Chapter 133:

Harry awoke to an instant awareness of his situation.

Oh shit.

His limbs felt heavy, and he tugged experimentally at his arms. Tied. Behind his back. Icy metal digging into his wrists.

Fabulous.

He blinked to try and clear the black spots in his vision, rolling his head to click out his stiff joints. The Locket was still around his neck. That was one good thing.

The cup…still in his inside pocket, he could feel it pressing against his heart.

He could taste blood on his lips. Cold beneath him. He'd been in many crappy situations, otherwise he was sure he'd have been panicking more. He was scared - terrified - certainly, and he wanted to throttle Lestrange until the twit gurgled on his own blood, but other than that…he took a deep calming breath.

Now was not the ideal time to lose his head…literally or figuratively.

"Awake, I see," a voice drawled. Female. Another Lestrange…at least this one was a Black originally. Bellatrix. His unease inched up a notch.

"Great deduction skills," he remarked, after a failed first attempt at speech. His mouth was dry. Knocked out cotton-wool feeling. Ugh. "I would have assumed most people slept with their eyes open. Where's your master? Not part the welcoming committee? I'm hurt."

She laughed delightedly, crazily.

"You've got quite the mouth on you, don't you, Harry?"

"It's one of my many talents," he replied reservedly. "So, what's the gig here? Voldemort assign you as my jailer because he got sick of looking at your face?"

Her eyes glittered manically, and she rose from the chair she was sitting in, at the corner of what looked to be a dungeon, swaggering over to him, pouting.

"Now, really, that's no way for a young man to treat a lady, your parents should have taught you better…oh wait…never mind that. Guess I'll have to teach you instead, won't I? Huh." The tip of her wand stroked down the side of his face. He would have shifted back if his pride, or constraints, allowed it. "You don't think I'm beautiful?"

He surveyed her neutrally, refusing to show how frightened he really was. She would have been beautiful once, darkly stunning…now…Azkaban had withered her.

"I don't think the Dementors make a good beauty routine," he replied, somewhat diplomatically. It bordered the lines of terrible insult to her deteriorated looks, and served to suggest that she may have been beautiful once. She considered him.

"Quite the little Slytherin, aren't you darling?"

"Don't call me darling," the words slipped out automatically.

"Aww, you're just adorable," she crooned. He gritted his teeth, willing himself to maintain his composure. Bitch was calling him adorable now, this was freaking surreal! Getting caught by Voldemort he'd kind of imagined there to be more in the way of torture. "Rather handsome too…I'm sure I'll be the envy of many a girl to have the great hero wrapped before me in chains."

She kissed his head with a mocking 'mwaa.'

He flinched back, despite himself, flushing at the insinuation, embarrassed. Torture sounded preferable. She smiled wickedly at his unnerved, flustered reaction.

"Don't you have a husband? Where's he?" Harry asked, abruptly, both to change the subject and to try and gain more information.

Where was Voldemort? As odd as it sounded, he'd expected the bastard to be here already. It was making his nervous. More nervous than being caught by his greatest enemies normally made a person.

"Ah, you play for the other team don't you, I forgot…" she said, shaking her head with seeming disappointment. "You were with your delicious looking boyfriend at the ministry…Tom, was it?"

"Considering I'm sixteen and you're old enough to be my mother - though, thankfully, you're not - the one track mind you're showing is highly disturbing," he replied flatly. She laughed again, wildly.

"You don't want to talk about Tom with me?"

No, he didn't particularly want to discuss him, especially not with her. He studied her coldly

."What are you going to do with me?" he demanded, when the laughter stopped. "Am I to be kept a prisoner forever?"

"No, sadly I'm not allowed to keep you," she pulled an over-exaggerated mournful face. "We are waiting."

"For what?" he asked, his unease growing further.

"Tom, of course," came another voice. Voldemort.

The Dark Lord strode in, robes billowing, a large snake entwined around his shoulders. The snake. There was something about the snake. He could feel it, and its eyes fixed on him.

