Note: Snow very nearly prevented a double bill. I hate snow: it's cold, it's wet, it grounds planes and it kills my creativity. Thankfully, I was pulled out of my mood thanks to the joint efforts of my best mate and a couple of men wearing fishnet tights… It's a really, really long story.

Chapter Thirteen

Breakthrough

Harry was fairly certain that he was dreaming. What gave him this impression was that he was certain that he had never seen this place before in his life. He was walking down a long drive towards an extremely imposing looking building, an ancestral manor by the looks of it: old and teeming with magic. If it had been a muggle building it would have been falling into disrepair with age. Everything about the house screamed of power, money, influence, but also something else. It took several seconds for Harry to realise what it was – fear. It was as if the very bricks of the house itself were afraid of something. In his dream, Harry felt a rush of power and success with this realisation, and he knew in that moment that the thing that the house was afraid of was him. He was once more seeing the world through Voldemort's eyes. After a year of blessedly quiet nights, free from this terrible influence, Harry wondered why the connection between their two minds had once more opened. He was immediately put on edge, wary – the last time this had occurred, Sirius… Harry didn't finish that thought, it was too painful. He knew that he could not let himself be taken in again. There must be a reason why he was suddenly in Voldemort's head once more, and he could not rule out the possibility that what he was seeing was not what was truly occurring.

He had reached the gates by this point, and he passed straight through them as if they were water. No spells required, no secret passwords or incantations. Was it any wonder that the house held so much fear of Voldemort if he could simply enter as he pleased like this?

There was a white shape on the path in front of him. At first Harry thought it might be a ghost, so pale and pearlescent as it was; it was only when he moved closer that he realised it was a patronus in the shape of a… was it a peacock? He raised his wand but it had already bolted towards the door of the house, a door that had opened of its own accord. Voldemort was angered by this. For whatever reason, he saw it as an act of insubordination. Harry looked around; his surroundings were still completely unknown to him, but there was something about the aura that the house carried that seemed familiar, that feeling of hastily and inadequately masked fear. He reached the door and entered the house with no preamble, no need to announce his presence. Why should he? He was the most powerful wizard known to mankind.

Once inside, his pace slowed, and this allowed Harry to take a proper stock of his surroundings. He could not make out much in the dark, but the impressive grandeur of the house's exterior was repeated on the inside. Something caught his eye in the gloom, a flash of silver, and he turned to see Wormtail hovering in a doorway off to one side. As snivelling as he had been the last time they had seen each other face to face, Harry felt a surge of anger, and the wizard whose mind he shared felt a spasm of disgust. How had such a pathetic specimen ended up in his service? He was not his primary concern. His intended goal lay beyond the door, where he could make out the faint glow of the patronus.

"Wormtail."

The undisguised bored contempt in the single word was enough to make the man move aside, and Harry moved through into the room beyond; evidently a drawing room from the furniture and décor. Two people were standing by the window, talking inaudibly, and the patronus stood sentinel like between them. Presently, they turned and the patronus faded suddenly from view, tendrils dispersing into the air as the courage and weak memory of happiness that had been sustaining it faltered. Had Harry been in control of his limbs, he would have taken a step backwards in surprise.

"Lucius… Your patronus makes for an interesting guard dog. Does it really give you comfort to be forewarned of my arrival?"

Lucius Malfoy, looking about a decade older than when Harry had last seen him, made no response, his eyes fixed on the brandy glass in his hand and purposefully not meeting those of his master. His wife, on the other hand, was watching him like a hawk, her stare wide and fearful like a fawn caught in the headlights. This, thought Harry, was where the house's fear stemmed from. The Malfoys were playing host to Voldemort's base of operations, and they were petrified.

He swept past the couple; they were not his primary concern either, but he looked back over his shoulder before he passed through the second door in the room, just in time to see Narcissa slip her arm through her husband's and lean into his shoulder in a gesture of reassurance. Cold disapproval flashed through his mind and he turned back towards his objective.

