Harry followed his feet as if some external force had taken control of them.
From the front drive, through the entrance hall, to the drawing room, and then down the steps to the cellars below. No one took any notice of him. No one except for Rodolphus, who attempted to pull him away to the West wing, but Harry had only shaken his hand from his elbow and kept on walking.
There was no one making him do this. No one making him follow this procession of prisoners as they were wrestled through the manor and to their new cages. No one had had to. He was compelled by his own conscience, or what remained of it at least.
He should witness this. If the Weasley brothers were to die, then someone who loved them should see it and remember it. They deserved that much and more. For someone to know the truth of what had happened to them. Someone who cared, even if they couldn't show it. Someone who knew when to start missing them.
Harry, as a rule, tried not to think about his own capture. He tried very hard to forget it, in fact. But he saw echoes of it now in the struggle in front of him, as the Death Eaters battled to contain their captives.
Even if Harry hadn't known them, he would have been able to guess which brother was which now.
Bill, the perpetual big brother, was calling and struggling desperately to get to the youngest amongst them.
Though, Harry supposed, feeling as if he could vomit at any moment, Bill was something more than a big brother now that their father was dead.
Oh God.
Mr Weasley was dead.
"Fred? Fred, can you hear me?!"
He strained against the hands that held him, not to fight back, but to reach for the twin whose name Harry knew only for how Bill was screaming it. It echoed, reverberating against the walls of the drawing room until Bill was dragged below ground and after Charlie. Behind him, Fred was silent and shaking, stumbling along, his arm twisted cruelly behind his back by Amycus Carrow.
It was unnecessary. Fred was too dazed, with silent tears streaming down his face, to fight back.
"You don't need to be here for this," Harry heard Rodolphus murmur at his back.
Harry said nothing.
He followed the procession down into the cellars in time to see as Fred was forced into the cell closest to the stairs. Amycus pressed him down to the floor, then leant forwards so that their noses were nearly touching. He smirked and tapped Fred's cheek sharply before locking the bars behind him.
Bill tried again to reach for him, fighting and struggling against the two Death Eaters who were restraining him. He faltered only when a fist was driven into his jaw. It was enough for him to be forced into a cell of his own. Not the cell by Fred's though, but the next one along, so that no matter how Bill stretched through the bars, his fingers quivering in the air, there was no way for him to touch his younger brother even if Fred had been stretching back rather than sitting and staring blankly into the corner.
"Fred… Freddie," Bill whispered, but Harry could still hear him, "It's going to be okay, Freddie,"
'No, it isn't,' Harry countered inside his own head. None of this had ever been okay, so why would that change now?
He turned his attention to the middle brother. Where Bill and Fred could be described as contained, Charlie was anything but.
He was as feral as the dragons he had once tamed in Bulgaria. His shock at their situation was long forgotten as he fought and roared and battled against the four Death Eaters who were doing their utmost to wrestle him into a cell. Around them, other Death Eaters watched with their wands raised, but the fight in front of them was so chaotic and violent that the few curses they risked missed their mark entirely.
A misplaced stunning spell had one of the four on the floor in a heap, and it was the opening that Charlie needed. Now facing only three, he managed to work his arms around the neck of the shortest Death Eater. His grip tightened, there was a sickening crack, and then they were on the ground as well. There was only a moment for the others to be stunned, before Charlie was breaking free and barraging across the floor, heading straight for Harry.
Harry saw Rodolphus looming out of the corner of his eye, preparing to stand between them.
Rodolphus would kill Charlie without a second thought. He'd snap him in two. And so Harry put him down first. His wand was in his hand before he was even consciously aware of his decision. A wordless full body bind had Charlie's arms and legs suddenly snapping together. With his forward momentum, he toppled forwards and smashed down face first into the stone floor below.
"You bastard… YOU BASTARD!!"
The sudden furious shout had Harry flinching in alarm - he'd almost expected the Death Eaters to laugh at Charlie's near comical fall, but he had forgotten the other body on the ground.
