WARNING! I'M SERIOUS ABOUT THIS ONE, GUYS, PLEASE READ IT! I know I've warned you before about certain chapters, but this is the point where it gets dark. Really, really dark, and it could trigger you in so many ways I won't even try to list them (no sexual abuse though. Although Voldemort is one weird guy). Again: This is probably the darkest thing I've ever written (and those of you reading the 'Lioness' know that really means something. Don't read it if you feel uncomfortable with violence, torture and deep mental, physical and emotional distress. If you still want to know what's going on in the coming chapters, send me a message and I'll try to produce an edited message that still gets the plot across. END OF WARNING!

The unavoidable

A fly was sitting idly on Potter-the-boy's forehead, cleaning its wings with the calm precision of the truly uninvolved.

Miraculously, it had chosen the last unmarred spot Potter's face had left, and the way it was just sitting there, surrounded by blood, and dirt, and bruising, made it look like the punchline to an especially cynical joke.

Potter did not shoo it away. With the wisdom of someone who'd become used to few resources, he took his rests where and when he could, and if the where was chained to a pole in Voldemort's throne room, so be it.

Snape's hand itched to crush the fly, but it was as insubstantial as everything around him. He was truly powerless.

"Do you remember, Harry, when we first met?" Voldemort now asked, his voice rich and in the cultured tones of a different time. "I offered you to join me. I offered you power and freedom. I could offer them again, if you asked."

Slowly, Potter's eyes cracked open. The green irises were accentuated by red now, where blood vessels had ruptured under the strain of too many curses.

"I would never join you, Voldemort," Potter spat in a voice yet untainted by screams.

There had been a few screams, but not many. Potter had held out as long as he could, and when he made any sound, it escaped through tightly clenched jaws and lips pressed together with determination.

But the Cruciatus wasn't unforgivable for nothing, and the psychological effects of seeing your hands shatter, your bones being broken and knit together again, of seeing your gaping, bleeding flesh at the mercy of the merciless, all that had destroyed older and stronger men than Potter.

And yet he'd held out.

He'd held out, and even as Snape watched the fly with growing rage and helplessness, Potter's hands, trembling, sought the iron pole, grasped the chains slung around it and pulled himself back to his feet.

The clean skin of his forehead went white with exhaustion, and his whole body shook from the after effects of the Cruciatus, but he stood, straight and in defiance.

"I'll see you dead yet, you evil bastard," he hissed through clenched teeth.

He just won't stay down, Snape thought in horrified admiration.

"You know nothing about evil, child," Voldemort said softly. His voice was soft now, strangely tender, an echo of the brilliant, charismatic leader that had once ensnared Snape. "You have been brainwashed, little Harry, you and all your Gryffindor friends, made to believe by that dangerous madman Dumbledore that what I want is darkness and pain. But the thing you call "evil" is so much more, Harry, so much more."

He rose from his throne, the fluid motion of a snake, and walked towards Potter, red eyes fixed on green.

"'Evil' is a thing of beauty, my boy. It is the manifold conquering the mundane, a slave breaking his shackles. It is freedom, the choice you never had. Wouldn't you like a choice, Harry?"

A choice. That had been Voldemort's offer to Snape, too, all those years ago. An alternative to the dark and dreary thing his life had been, a crossroads where before there had only ever been a one-way-street. And who could have faulted him for grasping it, after all the pain and disappointments his sorry excuse for a life had been? Who'd have thrown the first stone? Who could have gone through what he'd been through without wanting an exit, no matter the cost?

The memory Potter shook his head, decisively.

"I've seen that choice of yours, Voldemort," he said slowly, the hate almost gone from his voice. "And it isn't real. It may feel like freedom for a moment, but the feeling's fake, and in the end, it leaves you only with more pain. I don't want any part in that."

There seemed not a hint of the teenage-moodiness in him now, not a trace of that reckless aggression. Standing straight beside his pole, as if he had chosen this place, not been chained to it, Potter met Voldemort's gaze freely.

"I'll never follow your path," he said.

And Snape, his head turning from one Potter to the other, from his past to his present, had to admit to himself what he'd denied, despite the past week, for more than twenty years.

Potter was the Chosen one, the one destined to defeat the greatest evil of his time. Not because of a prophecy or a mysterious power, but because of this simple, unwavering conviction. Even now, beaten down and chained to the iron pole, Snape could see the confidence in him. Even now, he found nothing but courage in Potter.

But Voldemort, his eyes narrowing in thoughtful contemplation of his enemy, found something else.