Harry lost all sense of orientation as he continued on his journey, through the door and along a near pitch black corridor. At some point he seemed to be going down steps, but he could not be sure. Presently he came to another door and swept through it. He was in the cellar of the house. Harry let his eyes get used to the light, or lack thereof, and then he saw it, a bundle slumped against one of the walls. Except, it was not a bundle. As Harry drew closer, he saw that the bundle had thin and greying red hair that was matted with congealed blood. It was Mr Weasley. After over two weeks without a word of his whereabouts, Harry had found Mr Weasley in the Malfoys' cellar. The older man gave a small groan as a hex from Voldemort's wand shocked him into consciousness.

"I must say I admire your persistence, Arthur, but my patience is wearing very thin indeed. Have you decided that you are ready to talk, yet?"

"Never!"

As weak and pained as his voice was, Harry was certain that he had never heard Mr Weasley sound so fierce.

"Unfortunately Arthur, that was not the correct response."

Harry wished that he could close his eyes and ears against the sight and sound of Mr Weasley's torture. He felt nauseous, on more than one count. In the first and foremost instance, the patriarch was suffering this because of him, because of Harry. He was taking this relentless brutality in order to protect Harry from further harm, and Harry couldn't stand it. Why did so many people have to die, have to suffer because of him? But he could not dwell on the thought for long, because the thoughts of the wizard who was truly wielding the wand kept intruding upon his own, and they were even more sickening. He felt the thrill of power that coursed through Voldemort's veins as he cursed the defiant wizard in front of him.

"Where is Harry Potter? Where is he?"

"I will never betray him."

Cold laughter echoed in his ears as the scene in front of his eyes began to black out; he could feel himself waking but the terrible laughter, laughter that was so awfully familiar, continued, rising to a crescendo until finally…

"Harry!"

"Harry, wake up!"

Harry's eyes shot open and he found himself staring up at the fuzzy forms of Ron and Hermione. He blinked a couple of times to reassure himself that he was awake and in the Burrow, and finally his surroundings became sharper as Hermione passed him his glasses. He became acutely aware of the fact that he was lying on something hard that was definitely not the bed he had gone to sleep in.

"Where am I?" he asked.

"The floor," said Hermione. Her face was pale and her eyes wide and worried, her gaze never leaving his. It was almost as if she was worried what he might do if she stopped watching him. Harry's heart leapt up to his mouth and began to beat a frantic rhythm there. What had he done whilst he had been unconscious? Had he truly taken on Voldemort's persona and started torturing the nearest bystander, cackling with that awful, cruel laughter as he asked repeatedly for his own whereabouts. The image was chilling as he thought about it, and a trickle of cold sweat ran down the back of his neck at that moment with impeccable timing.

"You went kind of rigid," said Ron, his face ultimately relieved but obviously still showing puzzlement at what had occurred. "Like a plank. I knew something was wrong so I tried to wake you up, but then you started shaking and fell out of bed. I've never seen anything like it, it was as if you were having a fit or something. I fetched Hermione, I thought she might know what to do, and then…"

Ron broke off, lost in the memory of the events that had occurred in the past few minutes.

"You started laughing," said Hermione quietly.

Harry didn't speak for a minute. The laughter he had heard had been his own. There was to be no denying it, no trying to ignore the vivid picture that he had received in his dreams. Whether he was only seeing what Voldemort wanted him to see, or whether the impromptu visit to the Malfoys' had been unintentional was of little importance. The fact remained that after almost a year of blissful silence in his sleep, the mental connection that Harry shared with the dark wizard was once more very much active, perhaps more so than before.

"It was Voldemort," he said. Hermione nodded slowly.

"We'd guessed as much," said Ron drily, but the faint humour was gone as soon as it had arrived. "What did you see?"

Harry shook his head, his senses still fuzzy from sleep despite the fact that within the dream, he had seemed so awake and so alert.

"I need to talk to the Order… We can't take the risk… Not like with Sirius."

"Everyone's downstairs," said Hermione. "Ron managed to make enough noise to wake the entire house when he came and woke me up; I just heard Lupin and Tonks arrive, and Kingsley and Moody were on watch tonight. But seriously Harry, what did you see?"

