Disclaimer: The only thing I own is my imagination and my countless spelling mistakes.

This is an AU story that has been born with inspiration from the original HP books along with countless FFs that I have read throughout the years. More chapters will be added as I write them.

Please be aware that this story is rated 'M' for violence and language.

And for those who wish to find the secret message that I have hidden in the story...the only hint I will give you is that each Chapter Will Reveal A New Part Of The Message. Best of luck, dear reader.

Chapter 1: Lumos

Harry was dead.

He had known this ever since he had watched his killing curse sail above Alastor Moody's head, blasting the tree behind him to smithereens. He had missed. He had failed and there was no excuse for failure. With one small twitch in his wrist, he had lost his team the element of surprise and more importantly had ruined their entire mission. Harry ground his teeth as his scar flared in tandem with his father's anger.

Stupid aurors, Harry thought furiously as he stalked down the dark corridor towards his father's chambers, Stupid Moody. Stupid wand. Stupid scar.

Harry's black robes billowed out behind him like black smoke as he approached the formidable-looking door. No doubt the only thing now standing between him and his death. His scar seared once more, but this just caused Harry's anger to double. It wasn't his fault that the blasted auror had turned slightly right as he had fired the curse. It wasn't his fault that he had missed.

Flicking his wand into his hand, Harry blasted the doors to the Dark Lord's chambers wide open with a loud boom that seemed to shake the entire hall. He knew that he would be punished for this action, but he was too frustrated to care at the moment. He would worry about the consequences later.

If there is a later…

"Ah Harry," the sickly calm voice greeted Harry as he stormed into the large sitting room, "How kind of you to finally join us."

"Father," Harry inclined his head towards the dark wizard standing in front of him before glancing around at the other occupants of the room.

Great. Dolohov and Rabastan, Harry thought, fighting the overwhelming urge to sneer at the two death eaters, No doubt here to watch the show.

"I have come to give my report, father," Harry looked back toward the dark lord, feeling his scar burn harshly under the wizard's scrutinizing gaze, "You requested I deliver it as soon as I returned."

Harry tried his hardest to ignore the thought of the smirks the two low-lives behind him were surely sending his way. Instead, he watched carefully as his father took a step forward,

"There will be no need for that. I have heard quite enough from certain other members of your party as to the occurrences and ultimate failure of this evening. And I don't wish to hear the events recounted again."

Harry quickly lowered his eyes to help prevent his father from seeing the fiery anger at was burning through his body. Of course, Dolohov would have apparated back early. That son of a bitch would never have given up an opportunity to lay out all of Harry's shortcomings and failures in front of the dark lord. Harry could feel his wand hand start to tremble with rage at the situation, his magic building up at the idea of cursing the dark-haired death eater into oblivion.

"I am sorry, my lord," Harry managed to grind out through clenched teeth, "This will never happen again. I will personally ensure the death of that stupid aur-"

"Silence. I will hear no pitiful excuses from you."

The sound of parseltongue caused Harry's head to jerk up. His father only reserved the use of parseltongue for rare occasions, usually when he wanted to instill fear into both Harry and whoever else happened to be in the room. The thought of the fearful look that was surly on Dolohov's face gave Harry a small surge of pleasure even as trepidation filled his body. He looked up into his father's black eyes, the emotions behind them unreadable.

"It was never my intention to allow that sniveling man to live," The parseltongue rolled smoothly off of Harry's lips, "Just give me another chance to kill the fool. I swear to you that I will not make the same mistake twice."

Voldemort's eyes narrowed and Harry felt pain blaze across his scar. Unable to stop himself, Harry let out a soft hiss, his left hand unconsciously drifting up to massage his throbbing forehead.

"So you admit you made a mistake?"

Harry groaned internally as the dark lord switched back to English. Behind him, he could hear Dolohov snicker quietly.

"You know, Harry," Voldemort said, twisting the wand in his hand around lazily, "I do not take kindly to wizards who cannot hold their own in a battle or follow through on a simple curse. You admit that you failed and for that, I do forgive you."

Harry felt his heart leap. Was his father showing him mercy? Was he going to give him the second chance he had asked for?