"You know what you are talking about, little Harry," he conceded after a moment. "And that does make me wonder… When did evil creep into your heart? What could have an upright Gryffindor such as you done to stand before the abyss? What did you do, Harry?"

And for the first time since this mockery of a conversation had begun, Potter avoided the Dark Lord's eyes.

Voldemort smiled.

"Are you ashamed of it?" He asked silkily. "Don't be, my boy, there's no reason. Come on – what did you do? There's no reason to hide anything from me, Harry. As I said – we're all friends here."

"We will never be friends," Potter hissed, but it sounded defiant now, not self-assured.

"Are you so sure, Harry?" Voldemort asked silkily. "We are, after all, very much alike, you and I."

Potter's head snapped up in surprise, and Snape forgot himself and the situation enough to hiss a warning – he'd seen this too often not to recognize it immediately. But he was invisible to Potter and too late anyway – the boy's head snapped up, and Voldemort struck.

Potter groaned. He bit through his lip and convulsed in his chains, his body writhing in an effort to get away, to stop the eye contact and thus the Legilimency-attack. But Potter was no Master Occlumens, not even after all the progress they'd made in sixth year, and the Dark Lord was rested and very interested in his mind. Feverishly, Snape tried to remember what secrets Potter had known and what had been betrayed, but before he could think of a single one, Voldemort let go and Potter sagged in his chains.

"Now that is interesting," Voldemort whispered. "So you are the one that gave little Bella her cremation. Why, Potter, I never thought you had it in you."

There was delight in his voice, and his eyes held a new, unhealthy interest as he eyed Potter.

"What a savage thing you are underneath your righteousness, Potter," he mused.

Again, Potter attempted confidence, but this time it felt strained and fragile to Snape.

"It wasn't like that," he said. "She attacked me. I just defended myself."

"It is never like that, my boy," Voldemort answered softly. For a moment, his eyes were full of understanding. "It starts like defiance, like standing up to the worlds, like taking what is rightfully yours. It starts like a good thing. And, believe me, it becomes even better."

His black robes danced across his body like a living thing as the Dark Lord circled Potter.

"Did you not feel the lightness in you, Potter? Even when you wept on her broken body, did you not feel as if a weight had lifted from your shoulders?"

Potter shook his head, but he was leaning against the pole now, supporting himself heavily.

"Just for that one moment, my boy, you were free. You were what we are all meant to be, not weak, spineless pacifists, but Gods among men, ready to take destiny into our own hands and squeeze it for every sweet drop."

"That isn't freedom," Potter whispered. "That's madness. It's what a monster like you would think. I am free. I am human."

Still circling the boy, Voldemort chuckled, as if amused by his reticence.

"But that is what they want you to believe, Harry! All these expectations, these ideals and duties, they bind you tighter than I ever could. Even if I let you leave right now, you'd never be free. You'd never see yourself for what you really are, because your mind is too clouded by what you've learned to be."

Abruptly, Voldemort ceased his pacing, and his expression became grave, almost ceremonious.

"But in the depth of your heart, you can feel the truth, my boy. It calls to you. It wants to break free."

He took a deep breath, closing his eyes as if in reminiscence.

"I know it, because I felt the same, once. Entangled in a thousand nets, and still my true nature called out to me, commanding me to become what I truly was. And I followed the call."

He spread his arms wide. It was as if the room darkened, and Snape shivered, not knowing what he feared more: the man or the twisted truth of his words.

"I freed myself, Harry, and it brought me power greater than you can imagine. It is just one step, my boy, an easy step, and all you ever wished for will be yours. You just have to give in. I know that you want it. I can see the darkness rising in your eyes."

Helplessly, Snape turned to his Potter, who still sat at the foot of a column, very quiet and with the same unreadable expression on his face he had carried through his capture and torture.

It seemed as if he had withdrawn into the shell of his self, and there was no smile, no warmth, not even pain reaching out to Snape, as if the umbilical cord between Potter and the world had been snapped in two.

Snape remembered the man's shame in the face of Bellatrix's death, his desperate attempts to avoid reliving these moments, and he couldn't help but search for words, feeble as they were.

"Voldemort was a master player, Potter. He fooled the most brilliant minds of the wizarding world."

But Potter shook his head.

"What he said is true," he disagreed. "There was darkness in me. I know it still is. You saw me kill those wizards just a few days ago, and if you'd seen me at Kinnaird's Head… Life is never black and white, Professor. That's what makes it so frightening."

"I am NOT DARK," the memory Potter now screamed, as if in defiance of his own future. "And I'll never give in, Voldemort! Never!"