Bellatrix immediately backed off from him, lowering into a bow. It felt somewhat jarring to see the witch slip into such submission, as much as he didn't like her.

He turned his attention to Voldemort, noticing that the wand the man was twirling was his own. A taunt. A statement to remind him of how vulnerable he truly was right now. He swallowed, inaudibly, unable to prevent himself from tensing.

"Crucio."

The curse hit him for no apparent reason…(but when did it ever have a logical one?) and he twisted, consumed by it. He didn't know how long it lasted.

Could forever be crammed into so small a space? It felt like forever. The torture cut just as he thought he could take it no longer, and he slumped, shivering and panting regardless of how composed he wished to appear.

He flicked his eyes up defiantly to meet scarlet. Bastard. Voldemort had tortured him with his holly and phoenix feather…how did that even work? It was screwed up.

He sincerely hoped the wand hadn't transferred its allegiance. Then, he realised it couldn't have, for, unless Voldemort had been going easy on him, that hadn't been as painful as he remembered. And he remembered vividly.

It was still horrible, but considering how much pain the Dark Lord could inflict…Bellatrix watched avidly, no pity or mercy or compassion in her eyes outside of excitement and sick pleasure. Psychopath. She had to be.

So he was tied up in a room with not one, but two psychopaths…great. He supposed he'd been here before, with Marvolo and Tom, but this was infinitely worse because Tom wasn't, despite how he could act at times, out to kill him or seriously harm him.

Of that, at least, he was certain.

"Hello Harry, so glad that you could join us," Voldemort greeted softly.

"Trixie implied the same welcome," Harry replied flippantly, "so I wonder why the service isn't more hospitable."

Voldemort's eyes flashed, but Bellatrix looked as if it hadn't annoyed her lord, that she would have simply laughed at him again. One to be wary of, that much was clear.

Harry was brought back to the other's previous words, blood curdling.

"What do you mean we're waiting for Tom? The intelligence you esteem so highly has clearly gone down if you've told him where to find us."

"No," Voldemort murmured, smiling a twisted smile. "I haven't told him, and nor shall you through that link of yours, as I dare say you want to keep him out of my way."

It wasn't a question, or even a jeer, just fact. No, he didn't want Tom near Voldemort, and so wouldn't tell Tom - and thus, anyone else as Tom was his only link to the outside world - where he was. He narrowed his eyes, waiting for further explanation. Voldemort would explain, he always did, so convinced of his brilliance. The man loved to gloat, as Tom did, but Tom was more judicious with his smugness.

"You see," Voldemort continued, softly, predictably, playing with the wand. "As much as I would dearly love to kill you, you still have that pesky life bond on you."

Right. His life was tied to Tom's, and thus, in a manner of speaking, Voldemort's.

"You think you can persuade him to take it off?" Harry asked, flatly, dread curling in his stomach. Voldemort smirked.

"No, but I think you can. Shall we send him a message?"

Tom could feel fury boiling in his blood, fury and so many emotions he wasn't sure he was capable of feeling so strongly.

"V-Voldemort took him?" Granger and turned ashen, Weasley green. His attention seemed to narrow onto a single, dark point, like tunnel vision.

Voldemort had Harry.

Ignoring any and all attempts to communicate with him, he searched his mind for the link with Harry. It was there, conscious, but blocked off. Harry was using Occlumency.

Inconvenient.

He would have tried pushing through the barriers to talk to him, but he didn't know the situation in enough detail. It could do more harm than good.

Harry wouldn't be killed anyway, they still had the life bond between them. He paced manically on the spot, trying to plan his way around this, hating the helplessness he could feel burning like fire in his veins.

Okay.

Where were Voldemort's strongholds. Malfoy manor? Too obvious. The man must know that would be the first place he thought of, as that was where they'd met to talk…where he had found out about the Prophecy. Not Malfoy manor. Riddle House? Again, obvious. Voldemort knew well enough how he thought. He needed to think.

"Everyone shut up," he hissed, viciously, at the panicked babble around him. "I need to think and your mindless hysteria is lowering my IQ."

Blessed silence.

