Chapter 17: Cokeworth
Harry came to with a gasp, his chest heaving as his head throbbed. His glasses were missing, and he could only make out the basics of where he was, but it was a dim, dingy room, kind of clammy, and he was strapped to a bed without his wand. He slowly slowed his breath and his heartrate, struggling to make out any details that might indicate where he was being held. A few experimental wiggles caused the straps to tighten further, forcing him to take shallower breaths. Obviously enchanted, Harry didn't risk trying to undo them with the little wandless magic he knew. The bed was threadbare, similar to the one he was forced to use at the Dursleys, and the familiarity brought him little comfort. He had no idea what Snape wanted with him, or what he planned, but the man was obviously more unhinged than any of his memories - which thankfully hadn't changed, yet. He wasn't sure how the timeline would be preserved after this.
The door slowly opened to reveal the potions master, who strode into the room with a purpose, his normal mask of emotionless disdain reapplied. He busied himself at a counter that Harry could not clearly see, before walking back over to the restrained teen with a lightly smoking flask.
"I hate your brother, Mr. Potter. I hate him because he represents everything that was taken from me by your father. He is everything I wished to have with your aunt. However -" And his mask slipped slightly, a deranged glint in his eye as he leaned forward. "- I positively cherish the boy compared to how I feel about you. You are not only the spawn of Potter, you were birthed from the loins of the woman I hate most in this world. Petunia was the reason I was bullied in school, telling tales to the teachers, and on one occasion even told my father of my magic. I was beaten nearly to death that night, Potter, and it was your mother's fault. I am not going to kill you, no, that would be far too easy." Snape stood straight again, moving out of Harry's limited area of focused sight, before bringing the flask to his lips. He used his want to force Harry's mouth open and pour in the deeply bitter, phosphorescent green potion, before using a medical spell to force him to swallow.
"The dark lord had me create this for some project of his, and it may truly be my greatest work as a potioneer. It's not the liquid imperius, but the dark lord gave me incredibly exacting requirements, and I fulfilled all of them - this is the draught of despair, and it will torment you until you die of dehydration - not that I intend to let you, of course." Snape forced Harry to swallow a second, and then a third mouthful of the potion even as his vision began to swim and a deep burning started in his gut. Harry started whimpering as visions of his loved ones dead or dying flashed past his eyes, a sweat breaking out on his forehead and twisting in the enchanted ropes holding him to the bed.
"Please! Please - no more!" Harry begged while Snape's manic laugh filled the room and he forced yet another swallow of the draught down the teen's throat.
It had been twenty minutes, and Dora was still seated across the hall from the potions classroom. She had at first heard a muffled discussion through the wood door, but it had quickly faded and only silence had followed. She was beginning to get worried for Harry - Snape was supposedly on their side, according to Dumbledore, but this was much longer than any discussion should have taken. She chewed her lower lip as she cupped her cheek with one hand, elbow on her knee, as her hair cycled various colors for anxiousness and worry. Finally reaching a point where her fear of repercussions from Snape as a Hogwarts professor was outweighed by her fear for Harry's wellbeing, she slowly moved to knock lightly on the door, prepared for it to fly open and for the dour man to berate her for interrupting. But to her surprise, he did not.
With slightly more courage and substantially more fear, she knocked more aggressively, and after no response, tried to open the door, only to find it was locked. The first few basic unlocking charms failed, but finally one used by aurors that Flitwick had taught the pair worked, and the door swung open - to reveal an empty, undisturbed room. Dora slowly stepped forward, her wand out and body morphing to her dueling default, one that would prevent her from subconsciously changing her shape and becoming clumsy. Her wandpoint traced left and right, covering both sides of the room as she slowly crept through the door, only to find yet more unoccupied desks and no irate potions master, or her boyfriend.
Taking an extreme risk, she stepped forward to Snape's office, and rapped upon the door with more urgency than either of her original knocks. Still receiving no answer, she attempted the auror-grade unlocking charm, only for it to fail this time. Consigning herself to whatever punishment breaking into a professor's office might bring, she used a fire variant of the cutting charm designed for metal to cut clean through the door's bolt and hinges, letting it fall forward into the room as she covered the office with her wand, treating it as a hostile breach.
Where the fuck is he?! and What has that slimy bastard done?! Were the only thoughts running through her head as she completely failed to think that at this point, she should have gone to get another professor. She continued clearing the rooms, finally finishing her search with the professor's bedroom, within which she found nothing. Not a trace of either. It was only after she lowered her wand and started back out of Snape's quarters that she saw an auburn lock of hair trapped within a cloche. She initially recoiled, recognizing it as likely Lily Potter's, Snape's friendship and unrequited lust for Harry's mother was one of the topics that Harry had explained to her over the summer. She regretted leaving it here for Snape to fetishize, but she needed to get someone to help Harry - whatever had happened!
