A/N: So I basically wrote the first bit, put off the rest for a ridiculously long period of time, then sat down, sucked it up, and finished it at three in the morning. We're nearing the end here people, another chapter or two and this story shall be complete! Fully disclaimed, I own nothing at all.

Harry

I reach a hand through the ever-present darkness, trying to find something, anything to hold on to. A strangled sob rises from my throat as all I feel is cold metal beneath my hand. I can hear the sniffling of several of my fellow prisoners, including one who had been subjected to the same fate as I.

I still couldn't get his screams out of my head, the sobbing, wailing, pleading, as Striker had cut his eyes out of his head. Despite not being able to see his pain myself, I could tell what was happening based on Striker's sadistic comments.

Although he's crying, as much as you can cry without tear ducts, I don't even try to comfort him. I know that it would only get the both of us punished. And, seeing as Striker allowed me to keep my sanity today, I don't want to push it.

Though I'm starting to wonder if that's really such a good thing.

Despite the fact I was confused, and lost, and completely and utterly terrified in between bouts of recollection before, at least I was ignorant. Ignorance truly is bliss in this place. It's better to not know what's coming.

And while before it was only dark and miserable, now I know why it's dark and miserable. Because Striker had strapped me down to a table, pulled my eyes open with a pair of clamps and, with a slice of her wrists, destroyed my windows to the world forever. I doubted even magic could cure what had been done to me. And it hurts knowing that I'll never see the sunlight ever again. That the last image in my head, superimposed there for as long as I live, is flashing silver and burning crimson, a deep, horrible shade that I will never, ever forget.

The color of my own blood, bursting like a firework in front of me, lingering in my vision until I passed out from the pain. And then I awoke. She had let me keep my sanity then too.

At first there had been denial. Rage, pain, there's no way this can be happening to me, agony, screams of pure, unadulterated agony that bounced off the metal walls of the cellblock, drawing whimpers from my fellow subjects.

And then the crying had begun. Gut-wrenching sobs that shook my very being and left me feeling more exhausted than I had been in a long, long time.

Drained, I had fallen asleep. Hoping against hope that when I woke, what was happening would all be some horrible nightmare. That's what I do now too, drifting off to the twisted lullaby sung by the one who now shares my darkness.

Hoping that when I wake, I will once again see the sun.

Hermione

"Lemon drop!" I yell at the gargoyle, my franticness dispelling all attempts at decorum. Thank Merlin that Dumbledore had given me the password after Harry's funeral "in case I ever needed anyone to talk to."

I don't even bother knocking, just barge through the door and sprint in with the Flock and Ron behind me, thundering into the circular office like a herd of elephants. Dumbledore looks up in surprise.

"I trust there is a reason for this late night intrusion?"

"Harry..." I gasp out, bending over as I try to catch my breath, putting my hands on my knees. "He's alive...Harry's alive..."

"What?" asks Dumbledore, his voice growing suddenly cold. Someone had made him think that Harry was dead, and there was going to be hell to pay when he found out who. This much is obvious.

"He's alive, Headmaster," says Max, pushing me aside impatiently. She doesn't have the slightest hint of a wheeze in her voice as she speaks, slowly and calmly, though I can see the panic growing in her eyes.

"Where is he? And how can you possible know?"

"Hermione figured out a rather complex blend of magic and technology to communicate with someone that we didn't even know was near Harry at the time. Genius." She rattles this off no problem, but has to fight to get the next sentence out.

"They took him back to The School. It was a trick." The fight seems to have drained out of her, and she collapses into a chair, putting her head in her hands. In this moment, she looks older than Dumbledore, and I want nothing more than to just hug this poor, lonely girl who has seen far too much death. "Another one. Another person I've failed."

"It wasn't your fault," murmurs Dumbledore, pulling her hands away from her face with one hand and lifting her chin with the other. "You can't be expected to know everything at fifteen."

"I should know enough to know when one of my fam...friends is really, properly dead. Look at me now." She laughs bitterly and yanks out of Dumbledore's grasp, standing. Some deep understanding seems to have passed between them, the great warrior turned teacher, and the fallen angel who doesn't know what to believe anymore.

The room is thick with tension as Max takes a deep breath to compose herself, brushing her tangled brown hair out of her eyes.

"We need help," Iggy says finally, when none of the rest of us can get the words out. "Angel's on the inside, tricking them–don't," he cuts himself off as Dumbledore opens his mouth to protest the last statement, "just don't. If she wasn't, then we wouldn't know the truth. And she's cleverer than you think. But we honestly need a good dozen witches and wizards on our side, we have to get him out of there as soon as we can."

A brief battle is played out behind Dumbledore's eyes, the wish to lecture us because we had put Angel in danger warring with the desire to contact the Order and immediately start making rescue plans. It's not long at all before the later wins out and Dumbledore's ushering us through the Floo Network and over to Number 12.

Mrs. Weasley is up and worried sick, looking for Gazzy. It appears that our subtly sneaking him away to Hogwarts for the night wasn't so sneaky after all. She probably had put wards on the fireplace.

"WHERE WERE YOU! I HAVE BEEN WORRIED SICK...Hello there Professor Dumbledore, do sit down and have a cup of tea...YOU ARE NOT LEAVING YOUR ROOM FOR A WEEK, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME, MISTER?"

"Molly, breathe," says Dumbledore, taking the proffered chair. "This is an important matter, and it would do us no good to be shouting at each other."

