Lord Voldemort took advantage of the Order's shock at seeing him so quickly, and he used that surprise to rip the wands and other foci from the hands of the Order of the Phoenix. Even Dumbledore was quickly disarmed and immobilised before he could even think of a spell; all of them had been reorientating themselves as they came out of the Portkey's vortex, so Voldemort quickly had the time to move.

"Now, now," Voldemort's usual sibilant, cool manner was full of smugness as he watched his enemies look at their hands in shock. "Children, please. Play nicely. Remain calm, for now."

"I wasn't expecting to see you here, Tom," Dumbledore knew the best approach was to play for time, "especially not so soon."

Voldemort's smug expression left him. "Crucio!" He snapped, pointing his own wand as well as Dumbledore's at the old wizard. Stunned by the move, Dumbledore was unable to stop himself from writhing in agony, the screams and pleas for the curse to be stopped blurred with the jeering and cheers from the Death Eaters.

Suddenly the screaming stopped. "How many times have I got to tell you, don't call me that. Tom Marvolo Riddle died many years ago, Dumbledore. The wizard in front of you, the wizard who has your fate in your hands right at this second, the wizard you will soon be kneeling before as a slave, is Lord Voldemort. Never forget that. I know you like throwing that name around to spite me, to goad me; do it again, and you will know new definitions for pain and misery before you even know it," Voldemort said.

"I will never bow before you, Tom," Dumbledore wheezed.

"Crucio!" Voldemort held Dumbledore longer under the torture curse again before he pushed the wand away. "You're the type who truly doesn't learn from your mistakes, aren't you? That's why it was so easy to frame Harry. I have often wondered how that boy has survived. I mean, two years. His godfather survived 12 years. It would be interesting to see how he's coped."

A short distance away, a group of Death Eaters portkeyed in. They weren't alone. The Smith family landed on the ground; Jenny's glasses fell off of her face.

"Oh, you brought my other guests in. Very good," Voldemort purred while the scared muggle-born witch quickly searched for her glasses. "Here, My dear Miss Smith. Let me help you." With that Voldemort levitated and directed the glasses and slid them onto the girl's face.

"T-Thank you-," Jenny let out a gasp when she realised who it was who'd put the glasses back on her face.

Voldemort stared at the girl. He could see she was terrified. Good. And her parents weren't that far behind. He turned to the Death Eater group who'd brought them in. "Did you have any trouble getting them?"

"No, My Lord; it seems with Potter now declared innocent, the Order has dropped their protection over the girl," one of the Death Eaters reported.

"What?" Mrs Smith gasped, turning to the Order. "W-Why would you do that?"

"They don't care about us, mum," Jenny whispered, but her voice carried. "They never did."

Jenny had plenty of time to think during the trial of that Death Eater in the Ministry, and she'd listened in silence to the Order as they'd debated before Dumbledore came to a final decision, and she realised the old wizard didn't give a damn about her, or her parents.

"Now, my dear, that's not true," Dumbledore said, although the muggles quickly disbelieved him.

"Then why are we here!?" Mr Smith demanded.

"You said we were under your protection because Jenny was targeted by….by him?!" Mrs Smith stuttered in fear as she took in the tall serpentine wizard.

"Did he tell you why, Mrs Smith?" Voldemort asked in a charmingly friendly tone that would have fooled only someone immensely gullible. "No, I didn't think so. Years ago, my original war was cut short when I heard of a prophecy told by a fraud, who told Dumbledore here a child born at the end of July to parents who defied me three times would have the power I didn't know about if I marked them as an equal. When the prophecy was given to me, two parents with newborn boys were the targets. I went after one of the boys, dismissing the other. The boy I chose is extremely powerful. At the time, I didn't know what the full prophecy said, but now I do; if I had known, I would never have paid any heed. Dumbledore's been using you. He wanted me to come for you, Miss Smith, and he wanted me to both mark you as my equal and he wanted you to know your parents were both killed by my hand, so then you would come after me without thinking."

"H-He what?" Jenny whispered, gazing at the old wizard, who was her headmaster with tears in her eyes. Mrs Smith and her husband wrapped their arms around their daughter.

Voldemort nodded, gazing at the girl with something that might have been sympathy. "He wanted me to kill your parents. This is proof he doesn't learn from his mistakes. He's dependent on prophecy to make him decide his actions."

"The prophecy is real. Sometimes sacrifices have to be made!" Dumbledore protested.

"Sounds to me you don't use your brains, old man," Mr Smith snarled.

