moved over to the steel bars of the cell, staring down at the corner that he was huddled in.

"And what ludicrous inquiry would that be, Potter?" the Potion's Master asked with a sneer.

"Why…you're here…"

Severus stared down at the boy, his stony sneer still in place. He would not slip again; not now that he knew the boy's tricks.

"I do not have time to contemplate such ridiculous, petty things," Severus told him.

Potter looked up at him, his emerald eyes much darker than they had been since he'd arrived. The color was muted and dead, and the only look of life in them was that the orbs kept flicking here and there at noises in the dungeons.

"You have…plenty…of time," Potter shot back at him. Severus gazed at Potter, giving a mental sigh. He was always out of breath as of late from his increasing lack of energy. The massive amount of blood he'd lost wasn't helping with his situation any. "You've got…nothing better…to do…sitting here with…me all day…"

Severus hesitated to think, sending a look of disdain Potter's way.

"You have to move fast, Potter," Severus said a moment later, and the younger man looked up at him with confused eyes. "You have to think quickly. Keep your wits about you in this dungeon of hell, and you might just survive."

"What're you talking…about, Snape?" Potter asked, though before Severus could answer or continue, there were footsteps down the hall.

Potter quieted, and Severus looked up to see the younger Malfoy coming down the hall towards him.

"The Dark Lord requires your presence," Malfoy said coolly.

"I am to guard his cell," Severus said, raising an eyebrow at the Slytherin.

"I am to guard it while you are gone," Malfoy said, his voice scarily calm. "Now go."

Severus watched as Malfoy looked down Potter in the cell, a stony, composed expression on his face.

"Go, you bloody berk, or he will punish you."

Severus glared at Malfoy, enraged at the tone he was using to address him.

"You should know your place, Malfoy. I was the one, of course, to kill the muggle-loving fool when you couldn't even lift your wand."

With that, he turned on his heel with a scowl, and began to stalk his way up to the throne room, seething unseen.

Harry watched as Snape walked down the hallway, his cloak billowing behind him. He disappeared through a doorway and the sounds of his footsteps soon vanished from Harry's ears.

At first, he only stared blankly ahead, at a wall he had gotten to look at all too often. The walls, floor, and ceiling of his cell were made of cobbled stone, but moss was growing through holes in the concrete holding it together. The moss also grew in the darkest corners, farthest from the straight wall of rusty cell bars. Water dripped continuously, day and night, as though the ceiling was a faucet that was never turned all the way off.

The floor was always damp, and the area around him smelled musty and dark. Outside in the hallway, the cobblestones were cleaned and didn't have moss on them in the least. There were lamps hanging all the way along the passageway, which gave Harry's caretakers plenty of light while he had none.

Harry finally looked up at Malfoy, who was staring at him.

"Potter."

"Malfoy."

Harry stared back.

Malfoy's slate grey eyes were gazing at Harry, taking in the teen's now thin, weak build, the wounds from his obvious torture spread across his torso and limbs.

His shirt – what was left of it, anyway – wasn't grey any longer, but a sickly cake of brown dried blood. His jeans had been torn and ripped, and were now a pair of high cut shorts, stopping about mid thigh with strips and frayed edges hanging off the ends.

His hair was matted and tangled, as usual, but he now had blood lingering ominously in the black strands. It dripped onto his face and skin every time his hair became even the slightest bit sweaty, which dissolved the flakes of dried blood.

Harry's glasses were basically useless; they were so dirty, scratched and covered in blood. If he'd had his wand on him, a simple spell would help him repair his glasses, but alas…he didn't have his wand.

Harry's emerald gaze followed Malfoy as he walked over to the cell doors and opened them, coming inside. Malfoy must not perceive him as a threat at the moment…hell, no one would.

"What…do you want?" Harry asked. Malfoy smirked at him as he knelt in front of Harry. Soon, however, the smirk faded and a serious look spread across the young Malfoy's face. A look that had never graced Malfoy's features when the two of them had been in school. All Harry had ever seen was his patented smirk, looks of rage, and once he had seen the look of insecurity on the only son of Lucius' face, when Harry had found Malfoy crying in the bathroom with Myrtle.

"I hate you," Malfoy started.

"That much…is certain," Harry said, but that only earned him a hard backhand to the side of his face. A small cut he had received during a skinning session stung with a sharp pain, his starched cheek throbbing and beginning to turn a pale pink instead of red. His head had been thrown to the side, and for a moment, Harry's head was swimming in darkness.

Malfoy's sharp voice was close to the sound of a crack of a whip – the sound of which Harry had had the absolute pleasure of hearing first hand – and it snapped him out of his pained daze.

"Do you want to hear what I have to say, or not, Potter? Because I can just as easily Crucio you myself now," Malfoy hissed, whipping his wand out of a wrist harness that had been previously hidden. With no hesitation, he pointed the tip of his wand at Harry's chest.

Harry could feel the tip of the wand pressed over the jagged edge of one of his newly opened wounds. The strappado they had held him in earlier had left him sore and jerky, his wrists raw from the stiff rope that had been tightened, and tightened again, by none other than Lucius Malfoy.

Lucius had used heated strips of steel, and pressed them on the back of Harry's knees, on the backside of his neck, on his scar. Then, he heated them again and slapped them into a round bracelet on his arms, his chest, and his ankles.

He'd screamed, and to his revulsion, had actually been begging for his torturer to stop. Voldemort had finally given the order, and Harry was released from the strappado, only to fall to the ground without movement, sobs of both pain and relief wracking his weakened body.

Harry couldn't get his body to cooperate the way he wished it to now, and he hadn't even had the strength to move from the corner of the cell he had been unceremoniously tossed in to.

