Disclaimer: The only things I own are my imagination and any typos you happen to find.

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 have time to 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 I have hidden in the story...each chapter will reveal a new part of the message.

Happy reading...

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 the auror to smithereens. He had missed. He had failed and there was no excuse for it. It shouldn't have happened. With one small miscalculation, he had lost his team the element of surprise and more importantly had ruined their mission entirely. Harry ground his teeth together as his scar flared in tandem with the Dark Lord's anger.

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

Harry's black robes billowed out behind him as he approached the formidable-looking door that towered in front of him. No doubt this was the only thing now standing between him and his death. Harry's scar seared once more, as the Dark Lord sensed his son was drawing near. Normally, this pain would have frightened the teen, but at this very moment, Harry was too frustrated and angry to care. It wasn't his fault that the blasted auror had turned slightly right as he had fired the final curse. It wasn't his fault that he had missed.

Flicking his wand from its holster in his sleeve and into his hand, Harry wasted no time in blasting the doors to the Dark Lord's chambers wide open with a loud boom that seemed to shake the entire hall. He knew his father would not take kindly to this action, but he would worry about the consequences later.

If there is a later… the young wizard thought darkly.

"Ah Harry," the sickly calm voice greeted him 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 off 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 at the Dark Lord, feeling his scar burn harshly under the man's scrutinizing gaze, "You requested I deliver it as soon as I returned."

Harry tried his hardest to ignore the vision 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 to give your report. I believe I have heard quite enough from the other members of your party as to the occurrences and ultimate failure of this evening... and I don't wish to hear those events recounted again. I am sure you understand."

Harry quickly lowered his gaze to help prevent his father from seeing the fiery anger at he knew was colouring his face. Of course, Dolohov would have apparated back early. That son of a bitch would never give up an opportunity to lay out all of Harry's shortcomings and failures in front of the Dark Lord. The young wizard could feel his wand hand start to tremble with pent-up rage at the situation, his magic starting to build at the idea of cursing the dark-haired Death Eater into oblivion.

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

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

The sound of hissing caused Harry's head to jerk up. His father only reserved the use of Parseltongue for rare occasions. This was usually when he wanted to instill fear into both Harry and whoever else happened to be in the room. Harry hoped that there was a fearful look plastered across Dolohov's ugly face at that moment. He looked up into his father's black eyes, the man's emotions 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 the teen instantly 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 stifled his groan as his father switched back to speaking in English. Behind him, he could hear Dolohov snicker quietly.

"You know, Harry," the Dark Lord said, twisting the wand in his hand around in a lazy pattern, "I do not take kindly to wizards who cannot hold their own in a battle or even 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 truly going to show 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 the young wizard's hopes 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. The pain in Harry's scar also began to build even as he was assaulted by the gory images of his first kill. All of it was starting to put him more and more on edge. As the pain once again spiked, reaching new heights, Harry spat out,

"Just do it then. I am tired of standing here. If you're going to do something then just do it and get it over with."

Harry knew that, given the current state of his father's anger, this was not the wisest thing to say, but then again he couldn't really 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 exact moment than facing the consequences of your actions?"

Though Voldemort's voice was calm, Harry's scar told that the man was anything but. If he'd been smarter, he would have just kept his mouth shut, but as always the teen 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. Because who knows, they might even start to think that your power is weaken-"

Harry was unable to finish as Voldemort flicked his wrist and an invisible force suddenly slammed into the teen's chest, sending him flying backward. Half a second later, he crashed into the wall next to the still-open door before collapsing into a pile on the cold ground, panting as pain erupted across his ribs and along his spine. For a moment, the young wizard lay stunned, his mind trying to catch back up with his body.

"You speak dangerous words, son," Harry grunted as a heavy boot slammed into his bruised back, pinning him face-down onto the stone floor. Long fingers curled into Harry's dark locks and yanked his head backward 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 in an instant should I choose to. You seem to have forgotten that part. I can take everything away from you."

Harry struggled weakly against his father's iron grip. The pulsing pain from his scar and 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 emotionlessly as the boy's face slammed into the floor. A second later, bright green eyes locked onto the Dark Lord as the young wizard struggled to push himself up and off the floor. His nose was now bleeding heavily and his movements were disjointed, hindered by pain. 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 with that Harry's world erupted into unbearable pain as he collapsed back onto the floor, a scream tearing out of his throat.

In the far 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. You-know-who was not going to be pleased to see the party return with only half of the men it had left with. The auror almost felt bad for the harsh punishment the remaining Death Eaters were sure to be subjected to. No doubt the young novice who had given away their position would receive the worst punishment of all. Sirius chuckled to himself at the thought of the evil wizard reprimanding his Death Eaters like Molly did whenever her husband was late to a meeting.

"Something funny to you, Black?"

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

"Then use your wand and remove whatever's in there," the auror growled, "We need everyone alert and ready in case those devils come back for a second attack."

Sirius raised an eyebrow. "A second attack? Come on, Robards, we destroyed more than half of their party. There won't be a second attack. Not tonight, at least. They need time to go back to their mommy and lick their wounds."

Somewhere behind him, Sirius heard James snort.

"Besides," he continued, "They'll 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 thoughts of killing us..."

Robards gave him a harsh glare before grumbling something about checking in with Kingsley and stomping off, muttering to himself all the while.

"You know, Sirius, I'm beginning to think you are too smart to be in Gryffindor. With brains like those the sorting hat should have made you a Ravenclaw." Sirius rolled his eyes as his best friend 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 fellow auror, "Where were you for the first half of the ambush anyway? I could've used your help ya know."

James's cheeky grin faded in an instant. "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'. He quickly started to look for any signs of injury on his friend's work robes. This was a task that always proved difficult given that the robes were already coloured red.

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

Sirius frowned. The night could have ended up much worse than it had. The 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 harder. "It looked like You-know-who was targeting Moody specifically and he won't be happy to hear 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'll 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. Meanwhile, another group of aurors were moving from one body to another, preparing them for immediate transport back to the Ministry.

"I guess we should go see what Kingsley's 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. While he loved his job as an auror, the worst and most tedious parts always came after the fighting was over. Both friends carefully picked 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. The man gave the two of them a quick once over before reading the list of names that he had written down.

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

"Fenren?" Sirius looked down at the quickly cooling body lying. The Death Eater mask had been removed to reveal the face of the young man. "I didn't know he was in league with You-know-who. Last I'd heard he was working for the ministry as a records keeper of some sort."

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

"Stupid kid 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 chose to ignore 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 had snapped. "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, "And we're certain of this? 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 cloak had been pulled up to reveal an all-too-familiar tattoo. The black ink stood out starkly against the young 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 they were fighting a losing battle and if the evil wizard was now 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 now that he's getting desperate. And desperation can make wizards do foolish things."