"You told us this Dark Lord person was after our daughter because of a specific date, you never said anything about us being killed to set her up! What was the plan, you old bastard? Did you want us to die leaving her an orphan so she'd die?" Mrs Smith shrieked.

The look on Dumbledore's face horrified the Smiths. "YOU BASTARD!" Mr Smith yelled. "YOU HEARTLESS OLD BASTARD! You wanted our daughter to die for you, and your madhouse of a world? Forget it!"

Jenny's voice shook as she looked into Voldemort's red eyes. She was scared and the implications of what she was hearing confused and staggered her. She had no desire to die, and she had no desire to get hurt. "What happened to this boy?"

"The boy Dumbledore wanted you to replace?" Voldemort smirked as he took in her reaction and those of her parents. "Two years ago, I made sure the boy was imprisoned for a crime he never committed; several of my servants carried out the plan magnificently. Miss Luna Lovegood gave some very good points, however," Voldemort cast his sinister gaze over the Order and members of the Ministry, who'd arrived. "You should have listened to her. It's ironic, really; the Light claim to be righteous and moral, and yet when the moment comes, they prove they can be Death Eaters, my followers. I had Harry imprisoned because I sensed he was becoming increasingly dangerous and he was beginning to practice more magic without your interference in his affairs, Dumbledore. Did my followers tell you where we are?" Voldemort turned to the Smiths, who were all mutually stunned at the sudden influx of information but also by the unexpected question. "No, don't bother replying. I know you don't. We are on the coast of the North Sea, and beyond is the island of Azkaban. The wizard's prison. After today, I will kill the boy whom your daughter was going to be a replacement for."

The Order of the Phoenix were forced to wait near the Smith family. Dumbledore sat cross-legged as he tried to meditate to maintain his composure, but it was hard to do so, as he was still dealing with the aftermath of two doses of the cruciatus curse. He was watching Voldemort, as the Dark Lord paced up and down slowly.

Meanwhile, the Smiths were conversing among themselves.

"Do you think we can get away from here?" Mrs Smith asked her husband urgently. "This has nothing to do with us. Why don't we ask him to let us go?" Her eyes followed the tall, abnormally serpentine wizard.

"No," Jenny stuttered. "He's not going to let us go. He's going to kill us."

"Why do you say that, sweetie?" Mr Smith asked. Like his wife, he was all for getting out of here.

He was a good man who loved his family deeply. When the wizards came to him and his wife to tell them that Jenny was a witch, he was pleased and so proud. He had swallowed the clear lies they'd told them about their little girl becoming someone, with many opportunities. And then Dumbledore had told them some Dark Lord, the leader of a sick cult of magical terrorists who wanted to take over the world and wipe out non-magical people, was after their daughter. He had believed it because there had been something not quite right with some of the cases he'd been working on, but also because of how scared his daughter was.

But now it was clear Dumbledore had led them along, planning to just let him and his wife die, and leave Jenny as a scared orphan. His daughter, who was so pure, good, and innocent was terrified and timid most of the time and didn't have a mean bone in her body. Jenny would be scared shitless if anything happened to them, and now he was frightened Dumbledore planned to sacrifice her, too.

The old wizard had clearly discarded one child of this so-called prophecy. He likely had no qualms about something like a sacrifice. Jenny had already given her a rushed account of the trial in the magical world of one of the magical terrorists before they were captured and brought here. She'd also realised she was nothing to Dumbledore.

When they'd processed that, Mr and Mrs Smith had considered withdrawing Jenny from Hogwarts and seeing if there weren't any better schools, but they hadn't gotten that far, and now they might not have a chance.

Jenny's soft sigh not only drew him out of his reverie but also broke his heart. She sounded like she'd lost the will to fight. "I-I've heard about him," her eyes were wide open with terror as she too followed the tall, serpentine wizard, "The O-Order speak about him in fear and t-terror. They saw he is t-the most p-powerful Dark wizard who ever lived. He's not gonna show us mercy."

"Dark Lords. Dark Wizards. Wars. Prophecies," Mrs Smith shook her head in disgust. "We should have told those teachers to go and never come back."

Jenny hugged her parents, "I want to go home."

Finally, the waiting was over when a small group of Death Eaters landed on the shore on broomsticks. Two of the Death Eaters were levitating a body between them.

Mrs Smith gasped when she took in the ragged, filthy clothes and the skinny legs caked in filth; as the Death Eaters brought the young boy forward, she clapped a hand to her mouth in horror when she took in the filthy, matted hair and the skeletal appearance the boy now sported. It was clear that the boy had some good looks, but the time he'd spent in the prison, which was not only filthy but utterly inhuman, had begun the slow process of destroying those good looks.