And now, here he was, stuck in the same room with Lucius' son, unable to move away.

Harry's eyes went slowly from Malfoy's wand, to his face, and back, before he finally nodded.

"I'm listening…"

"I hate you," Malfoy repeated, "but I hate the Dark Lord more."

Harry gazed at him, his eyes confused yet speculating. What was Malfoy up to this time?

"I don't know when, exactly, but I can help you escape."

Harry's gaze widened as he sat there, taking all of this in. If they could have, his eyes would be bugging out of his skull right then.

"What…?" Harry breathed.

"I hate Voldemort more than you, and consequently, I can help you get out."

"This isn't…for my benefit…"

"No," Malfoy answered flatly. "I'm going to use you to get under his skin, and you escaping is just the thing to do it. However, I will only help you escape on one condition."

Feeling as though his already aching head was going to explode from this information, Harry nodded to silently tell him to continue.

"I get you out – in exchange, you take my mother with you and provide her with sanctuary."

Harry stared. So that was it. It wasn't that Malfoy had finally gone soft – that was about the equivalent of a snowball's chance in hell – or that he didn't hate him…he just wanted a way to ensure his mother's safety. So he did have the capacity for love, Harry finally decided.

"Think about it," Malfoy said, standing. "But if you refuse, I will make sure that the remainder of your life here is more of a living hell than it already is."

With that, Malfoy stood and strode out of the cell in silence.

He locked the door behind him, leaving a perplexed Harry in his wake.

Draco sighed as he stood erect outside of Potter's cell. He was watching Potter with his slate gray eyes, not knowing what exactly he was going to do. His hands were shaking from the threat he'd given to Potter…

He didn't even have it in him to bring the words to his lips again. He tried. He couldn't even form the word 'Crucio' now…

His lips said the word, but his voice wouldn't make the sound.

Draco's eyes scanned the surrounding. He didn't know how Snape had survived in such a horrid place. Every time he turned around, he half expected to hear the sounds of rattling breathing, and see the dark hooded form of a dementor. It was so dark and depressing down in the dungeons of Voldemort's manor that the place should be writhing with the dismal presence of the creatures.

His eyes trailed down to Potter then as he shifted, watching as the weak young man bit his lip to hold in a sound of unmistakable pain.

Before Potter began speaking, he let out a wheezy cough, showing that he was actually worse off than he looked.

"You couldn't…torture me, Malfoy," Potter muttered.

"You don't know me," Draco spat back immediately, almost instinctively, without thinking about it.

"If you could…you woulda…done it already…"

Draco glared. It was as though Potter could read his mind, his feelings. It was absurd that this man, who was supposed to be a prisoner, was making Draco feel like he was the one supposed to be behind bars.

"You don't want…to be here…any more than…I do…"

"What's your answer?" Draco inquired, deciding to ignore what Potter had just said to him. "What do you say about getting my mother out of here?"

"I'll do it…but…I'm bringing you…with me, too…"

Draco stared down at Potter. He could tell that Potter was too weak to string together a whole sentence without stopping to take breaths. But then it struck him, the full force of Potter's words, and his mouth gaped out.

"Wh-what?" he breathed, his slate gray orbs staring down at the immobile figure of Potter.

"If I go…with your mother…then I'm taking…you with me…it's as simple…as that, Malfoy…"

Draco swallowed. For the first time since this stupid, ridiculous plan of getting Potter out to save his mother had entered his mind, his mind began to reel with panic. It was as though a projection reel was spinning through his mind, showing him all possible ways it could go wrong, all ways it could be right, how it could work out, everything –

Draco forced his mind to slow in its panicked thoughts, closing his eyes for a moment.

"Malfoy?"

Draco didn't respond to Potter's inquiry. Not yet. He needed to pull himself together in his frantic line of thought so that nothing would slip. Potter was right, he didn't want to be here…

"Draco?"

It was only then that Draco looked down at Potter once more. Potter was looking up at him with his now glittering emerald eyes. They had more life in them now than they had before…because Potter had something to live for now, he reckoned.

"You couldn't…hurt a fly, Draco…"

Draco, surprisingly, didn't mind the fact that Potter was calling him by first name. Maybe the fact that they both agreed to save each others lives just then did the trick, but he wasn't completely sure.

"Your father made you…join Voldemort…didn't he?"

Potter was still looking at him with those sharp emerald eyes, which now closely resembled ice picks. It was hard to believe that just a few minutes ago they couldn't even be compared to a dull, lifeless rock.

"Yes," Draco answered.

"When were you branded?"

"At the end of our fifth year. I was forced into it. That was when I was ordered to kill Dumbledore," Draco replied. "I spent the year in the Room of Requirement making a way for Death Eaters to enter Hogwarts…Dumbledore had me pinned, that night…he read my mind, and you have as well. I'm not a killer. I didn't kill him."

"I know…I watched…I was under my…invisibility cloak…"

"Snape killed him, I didn't –"

"Draco, I know…I'm not…pinning this on you…I don't want to…"

Draco stopped, his gaze calming as he looked down to Potter. He had worked himself up, and realized just how much he didn't want to be doing this.

"Do you really…want out of here?"

Draco nodded. "More than anything now," he said. He spoke quietly, as though he were afraid the imaginary dementors around him would sense his fear and come forward to devour his frightened soul.

"All right," Potter said with a meek nod, "then we can…get you out…of here."

Once again, Draco's head bobbed quietly in a nod. He could work with this.

"Ron is going to kill me," Potter managed in a whole sentence with a smile, and he gave off a weak chuckle. For some reason, Draco found himself smiling.

This could be a good thing…he hoped.

Well, there you go! I hope you liked it.

Please leave a review and tell me what you think! Thank you!