Mrs. Weasley gives Gazzy one last look that promises quite a lot of pain later, and sits down in the chair across from Dumbledore, flicking her wand to start the kettle boiling. Thumping can be heard on the stairs, no doubt one or more residents of Grimmauld woken by Mrs. Weasley's formidable set of lungs.

Sirius strolls sleepily into the room, blinking at it's occupants confusedly. "What's going on...? It's two in the morning." He frowns upon seeing the exhausted, bedraggled, and teary faces of the teenagers. Worry swims through his eyes and the tiredness drains out of them simultaneously.

"What's wrong?" He asks, much less tired, much more serious.

Dumbledore sighs, showing his true age in a simple exhale, and then speaks. "Harry is alive, Sirius."

"WHAT?" shouts Mrs. Weasley, jumping to her feet. The kettle falls off the stove, sending water splashing everywhere, but every single person in the room has eyes only for Sirius.

Confusion. Hope. Anger. Not daring to hope. Those four emotions flash over Sirius's face within a single second.

"You aren't lying to me, are you Dumbledore? Or making a mistake? Because let it be said, if you give me false hope of my godson, I will never forgive you."

"We aren't lying. Sirius, why would we lie? Would I really condone such a childish trick?" Sirius shakes his head slowly, a wide grin starting to grown on his face. I wince, knowing that the sheer joy of having Harry back is soon to be shattered by the revelation of where he is.

"Can I see him? Why isn't he here?" The childish light starts to fade from Sirius' eyes when none of us answer, when I have to bite my lip to keep from sobbing. This isn't fair. None of this is fair.

"I'm so sorry, Sirius," murmurs Dumbledore grimly. "He's been taken back to the School."

Sirius just sits there for a moment, the shock of what he's just been told preventing him from doing anything else. His mouth drops open and his eyes darken. He looks for all the world like a child who's just been told that Santa Claus doesn't exist. Only ten times more horrified, and a hundred times more heartbroken.

"No," he whispers. "No, he can't be...he just...can't." His voice cracks on the last word, and soon Mrs. Weasley is enveloping the broken man in one of her signature hugs. Despite all their arguments and shouting, they have one thing in common. They both love Harry like a son, and hearing this awful news hurts like hell.

Mrs. Weasley's tears are silent, streaming down her face in an unending flow, but having no effect on the rest of her figure, compared the body-wracking sobs emitting from Sirius. The sight of the two adults, who are just as scared and miserable as I am, makes it more difficult for me to hold back my own tears.

I don't know how long I stand there before Sirius pulls himself together, pulling himself out of Mrs. Weasley's hug and getting to his feet. He takes a deep, trembling breath, lets it out, then turns to Dumbledore expectantly.

"What's the plan, when are we getting Harry back, and how soon will it be before I can rip those twisted monsters limb-to-limb?"

Well, we all have our different ways of coping I think as Dumbledore starts firing out his ideas rapidly and calling up other Order members, because, though it's really late, or really early depending on your point of view, they would all give up their precious sleep to save Harry's life. Max chimes in her ideas, the Flock follows, and after some protestation from Mrs. Weasley (children, risking lives, etc. etc.) the adults shut up and let her talk.

Because, as she has reminded us all dozens of times over the past few months, she isn't a child anymore. And she certainly knows the School better than anyone else in the room.

I am not sure how much of him there is left to save, how much of him will still be the Harry that I know and love. And I'm terrified.

Max

"-best way of getting him out would be to run up through here–to that tall platform, see?–and take off. They've got a witch or wizard on their side, there will be wards, we can't do the disappearing thing you're all so fond of. Iggy, you know what running blind is like, you lead Harry, you're the least likely to run into any obstacles." It hurts to say this last sentence, when it wouldn't have applied to him before, when he could have run through the School hallways without a hand to guide him. But I can't waste time dancing around the topic, Harry is blind, and we just have to compensate for it.

Dumbledore and the others listen, and I feel a swell of pride, an adult actually is listening to my ideas for once, not just brushing them aside as unimportant or idiotic. I hand over the quickly sketched map of the School and sit back. "And that's it. Simple is best, really. We run in, you engage the whitecoats with magic, we nip upstairs to the containment rooms and get Harry out."

"You got all that, Angel?" asks Iggy, turning to the re-activated Magi-Tech that Hermione has so graciously consented to set up again.

"A crude plan," drawls Snape from the corner, his usual manner not improved by the early hour, "but for this situation, when we have no time, it will do."

"Everyone, gather round, we're apparating," declares Sirius. We have painstakingly described the area around The School so that they can actually get us there with all body parts intact. I even gave them the map coordinates.

No one demands more time to plan, all knowing that is is essential that we get Harry out of there as soon as we could. I had rattled off Angel's information, the insanity, the mutilation, the blindness, in the midst of explaining my plan. Sirius had quite calmly gone over to a cupboard, grabbed a mug, thrown said mug across the room, then came back, sat down, and kept going over the plan.

Mrs. Weasley had turned her head away, hiding the fresh tears. Lupin had dug his nails into the wooden table while Tonks gently placed her hand on his shoulder. And Snape had sat alone, fairly stoic until I mentioned the eyes, which was when a flash of pain had skittered across his own, gone before I could be sure I saw it.

I look up at the ones staying behind, Hermione, Ron, Gazzy, Nudge, and give them what I hope is an encouraging smile. Probably more like a pained grimace

And then we're gone, me clinging to Sirius's arm as I'm squeezed through a tube, heading back to the place of my nightmares.