He closed his eyes, sitting down, thinking.

They had a life bond. Harry wouldn't be harmed. But Voldemort must know if he knew where he was, that he would come and get him. A random location then. He had no leads.

But Voldemort couldn't kill Harry, as he so wished, when the life bond was still formed, even if it was still in a temporary stage.

Therefore, he needed Tom to retract the bond from his side. Voldemort would contact him. His eyes snapped open again at the thought.

A black owl swooped in through the window.

Some gasped in an overly dramatic manner, a crowd growing around them. He wanted to curse the lot of them. It landed in front of him, dropping a little capsule looking thing.

He touched it cautiously, wondering if it might be a portkey, almost hoping it was.

It wasn't. He took a step back as a sort of hologram type thing arose from the thing, forming an image…like a moving image. A film. He stiffened.

Voldemort.

Harry.

"What is that?" Abraxas whispered. He ignored Granger's explanation. Was this pre-recorded, or actually happening? Time to test it out.

"Voldemort," he greeted calmly. "Harry. Okay?"

"Hello Tom," Voldemort replied, looking rather smug. He studied the Dark Lord for only a few seconds, before switching his attention to the figure Voldemort was holding in front of him by the shoulders again.

Harry looked bored.

He wasn't fooled.

The other's grip must have been hurting him, didn't it normally? Besides…his gut clenched

."Started in early on the Crucios I see," he stated.

"You should have trained him to hold his tongue better," Voldemort replied. "Speaking of, aren't you going to say 'hello', Harry? This will be the last time you see him and the rest of your friends…can you see the mudblood on the screen to? Tell them it will be okay, I dare you."

"Harry!" Granger shrieked, tears in her eyes.

"Let him go, you bastard!" Weasel snarled.

Tom's fingers twitched with the urge to throttle them both, and he folded them instead, locking his gaze onto Harry's.

"Where are you?" he demanded, with as much patience as he could muster, which wasn't all that much currently.

"No idea," Harry replied promptly, flashing him that smile. His jaw tightened.

"Make an educated guess, sweetheart, you're normally good with them."

Voldemort laughed.

"He's not going to help you find him, child. He doesn't want you anywhere near me. Hero complex…"

"Yes," he snapped. "But I was hoping, rather foolishly I see, that self-preservation might win over his apparent desire for suicide for once.

""I'm not suicidal," Harry frowned.

He was starting to feel the emotions rolling into his head now, barriers strained by the pain the boy was in. Anger. Embarrassment. Sorrow. Hatred. Relief. Desperation. Triumph. Fear.

Harry was acting calm for the sake of his friends, watching, no doubt. How could Lovegood claim he wasn't strong?

"Well, considering another one of your arguments was that you could stay out of trouble when left to your own devices, I don't believe you. The evidence before me seems to suggest the latter," he replied.

Silence, and Harry simply smiled at him, a little sadder this time.

He wanted to throw something.

Choke something.

Kill something.

His magic flared dangerously.

"Let him go," he told Voldemort, coldly. "It's me you want, isn't it?"

"You sound ridiculously noble and self-sacrificing with that statement," the Dark Lord drawled, in response.

"What do you want then?" he asked, barely controlling his temper.

There was nothing right in this situation. Just the sight of Harry - and though no one else could, he could feel how much agony the other was in, even if he was putting his shields to work in muting the sensation…protecting him from it - was making his blood boil.

Especially because it was due to Voldemort, when all he could do was just stand here talking through a security camera or something.

"I want him dead," his elder said.

"Not happening," he replied immediately. "So give it up and give him back to me."

"Take off the life bond."

"No."

"Crucio."

He felt something like horror, as close as he could get, he didn't know, it was new and confusing and there was a sickness in his stomach that wasn't originating from Harry's emotions this time.

He didn't look to note the reactions of anyone around him, stepping towards the hologramic image, before remembering, with a sour taste in his mouth, that was all he was.

It was an image. A taunt.

"Stop it," he warned, unable to remove his eyes from the sight of Harry screaming in agony.