And as for his body…

Mrs Smith wasn't close enough, but she could tell whatever these people had done by sending him to this godforsaken place, but the boy was suffering from ill health. Surely he couldn't last much longer?

She frowned angrily when she heard the exclamations and the gasps of horror from the Order. She found it a bit rich, and hypocritical that they seemed to care about him now when they had thrown him in here in the first place. Did they truly have no shame?

"Ah, did you have any trouble with him?" Voldemort asked.

"No, Master. He was unconscious when we found him. And he hasn't moved since."

"Really? He hasn't moved?"

"No, My Lord."

Voldemort looked down at the boy in disbelief before he turned to the Smiths. "You see, this is what would have happened to your daughter, had she betrayed the so-called 'light,' she would have been quickly discarded and forgotten about, while Dumbledore looked for another child who fit some of the criteria for the prophecy, and would gladly discard them the same way." Without waiting for a reply, Voldemort looked down at Harry's prone body for a moment before he knelt. "I remember when I killed his parents," he began, unleashing some of his aura; the sheer power of the Dark Lord's magic, potent, rich, angry and yet controlled, and dark drowned out any thought of anyone interrupting him, "he looked at me with tears in his eyes, but there was a curiosity there. I paused, and I lifted his chin with my finger, just ever so slightly. And I then hit him with the killing curse. It was the scar, on his forehead that threw me off; a protection rune, cut into his flesh and imbued with his mother's blood, for protection. It was ingenious, but I didn't see it. For 10 years, I wandered the world, reflecting on that night, coming up with a thousand ways to get my revenge on him…but at the same time, I admired him. He had a loving family, whereas….I didn't. The year we met for the first time in a decade, during the Philosopher's Stone which Dumbledore was hiding in the school to lure me out although I quickly realised when I saw the Stone in Dumbledore's office when he drafted the teachers into helping him protect the Stone it was a fake I played along with the ruse, I also took the time to study him, I saw he was hiding a facade from everyone. He would have done well in Slytherin."

Everyone was silent; the Death Eaters shifted, but they knew better than to try their Lord's patience when he was speaking, and while some of what he'd said went over their heads and confused them, they were largely silent.

As for the Light… well, they were forced to remain silent. Voldemort's aura was largely responsible for that.

Mr and Mrs Smith, being muggles, were both too scared and intimidated to do anything more than cower, but their daughter had told them enough to know what Slytherin was.

"Oh, well," Voldemort shrugged and levelled his wand. "Avada Kedavra!"

Mrs Smith screamed and hugged her daughter tightly to her chest, while her husband looked on in horror.

"So much for your precious prophecy, Dumbledore," Voldemort said, turning to the old wizard with a smirk. "What, nothing to say? No words of cryptic pseudo-wisdom? No self-righteous indignation?"

"My Lord, if I may…?" A female Death Eater began; while all three Smiths didn't recognise the voice, everyone else recognised Bellatrix Lestrange's voice immediately.

"What is it, Bella?" Voldemort asked.

"Do you want me to kill the muggles?"

Mr Smith thought about making a run for it, but he doubted it would work. He needn't have worried, because Voldemort shook his head, "No, Bella. As far as I'm concerned, the prophecy is no longer a factor in my concerns or my plans. I only had the muggles and their mudblood daughter brought here to prove a point; I intend to bind the girl's magic and wipe her memories of the magical world, the same with her parents. And before you ask, any of you, they are worthless to me. They are not a threat; two are muggles, and the child is nothing more than a girl who has only a year of basic magical education. Which reminds me….," With a flick of his wand, Jenny screamed as she was torn out of her parent's grasp like they weren't even holding her.

"No!"

"Jenny!"

"Silence!" Voldemort didn't raise his voice, he didn't need to. "Look at me, child," he said gently.

Jenny was scared stiff, but slowly she raised her head and she stared into Voldemort's eyes. She whimpered a little, terrified out of her wits; she hadn't been reassured by his words, he could easily kill her, and it would fit with every story she'd been told about him.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to kill you. You're not worth the effort," Voldemort said.

Suddenly two wands appeared in a flash of lightning. "Wha-?" Voldemort was stunned by their appearance he didn't know what to do.

It was where the wands went that surprised them all.

"No," Voldemort hissed in surprise, as the wands flew into the hands of the body lying at his feet, only he was not lying down.

Somehow Harry Potter was alive.