"But a failure is still a failure," the dark lord continued causing all of Harry's hope to vanish in an instant, "Your inability to kill the Auror Moody resulted in the death of five members of your party. Five, Harry. That is five too many. And I had so much faith in you, but you just continue to let me down. You know, I kill those who make far fewer mistakes, or have you already forgotten about Talpin."

Harry tried to suppress the shudder that ran through his body at the mention of the death eater. Memories he had long ago locked away in the back of his mind now began to surge forward. In addition, throughout the entire conversation, the pain in Harry's scar had been building greatly, making it harder and harder for him to concentrate on anything. Not to mention it was putting him more and more on edge. As the pain once again flared, reaching new heights, Harry spat out,

"Just do it then. I am tired of standing here, so if you are going to do something then just do it and get it over with."

Harry knew that given the state of his father's anger at that moment this was not the wisest thing to say, but then again he couldn't help himself from wanting to rile up the dark lord. Rosier called it his Slytherin spirit and Harry couldn't help but agree with him.

"Are you saying that you have better things to be doing, Harry? Pray tell, what do you consider to be more important for you to be doing at this moment than delivering your report to me."

Though Voldemort's voice was calm, Harry's scar told him otherwise. If he had been smart, Harry would have just kept his mouth shut, but as always he let his own anger get the better of him.

"It's nothing, father. I just thought that you wouldn't want me to delay in tracking down Moody, seeing as you are so desperate to be rid of him. After all, I wouldn't want the aurors to discover that you chose to send out a fifteen-year-old to lead a mission instead of waiting for Rosier or Bellatrix to return," Harry's green eyes flashed dangerously in the dim light of the room, "I would so hate for them to get the wrong impression of you. Who knows, they might even start to think that your power is weaken-"

Harry was unable to finish as an invisible force suddenly slammed into his chest, sending him flying backward. He crashed into the wall next to the doorframe before collapsing into a pile on the floor, panting as pain erupted across his ribs and along his spine. For a moment, he lay stunned, his mind trying to catch back up to his body.

"You speak dangerous words, son," Harry grunted as a heavy boot slammed into his bruised back, pinning him face-down onto the cold, stone floor. A second later long fingers curled into Harry's dark locks and yanked his head backwards at a near-impossible angle. "Need I remind you that without me, you would be nothing. The only reason that you are still alive is because I have said so. But I can take it all away from you, Harry. You seem to have forgotten that part. I can take everything away from you in an instant."

Harry struggled weakly against his father's iron grip. The mingling pain from his scar and his neck was making it increasingly hard for him to concentrate on the words the dark lord was hissing at him in Parseltongue.

"It seems that I need to remind you of whom you serve. And when I am done with you, you will think twice before ever speaking out in that way again."

With a final angry hiss, Voldemort released Harry, watching as the boy's face slammed forward into the floor. A second later, green eyes locked onto the dark lord as Harry struggled to push himself up and off the floor. His nose was now bleeding heavily and his movements were disjointed. A flicker of amusement flashed across Voldemort's face before he leveled his wand at the boy's blood-stained face.

"Remember, Harry, you brought this upon yourself. CRUCIO!"

And Harry's world erupted into unbearable pain as he collapsed back onto the floor, a scream tearing out of his throat. In the corner of the room, Dolohov grinned.

Sirius Black couldn't help but smile as he watched the last death eater disapparate with a sharp crack. Voldemort was not going to be pleased to see the party return with half of their men missing. He almost felt bad for the harsh punishment the remaining death eaters were sure to be subjected to. No doubt the young novice death eater who had given away their position would receive the worst of it. Sirius chuckled to himself at the thought of Voldemort reprimanding his death eaters like Molly did whenever her husband was late to a meeting.

"Something funny, Black?"

"Not at all, Robards. Just have something caught in my throat is all," Sirius's mental image of Voldemort dressed in Molly's clothes vanished with a pop, much to his disappointment.

"Well then use your wand and remove it," the auror growled, "We need everyone alert and ready in case they come back for a second attack."

Sirius raised an eyebrow. "A second attack? Come on, Robards, we destroyed half of their party. There won't be a second attack. Not today, at least. They need time to go back to their mommy and lick their wounds." Somewhere behind him, Sirius heard James snort at his words.

"Besides," Sirius continued, "They will have enough to worry about when You-know-who gets his grimy hands on them. I promise you that they are not currently concerned with us."