"No? Are you so sure about that, Potter?"

Voldemort laughed delightedly. And he still laughed when his wand swished forward, like a darting tongue, sending a curse that broke the boy's left leg.

Potter gave a short, aborted cry, his arms tightening convulsively around the iron pole.

But somehow, with a strength no boy could possess, he remained standing.

"Remarkable," Voldemort commented, not a bit impressed. "But then challenges always brought forth the best in you, Potter. I wonder how long you'll play this game."

Another curse. Another broken leg.

Snape could here the crunching of bones rubbing against each other, he could see white shards protruding from the bloody ruin that had been Potter's right thigh. He felt slightly nauseous.

And still Potter held on, clung to the pole as if everything depended on it, though his lips were white with shock and he seemed barely conscious. But Snape had seen that part of the boy in countless situations, both real and remembered. Potter had fixed all his strength to not giving in now, and he couldn't let go, no matter how much he wanted to.

Because then, in Potter's logic, Voldemort would be right.

"Still holding up well, my boy?" The Dark Lord said cheerily, an uncanny imitation of Dumbledore's tone. "Let's up the stakes then, shall we?"

Another swirl of his wand.

Snape saw the fingers of Potter's left hand snap one by one, crash and splinter like dry twigs.

And now Potter screamed, screamed like an animal in mortal pain, like a pig being slit open. He screamed and sobbed and choked trying to breathe, babbling broken fragments of sentences through the snot and tears and blood that coated his face. He screamed like a man dying. But still he hung on.

Snape couldn't watch this. Whether he had gone soft over the years or it was the memory's atmosphere, tinged with Potter's pain and fear, he couldn't bear this anymore.

Not caring how it would look to Potter, not bothering with pretence this once, he turned away and hid his face against the smooth surface of a stone column.

How could anyone watch this?

He could only hear the Dark Lord now, his voice raised calmly over the shrieking babble that still poured forth from Potter's mouth.

"Very impressive, Harry," he said, and Snape wanted to throttle him, wanted to Kedavra the whole world for doing this to Potter and to himself, but there wasn't a thing he could do, trapped in this fucking memory. "But we both know that you have only one hand left now, dear boy. I wonder…"

Another swirl, another awful splintering sound that filled the room despite Potter's screams and Voldemort's voice.

"…what you'll do…"

Snap.

"…when you're down…"

Snap.

"…to your last finger?"

Snap.

And Snape couldn't not watch.

He turned around, his own fingers rising to his head, burying themselves into his hair as if the counter pain could somehow make this more bearable. He turned around, just as Potter's last finger gave way and he slid down, lost contact with the pole and crashed to the ground, iron chains and broken limbs and awful, awful face connecting hard with the stone.

Suddenly, it was all very quiet. The huge, dark room was filled with nothing but Voldemort's soft chuckle and Snape's own, panting breaths.

"My, my," Voldemort sounded honestly disappointed. "Look at you, Potter. Didn't you say you'd never give in?"

Potter lifted his head, barely a fraction of an inch, and stared at the Dark Lord. His eyes were the dark green of the killing curse, and his lips were red from his own blood.

"Yes, I know what you'd say," Voldemort continued. "That was hardly the gentlemanly thing to do. I realized I haven't been entirely fair, my boy, so I'll give you another chance."

His wand danced towards Potter and the boy flinched back, expecting another attack. Instead, bones righted themselves and skin was knitted back together by a ghostly hand. In less than a minute, only blood and dirt on white skin gave a hint of what had happened.

"What do you say, Potter?" Voldemort offered, his voice filled with an awful cheer. "Another chance to prove how righteous you are? That you'll never give in? Just stand up, my boy, we'll do the whole thing over again."

His voice echoed in the dark chamber, and his eyes were glowing red lights.

"Over and over again, until one of us is proven right. Who knows, Potter, perhaps you'll convince me. You'll just have to stand up again. Come on."

Potter's face twitched, and his eyes flickered across the room, searching for an escape, finding none.

"Come on!" Voldemort repeated. "Arent't you a little Gryffindor, Potter? Don't tell me that the Headmaster was wrong about you. It can't be that easy to break the Chosen One, now can it?"

One hand twitched, rose into the air, searching and yet aimless. One finger found the iron pole. Potter started to haul himself up again.

With a feeling of shame and disgust and burning, directionless anger, Snape turned his back to the boy he had once sworn to protect. He knew what his duty was – to at least witness the horror if he could not help, to stand by Potter the only way he could.