Amycus Carrow was stood over Charlie and pulling him roughly over onto his back. Harry heard a gurgle as blood began to pour from Charlie's nose back into his mouth. The sound didn't last for long - it was quickly replaced by the sound of Carrow's fists pummelling into Charlie's face again, and again, and again.
"YOU BASTARD!"
It was only then that Harry realised that the Death Eater whose neck Charlie had snapped must have belonged to Alecto Carrow.
"Stop!" Harry heard Lucius Malfoy cry, "STOP!!"
Rodolphus and Rabastan lunged forwards, hooking their arms beneath the surviving Carrow's armpits and hauling him to his feet and off of Charlie's frozen body, while someone else caught Charlie by his heels and dragged him across the floor to the cell at the furthest end of the cellar.
"The Dark Lord will want to question them," Lucius snapped in Carrow's face, "All of them. Get a hold of yourself!"
"I want that one," Carrow growled, panting, his eyes fixed on Charlie as he was thrown into his cell, "When the Dark Lord is done - I want that one!"
Charlie's cell door was locked with a clang, and Harry released his binding spell. Charlie sat up abruptly, turning with a groan, coughing and spitting and retching and splattering the floor with the blood that had been slowly drowning him. He tried to turn - to face his captors - but with his arms trembling beneath him, he only managed a snarl. Party fury, part grief.
"Charlie? Charlie - are you alright?" Bill again; holding it together for his two younger brothers because he had to. Because their father was dead, and it was up to him now.
Harry could feel his own grief stirring as a dull echo in his chest. Grief for Mr Weasley. Grief for the brothers in front of him who were surely to follow their father to the grave. He hoped it was quick. He hoped it was painless. He hoped that the Dark Lord pulled the knowledge he wanted from them, and then allowed them death's sweet release.
"Come on," Rodolphus said gruffly in Carrow's ear, his voice strained from struggling with the other man as he tried to pull him back towards the stairs, "When the Dark Lord is done, you can have him. You know, he'll let you have him,"
"LET GO!"
With a strength that took them all by surprise, Carrow threw the Lestrange brothers from him. There was a moment where nobody moved. And then Carrow was stalking across the cellar. He pushed the wizard who was stooped over his sister's lifeless body back and pulled her up and over his shoulder. Harry heard how Carrow's breath trembled and quivered as he stalked past him, marching back up the steps and above ground. Was he crying, Harry wondered? He'd never have expected the man to be capable of such a thing.
"Come on," Rodolphus said again, his voice low in Harry's ear.
Harry hesitated.
His eyes lingered on the manor's newest inhabitants.
Fred, pale and shaking with his back pressed into the furthest corner of his cell. Bill, distraught and still stretching through the bars, reaching for the youngest brother. And the feral and grief-stricken Charlie, his teeth bloody and bared, his tears streaming unchecked down his cheeks. Finally, he looked at the silent Ollivander, who had been locked away in the row of cells opposite the Weasley brothers with nary a sound, and who watched him back through pale, frightened eyes.
What was to become of them?
"Come on," Rodolphus said again, taking his arm this time and pulling him forwards towards the stairs; Harry followed his direction numbly, allowing the large man to guide him through the house and towards the West wing, "Are you hurt?" The hand on his arm came up to his shoulder, and he felt fingertips brush lightly against his throat.
Harry shook his head, "I'm fine," his voice sounded deadened even to his own ears.
Rodolphus huffed in disbelief, but didn't question him further, "Take off your mask," he said gruffly as they approached the conservatory, the sounds of elated revelry building and building into a crescendo that left Harry's stomach clenching with anxiety, "You don't need it here,"
Harry worked his thumb beneath the mask and pulled it free; for a moment he was shocked by the blast of cool air hitting his face. He reluctantly pulled his hood back, shuddering as the unexpected breeze worked its way beneath his robes through the gaps at his neck. Stepping into the conservatory, he understood immediately why it was so cold.