Robards glared before grumbling something about checking in with Kingsley and stomping off, muttering to himself all the while.

"You know, Sirius, I think you are too smart to be a Gryffindor. With brains like those the sorting hat should have put you in Ravenclaw." Sirius rolled his eyes as James came up beside him.

"And you'ld've made a perfect Hufflepuff 'cause you have no spine whatsoever when you argue with Lily," Sirius shot back, looking over at his friend, "Where were you for the first half of the ambush anyway? I could have used your help."

James's face turned serious. "I was helping Moody. He was hit with a lot of debris from the tree when the killing curse missed him. Not to mention that young death eater seemed to be targeting him in particular. Shot some pretty nasty curses and hexes at us."

Concern flickered across Sirius's face at the word 'curses' and he quickly started to look for any signs of injury on his friend's auror robes. This was a task that always proved difficult given that the robes were already colored red.

"Relax, Padfoot. I'm fine and so is Mad Eye, in case you were wondering. We were lucky that the killing curse missed him and gave away their position. Could have been a lot worse."

Sirius frowned. It could have been significantly worse. The entire ambush had caught them completely off guard. This was the second death eater attack in as many days and they hadn't expected another one so soon.

"He's getting stronger." James's knuckles turned white as he gripped his wand. "It looked like you-know-who was targeting Moody and he won't be happy that his death eaters failed to kill him. You know that it's only a matter of time before he tries again. Or switches his focus to someone else in the order."

"Then we'll be ready for him, James. Stop worrying so much. Dumbledore will have a plan. He always does."

Both friends went silent as they looked around at the dead death eaters that lay scattered about, their corpses left behind by their fleeing comrades. Off to one side, Kingsley, Robards, and Moody were standing around one particular body. The rest of the aurors traveled from one body to another, preparing them for immediate transport back to the Ministry.

"I guess we should go see what Kingsley is up to," James sighed, "It's already late afternoon and we have an order meeting coming up in a couple hours. Lily would be mad at the both of us if we're late for another one."

Sirius nodded in agreement. While he loved his job as an auror, the worst and most tedious parts always came after the fighting was over. Both friends picked carefully their way across the battleground to the group of aurors huddled around one particular death eater.

"So, who'd we get?"

Kingsley looked up sharply from the pad he had been writing on. His face instantly softened as he saw that it was James who had spoken.

"Dirk Cresswell, Albert Runcorn, Benton Atwork, Pierce Darkwell, and Oliver Fenren."

"Fenren?" Sirius looked down at the body lying next to Kinsley. The death eater mask had been removed to reveal the face of the young wizard. "I didn't know he was in league with you-know-who. Last I'd heard he was working for the ministry as a record keeper of some sort."

Kinsley sighed heavily. "And he's half-blood. His dad was a muggle if I remember correctly."

"Stupid kid for trying to join you-know-who as a half-blood," Moody grumbled, "Didn't he stop to think that that man hates everything to do with muggles?"

Sirius ignored Moody and knelt next to the fallen wizard. "Who got 'im?"

"Savage caught him in the back of the neck with a reducto."

"Damn." Sirius took note of the odd angle of the death eater's head. It was clear that his neck was broken. "Do you think this is a case of imperius? I can't imagine that any half-blood would willingly join forces with you-know-who. Not with all the anti-mudblood propaganda he's been spitting out for years."

"Unlikely."

Sirius glanced up at James, "How do you know for certain? The imperius curse doesn't leave any visible marks. The only way to know for sure would be by…" Sirius's voice faded out as he caught sight of what James was looking at. The sleeve of Fenren's black death eater garments had been pulled up to reveal a tattoo. The black ink stood out starkly against the wizard's pale skin.

"A Dark mark," Moody spat, "You can't get one of those under the imperius curse. You've gotta take it willingly or it won't work."

Sirius felt his heart sink. It felt like every day was fighting a losing battle and if You-know-who was able to get half-bloods to turn to his side then…

"Well," Kinsley flicked his wand and a white sheet floated down to cover the death eater, "I hardly think that You-know-who would willingly allow half-bloods to taint his followers unless he had no other choice. At least we know that he's getting desperate. And desperation can make wizards do foolish things."