Dora dashed into the classroom from the office, tripping over a curious ravenclaw who probably came early for their next class, sending both sprawling. She was up and running as the boy yelled after her in confusion and anger. Dora didn't know where Dumbledore would be, and while professor Sprout was her and Harry's head of house, she could well be in the greenhouses after a short lunch. Professor McGonagall was her best option. She sprinted full tilt to the transfiguration classroom, finding the deputy headmistress preparing for her next class.
Professor McGonagall looked up at the sound of footfalls approaching her room, wondering if she would need to yell at someone for running. Her expression turned quizzical as Miss Tonks, an altogether cheeky young lady but otherwise reasonably well-behaved and pleasurable student to teach, came sprinting into her classroom, sliding to a stop before her desk!
"Please professor, Harry had a meeting with Snape and now they're both missing! I checked his office and his quarters and all I found was a lock of Lily Potter's hair!" Dora quickly semi-shouted at the frozen professor, who slowly put down the quill in her hand as she processed what she had just been told.
Dora was getting frantic, and at the professor's slow response, rushed around the desk and started bodily pulling the older woman up by her arm.
"Can you find someone in the wards as deputy headmistress? Do you know where Dumbledore went?! Maybe we should contact Amelia?!" Dora's eyes were wide as McGonagall shook off her student, now rather worried at just what had gotten her so worked up.
"Miss Tonks!" She nearly shouted, bringing the girl's attention back to her, stopping her babbling. "Tell me, slowly, everything that happened?" McGonagall crossed her arms and looked down at the sixth year imperiously.
"Well Ma'am, Snape asked Harry to stay behind after class. He's been staring at Harry for a while. It's weirded us out, really, but we know Snape dislikes the house of Black so we thought that was it. He shut the door in my face, so I sat down in the hallway to wait. After twenty minutes or so, neither of them had come out, so I went back in to see if they were there, if everything was okay." McGonagall gave her a nod, following so far. "And I didn't find them in the classroom, so I looked in Snape's office -" Dora wilted a bit under her professor's glare at that, but continued. "And they weren't there either! So I looked in his quarters, you know, cause where else could they have gone? And not there too! I noticed a lock of hair in Snape's bedroom that looked like late Mrs. Potter's, but I'm not sure that's relevant."
McGonagall was floored. A student and professor outright missing, and another student so worried to have gone through the professor's rooms?
"We'll go to the headmaster, Miss Tonks. He'll be able to tell if either of them are still on Hogwarts grounds, and he'll decide what to do with you, having ransacked a professor's quarters." With that, she led the girl out into the corridor, shut her classroom's door with a wave of her wand, and conjured a sign telling her classes to self-study in the great hall until she collected them.
Harry's insides burned as if molten sulphur had been poured down his throat and had coiled in his gut. Visions flashed past his eyes of Dora being held down and raped repeatedly before being violently killed - of his godfather being cut open and his guts spilling out, or Voldemort finally rising again. Ron and Hermione being cut down by Lucius Malfoy in the department of mysteries, or of his parents being killed. It was like dementor exposure, mixed with a boggart that could act out scenes with multiple people, coupled with a compulsion to believe the visions to be true - all while being tortured physically. Harry was struggling to remember all this was fake - and that he must avoid saying anything specific out loud. It was an all consuming task, especially as the pounding headache that had debilitated him in the potions classroom returned, even as his potions professor loomed overhead, an insane smile split open, displaying decaying, yellowed teeth. He continued feeding Harry additional doses interspersed with real water.
"What do you see, Harry?" Snape asked, rhetorically as it was exceedingly difficult for Harry to reply. "Is it young Miss Tonks betraying you, like Lily so betrayed me?!" spittle flew from his mouth, his mood jumping from enjoyment of Harry's pain to incandescent rage.
"Why are you named Harry, anyways? Was Potter trying out the name with his bastard, before giving it to his son?" The delusion Snape had cooked up to explain Harry's appearance was so full of holes it would look like swiss cheese, however Snape appeared to take these continuity problems in stride, so consumed by his hatred that he looked past the logical problems.
"That James Potter not only stole Lily from me, but wasn't even faithful to her - She deserved better!" Snape was struggling to string full sentences together now, all the while Harry writhed under the ever-tightening restraints, unable to help himself. Snape had been so far loosening them when it became difficult for Harry to breath, but in the back of his mind, Harry worried the man would forget and let the enchanted ropes strangle him.