"Or what?" Voldemort returned lazily. "I'll stop when I can kill him. Can you watch him go mad?"

No. No. No.

"How will driving him mad help you? You still wouldn't be able to kill him, and I would hunt you down and destroy you."

It wasn't a boast, it wasn't even a threat, it was stone cold promise of how events would play. The curse cut, with the same indolence, but he didn't think it was fully due to his words.

Harry looked vaguely dazed, and he suspected the curse had been halted to deny his friend the chance of falling into oblivious unconsciousness, and the respite that would bring.

The foreign feeling of humiliation flittered bolder in his head.

"It doesn't," Voldemort said. "But then, I'd rather we all lose, then that either of you win. Consider your self-preservation, Tom. I could kill us all, or I could kill and otherwise destroy him. You can still live. Or you need to do is remove the bond and go back home, you have your whole life ahead of you. I can even take the memory away, if you wish. One time offer, Tom, one time mercy. All you need to do is let go of him."

He was silent, thoughtful. It made sense. And yet…

"Go on then," he challenged. Voldemort's eyes widened with shock.

"Excuse me?"

"Kill him them, kill us all." Let the timeline implode. He wouldn't. Voldemort wouldn't go through with it…his self preservation was too high. He cared about survival above all else.

"Tom," Harry spoke again, furiously, irritably, though it sounded like it cost him great effort, teeth gritted. "Just take his bloody offer."

"I'm ignoring that comment, darling."

Harry rolled his eyes.

"I told you he doesn't listen to me."

Zevi watched the conversation with dismay, his stomach twisting, his face pale. His heart was in his mouth.

He felt like the world had tipped off balance, and it was made even worse by the casual way the three of them were talking, the way Harry and Tom were still maintaining a level of their normal banter.

It was as if this wasn't even a big deal or issue to them.

Many, looking at Tom, would guess that Harry meant nothing to him by the calmness of his face and words, the lack of distress or terror or pleading.

But he'd known Tom for going on six years now though, and had made a lifestyle from studying the Slytherin Heir, trying to figure out the complex, brilliant teenager.

Tom wasn't calm.

His knuckles were too white, his posture too rigid and still. Tom was capable of great stillness, becoming almost stone seemingly, but it was good for no one when he did.

The intentness with which his attention was fixed upon the hologram thing was another indicator. His eyes barely left Harry's form for a few seconds.

Then there was the fact that he was holding the conversation at all.

If he didn't care he would have just walked away, or let Harry die. Let alone perform this…life bond. He shivered. He knew of that magic, powerful magic, dangerous magic. Someone who didn't care would never cast it.

On the screen, Harry rolled his eyes, pale, but otherwise appearing fine…and he was coming to realise he seriously underestimated Harry's acting skills and capacity to endure.

"I told you he doesn't listen to me," Harry said, in a vaguely 'told-you-so' type of voice. The words were directed at the Dark Lord.

Voldemort's eyes flashed once more, and the snake around his shoulder hissed menacingly. He noticed Harry kept glancing at it, expression still neutral, but with the glimmers of something that he'd learned to be wary of.

He couldn't put his finger to what it was though.

"Then I'll just keep him," Lord Voldemort told Tom, voice almost a snarl. "You'll never see him again, just feel his pain every day. He'll hate you for not letting him die."

"I hate him anyway," Harry laughed, defiantly. He would have been terrified by the proclamation if it was about him, allusions to his lifetime of imprisonment and torture, and aside from the same stubborn rigidness in Tom's shoulders, there was no sign with Harry either. "Everyday and never."

Tom hissed something, face savage suddenly, mask broken. Voldemort's lips curled in a mocking imitation of a smile, beyond cruel. There was nothing human there.

"Cute," was all he said.

"You'll spend your whole life running," Tom said, quietly, lethally. "I would hunt you down and destroy you."

"That's not necessary, all I need to do is disappear for four months."

Tom's eyes shot to Harry again.

"I told you not to play with me, Tom," Voldemort said, with great satisfaction. "Because you'll never win. Your sentiment cripples you. Let it go."