But he didn't have the strength. He couldn't even meet the eyes of his Potter, weary and tired and full of understanding.

He just closed his ears to the screams, not caring that he could be missing the Fading right now, not minding that he was revealing his own cowardice.

This was too much.

Only after the snaps and the pain and the blood, only after Voldemort had healed the boy again and again and offered him another go, every single time, only after an endless moment of indecision and quiet did Snape turn back around.

"No Fading," his own Potter, the patient, the man dying, confirmed quietly, but Snape couldn't find it in him to care right now.

The only thing that mattered was Potter-the-boy, eyeing the iron pole with desperation. But not trying to stand again.

He had given up.

And the Dark Lord's face was glowing with satisfaction as he stood before his fallen enemy and watched his weakness. How could any man, no matter how mad or evil, derive such pleasure from the suffering of a boy?

"No?" He asked, his voice soft and cultured again, and nothing left of that aggressive goading. "Ready to admit it now? It feels good to give in, doesn't it? No pain, no fear, and does it matter in the end that all your little friends would sneer at you and call you weak? You don't need friends anymore, my boy. You'll never see them again. There's only you and me, now."

Potter shivered. All defiance gone now, he buried his head in his arms and trembled wildly, trying to shut out the chamber around him just as Snape had done and failing just as badly.

For Voldemort wouldn't even grant him that small comfort.

"There's no use in hiding, Potter," he said softly. "Admit to yourself what you truly are, and how good it feels. Or do you want the pain to continue?"

Potter's shivering grew harder, but still the boy didn't raise his head. And instead of cursing him, the Dark Lord lowered himself to one knee and carefully moved the arms that he had crushed not so long ago.

"Look at me, Potter, just look at me," Voldemort whispered, his hands nearly tender as he lifted Potter's chin to meet his eyes. "Now that wasn't so difficult, was it?"

Potter just stared at him, his face still twisted with hate, but there were also other things in his eyes now, fear, and weariness, and pain. And – barely there yet, but Snape had seen enough torture victims to notice it immediately – the wish to let go, to abandon all hope and give in. That look was the beginning of the end for every prisoner he had ever seen.

And again, Snape chastised himself for buying into Dumbledore's beliefs so easily. Potter wasn't Chosen after all, no martyr and no Christ, ready to forgive them that trespassed against him while hanging from the cross they had made.

He was just a boy, and though his tenacity and stubbornness had carried him far, they had also chipped away at his very own protections, his hopes and beliefs. His innocence.

Potter's strength was stretched too thin as it was, and it wouldn't take much to break it. He wouldn't hold out longer than any of the faceless victims before him.

Three months, Snape thought in disbelief, standing besides his former master and watching his saviour. He was down here for three months and survived, and yet he is ready for the taking now, after only one night.

And it seemed that Voldemort was seeing the same thing in Potter's eyes, for he tut-tutted with disapproval and slapped the boy's face lightly, more a reprimand than violence, and ridiculous in comparison to what had been done to him only minutes ago, but enough to make Potter flinch back in fear.

Yes. Very nearly broken.

"That is all you can take, Potter? Harry?" Voldemort asked, his expression still strangely caring. "I must say I am a bit disappointed. The stories they were telling about you… and now you're just a scrawny little boy."

He paused, and his hand cupped Potter's cheek, keeping his face upright. Potter trembled under his touch.

"But then I shouldn't be surprised. I made you, after all. Everything you are, all your fame and your glory, just because of me. Your one great deed, and you can't even remember it."

He chuckled bitterly, and then his tone became cold and cruel.

"Even your wand," again, Voldemort caressed the polished wood, his finger's sliding along the smooth rod. Then he lifted it to his mouth and his tongue flickered out, tasting it, licking along its length. He closed his eyes, as if to savour the sensation.

"Created to mirror my own, and tainted by the fight against me," he hissed sibilantly, strangely sensuous, and it took Snape a moment to realize that he must have slipped into Parseltongue.

"Yes, I made you Harry, all of you. It is only fitting that you should also be undone by my hand."

And raising the wand until it was positioned right in front of Potter, waiting patiently for Potter's eyes to follow the movement of the polished wood, raising the wand high, Voldemort snapped it in two.

Potter whimpered, just a tiny sound, but enough to tell Snape that the boy was lost. Tears were mixing with the blood on his face.

"You're not a wizard anymore, Harry Potter, " Voldemort whispered. "You're nothing but my plaything. And when I'll burn the world, you'll beg me to die."

A/N: Warned you. And it's gonna get worse.