Harry didn't reply, but he could not help an unconscious glance sideways at Ron. Hermione picked up on the gesture immediately and nodded. She knew that he had found Mr Weasley.

"Come on," said Ron. "We'd better go down now that you're awake. Are you ok? You did hit your head quite hard."

It was only at that point that Harry felt the pain, throbbing in the back of his skull. He grimaced as he sat up and his head complained bitterly.

"I'll be fine," he said through gritted teeth, and together the trio made their way down the stairs towards the kitchen, where the Order members who had been alerted were gathered around the table whilst Mrs Weasley made cocoa with shaking hands. Tonks got up to help but Lupin pulled her down again, perhaps sensing that the clumsy young Auror's assistance would only make matters worse. Moody stared at Harry, his magical blue eye unmoving, and not for the first time since being introduced to the man, Harry wondered if he could see the very thoughts inside his head.

"Harry," said Lupin by way of greeting, inclining his head towards the free places at the other end of the table.

"Are you alright dear?" asked Mrs Weasley, pushing a cup of cocoa into his hands as he sat down. Harry ignored the scalding sensation as some slopped over the edge of the mug and onto his thumb. He nodded, despite the fact that his stomach was churning itself into knots. If what he had seen was the truth, then they had it, the breakthrough that they had needed for all these weeks, the final missing piece of the puzzle. If it was not what it seemed, then not only were they back to square one when it came to finding Mr Weasley, they would also be walking straight into a trap. Either way, the Order would be endangered whilst they tried to establish the veracity of the vision. Harry took a deep breath to clear his head.

"I think I know where Voldemort's keeping Mr Weasley," he said slowly. Behind him, he heard Mrs Weasley give a choked little gasp. "I'm wary because…"

"…Of what happened last time," Lupin finished smoothly, cutting in and ending that thread of conversation before it could move into more painful territory. "What did you see?"

As succinctly as he could, Harry relayed the tale of what had happened in the dream. When he reached the end of his explanation, the Burrow kitchen was silent for several minutes as the Order considered what he had said.

"I think what Harry saw was the truth," said Lupin hesitantly. "Unfortunately there is no real way to verify it without going to Malfoy Manor ourselves, which is no doubt what Voldemort would have wanted if he had sent a false image with specific intention."

"He could want Harry," said Moody gruffly. "Last time…"

"Last time, he wanted Harry to retrieve the prophecy," said Tonks. "What could there possibly be in the Malfoys' house that he would need Harry to get? That Harry could get? All the really old houses are protected by ancient wards, only the owner can bypass them."

"He could simply want Harry himself," said Kingsley simply. "Lure him away to a place he doesn't know…"

"I don't think he wants Harry at all, for any purpose," said Lupin. "I think, if what Harry saw is not in fact true, he would be counting on Harry telling us and us being the ones to investigate. Surely he'd know that Harry wouldn't fall for the same trick twice, not after last time."

They were all consciously avoiding mentioning Sirius, but it was not helping. Harry could still feel his own stupidity laughing at him. Why had he believed Kreacher? Why had he gone off on his own?

"You never know," said Moody grimly. "Arrogance has been the downfall of many a wizard."

"I can't think why he would use such a complicated ruse though," said Tonks. "If he wants the Order, then it's easy enough to leave a false trail to try and catch us off guard. Not, of course, that accomplished Aurors such as ourselves would fall for such a false trail," she added hastily on catching Kingsley and Moody's somewhat affronted expressions, "but I still don't see why he would go to the trouble of using Harry as a means of communication."

Harry was about to take umbrage at the fact that he was there in the room with them and he did not like being talked about as if he was not there when Hermione spoke up, having remained silent and lost in thought for the duration of the conference.

"Well, there's only one way to find out," she said, "and that's to take the bait. I've had an idea…"

Note2: But what is this idea? All will be revealed soon enough…

Note3: If you thought the POV during the dream sequence was a bit confused as to whether it was Harry or Voldemort narrating, don't worry, that was intentional. I've never been really sure how the 'body-sharing-dream-type-thing' works, so this was my take on it.