Zevi could scarcely believe that they were doing this all so publicly, not even in Parseltongue, letting them see.

He suspected if Harry and Tom had a choice in the matter, that this affair would be conducted in private, but Voldemort…Voldemort seemed to have become fond of public eye, show and flair.

Tom could have sent them out the room, but he didn't, because at this moment in time they didn't even register on his scale of importance.

Even Lestrange, knocked out in the corner for a later date (it was more than clear that Tom was once more putting Harry's safety over Lestrange's punishment, as he had with the poison incident) wasn't of any significance to his lord right now, when he most likely wanted someone to torture.

"And yet you'd never let him live, even if I conceded to that point," Tom returned, no inflection his voice. "If I removed the life bond and left for the past, you'd still kill him."

"No, but you'd get to live. At this point, it stands that you die with him. Is he really worth it? Re-"

"If you think it's not worth dying for him, then give him back, because, as I believe I've made clear, you will die if he does."

The two Dark Lord stared at each other, assessing, and Zevi wondered why Harry was so quiet. It was…uncharacteristic.

He couldn't imagine the ex Gryffindor merely letting the two talk about and over him as if he wasn't there, or simply a possession to be squabbled over as a sign of victory and dominance. If he was the Dark Lord, he, like Tom, would automatically be terrified when Harry went so quiet and seemingly docile.

"My forces outnumber yours, if, by some miracle, you did manage to 'hunt me down' it would be you who loses your memories, not I who loses my life."

Zevi realised instantly that the man had crossed some line too far, not for Tom, but for Harry, who's head tilted just slightly to look at Voldemort.

There was suddenly absolutely no expression on his face.

Then the screen cut to the sound of screams, flickering. Splintered.

It was strange.

Harry felt…detached.

His emotions were there, he could feel them, but they didn't cloud his thoughts or influence them, only spurned him on as he finally managed to free his hands (he'd been working on them behind his back the whole time Tom and Voldemort were talking) and then, every single emotion that had been building - the fear, the anger, the desperation, the hate, the protectiveness - and he chucked it through the link at Voldemort.

Voldemort was feeling every emotion in his head, and it hurt. The snake faced man wasn't human or whole enough for them, and cringed for them, and Harry seized his wand back, and then they were duelling.

Nagini was trying to attack him too, and he'd lashed to knock Bellatrix out with violent explosions of his power, she was not his enemy now.

"You won't get out alive," Voldemort hissed, trading curses with him.

"You don't get to threaten the people I care about, not anymore."

Because that was the crux of it, and always had been. He could tolerate and endure and even forgive what was done to him, but if anyone attacked his friends…

Maybe he had a hero complex, but it wasn't a light one. He wasn't light anymore. He'd kill to protect his friends and family.

Alone, one on one, they danced around their spells and curses and hate.

And Harry, Harry won.

Emotions were crippling.

Voldemort was the one feeling all emotions now.

He was empty.

And so he grabbed the snake - there was something about it, and besides, it was leverage, caging it - and ran. He blew the dungeon door off it's hinges, sprinting down the corridor, felling anyone who came into his path.

Some sort of alarm was wailing, and in an absent way, he was aware of the Death Eaters that sought to bring him down, closing in one him.

A hand clamped over his mouth, pulling him into a side room.

He whipped around, wand in hand, only as another wand dug into his throat.

No. Not now. He was too close.

He…Lucius Malfoy.

The man pressed a finger to his lips, in indication to be quiet. Death Eaters thundered past their door.

Malfoy pulled out an object - a crystal paperweight - offering it to him. He surveyed it for a moment, untrusting, and yet…

"You saved my son's life," was all Malfoy said.

And that was explanation enough.

He took the portkey and disappeared.

A/N: I'm so nervous about this chapter. It's a big moment, and I know you guys had high expectations. I hope I did it justice. Are you looking forward to Tom's reaction when he sees Harry again? *evil smirk*

But anyway, enjoy, I hope :)

Thanks for the reviews. Your update is granted.