"She deserved ME!"" Snape shouted at the prone teen, who only vaguely recognized what the man was saying. Snape stood over him, breathing heavily, before storming from the room.
"- And they just weren't there!" Dora finished relating the story to a ponderous Dumbledore sat behind his desk. He stood without a word, striding purposefully over to a miniature Hogwarts castle on a side table, holding his hand over it.
"Neither Severus nor Mr. Black are within the castle, nor upon its grounds." He straightened, turning back to the two witches before his desk. "I will apparate to Severus's childhood home, which to the best of my knowledge is his only residence outside of Hogwarts. If the pair are not present there, We will need to avail ourselves of your mother, Miss Tonks, and Mr. Black's father, and probably Madam Bones, in order to find them."
"Wait Albus!" The man turned quickly to face his deputy. "Just how did Snape get them out of the castle? They didn't leave the potions classroom!" Dumbledore turned back and headed to the floo.
"I gave permission for Severus to have a floo connecting his home, it is my understanding that he uses it as an expansion of his storeroom here. I will floo to the Three Broomsticks so I can immediately apparate from there." With a shout and a flash of green flames, the man was gone, Dora near tears.
"He left, Headmaster. I came here to collect some erumpet horn that I need for one of Madam Pomfrey's requests."
"Miss Tonks claims to have sat outside your classroom, waiting for him. He never appeared."
"How should I know what the brat did?! I left him in my classroom before entering my office to floo here!"
"I understand Severus, I'll look elsewhere. But if we don't find him, I may need to return."
"Of course, Headmaster. I hope you find the little shit soon. I need to get back to brewing."
The draught of despair was wearing off, a thankfully relatively short-lived potion, apparently requiring continuous doses or no water to be fatal. Harry was far more worried about how the headmaster had come here to look for him, only to fold like a house of cards at Snape's insistence of his absence. It was too like the Dumbledore he had known before coming back.
Snape stormed back into the room, the door banging open behind him. His face came into focus over Harry as he snarled at the teen.
"Looks like your little Miss Dora has made a nuisance of herself! I was hoping you would tell me what horrible things you were seeing done to her, so I could perform them for you when I manage to kidnap her here, too - oh! But she's a metamorphmagus!" He stood up and danced. "I'll imperius her! I'll make her look just like Lily. And then I'll make her pay for betraying me!" His anger was back, the short moment of elation over the disgusting idea of getting to defile his mom's body finally dashed as he remembered that Lily too had (in his delusions) wronged him.
"But now Dumbles is paying too much attention, so I'll have to put that on the backburner and content myself with making you scream!" The crazy grin was back, followed by a contortion of his face, and-
"Crucio!" Waves of pain radiated from the point-blank unforgivable, Harry struggling to move under the enchanted restraints now threatening to actually choke him to death by crushing his chest. It was a secondary pain to the curse, but he could feel a couple ribs break under their stranglehold.
The curse was only held for a few moments, before a red light smashed into the back of the potions professor, who fell to the floor limp. Dumbledore rapidly pulled a lesser invisibility cloak from his body, letting it fall to the floor. He cast the countercurse to the ropes, Harry groaning as they fell limp and letting him breathe fully - though only for a moment before a sharp pain of a broken rib prevented him from drawing too large a breath.
"Oh, what has he done?" Dumbledore was visibly confused, apparently truly thinking the most of Severus's claimed remorse.
"Water!" Harry gasped out, despite the lessening of the visions and internal pain from the Draught of Despair, Harry was still incredibly dehydrated. Dumbledore grew only more confused, but as requested, conjured Harry a glass of water and held it to his lips, to help him drink. The fluid avoided Harry's lips, despite the best efforts of both.
"Water! Please!" Harry's voice was hoarse and cracked, struggling to make recognizable sounds. Dumbledore ran to the kitchen, stepping over Snape's body, and returned with real water, which to both of their relief, was possible for Harry to drink. Dumbledore seemed to deflate at that moment, growing much older in moments.
"Let us get you to the Hospital Wing, Harry, and inform Miss Tonks of your rescue so she may cease her worrying." The old man sighed. "And then once you have been healed, we must have a discussion. This complicates matters."
A/N:
This is my first story on FFN! I have some more works on AO3, if you're interested. I'll post a chapter a day here on FFN until I am caught up with AO3, at which time I'll be posting weekly!
Please comment with any questions, constructive criticisms, or recommendations! If you want early access or to chime in on oneshot polls, please see my linktree: /anarettekors