Despite the December chill, the doors of the conservatory had been thrown open as, what Harry realised abruptly was a full-blown celebration, spilled out onto the grounds. Harry struggled not to wince against the noise - laughter and music and conversation that echoed against the glass walls and reverberated endlessly back on itself.
There was drink too - of course there was, there always was - and the tell-tale sign of smoke curling into the air from the burning of allihosty leaves and other more noxious substances. It was a smell he was overly familiar with now. In the corner towards the back, leaning over a low glass table, a small group were taking it in turns to snort some kind of white powder, though Harry had no idea what it was.
"If they offer you any - refuse," Rodolphus said upon seeing where Harry was looking; he clarified at Harry's confused expression, "Snape says that your heart could give out at any moment - if you snort that, I imagine it'll stop before the end of the evening,"
Since when did Rodolphus and Snape discuss his wellbeing? Or perhaps Severus had told the Dark Lord, and the Dark Lord had told Rodolphus. That made more sense.
There was a sudden building cheer, and Harry realised that they had been spotted.
The Death Eaters paused, looking around with interest at the noise, and lingering on the group that had half risen to greet Harry. It was the not-quite-Death Eaters who spent their days competing for the role of Harry's number one fan. For a moment, Harry forgot the sick, squeezing grief in his gut, and he offered them a weak smile.
Cassius Warrington stepped free of the crowd to push a beer into Harry's hand and throw an arm around his shoulder. He pulled him away from Rodolphus and drew him towards the crowd of expectant Death Eaters - the unmarked ones. He didn't know all of their names yet, but they knew him.
"Here, Harry," Jason Pyrites leapt to his feet from the sofa to offer him his seat.
Harry didn't have much choice but to take it with Cassius pulling him down so that he was wedged between him and the girl he thought might have been called Catriona Carrow, if he remembered correctly. She looked like the Carrow whose body had just been carried up and out of the cellars, only prettier and with softer features. How were they related, he wondered? Mother and daughter perhaps? Did she know that her maybe-mother, maybe-aunt, maybe-something else entirely was dead? Would she cry the way that Carrow's twin had when she found out? Did she already know?
"We heard that you duelled with Ollivander," Philinoe Rowle said curiously, reclined in a chair, twirling her long blonde hair around her finger, "Impressive,"
Graham Montague scoffed, "I heard it was more than that - I heard that you wiped the floor with him. Didn't let a single curse touch you and left him hog-tied in the alley!"
The were a murmur of approval from more than just the group closest to him - they were being listened to by those that surrounded them, marked or otherwise.
Harry redirected the conversation to try and smother the desperate, trapped feeling he could feel building behind his shields. He just needed to last a bit longer - just to the end of the evening, then he could take himself to bed and cry and scream under the covers and release the grief he could feel threatening to drown him.
Oh God, Mr Weasley.
"What happened at the other end of the alley?" He asked, his voice steady as he sipped at the beer in his hand.
"Pure bloody chaos, that's what happened," Cassius Warrington said at his side with a snort, "But I suppose that was to be expected with Bellatrix involved," Harry didn't miss the way his eyes flicked about nervously; he was clearly looking out for the witch, "She blew up Flourish and Blotts, and killed the man that runs the ice-cream parlour," Harry wondered if anyone else heard the faint note of disquiet in his voice. Harry couldn't blame him. What was to be achieved by murdering poor Florean Fortescue?
"I used to love his ice-cream," said Catriona Carrow softly.
"He used to give me free ones," Harry agreed with a sad smile.
There was a moment of discomfort amongst them all, but Jason Pyrites moved the conversation along with a nervous chuckle before they drew too much attention, "A-anyway - I think the chaos was the point. Everyone was so busy with us, that no one noticed what you were up to until it was too late,"
"We all disappeared when the Aurors finally turned up," Saorise Sayre said, her eyes a little distant as she swept her red hair back from her face, revealing a streak of blood just in front of her ear.
"We did what we needed to," a sudden unexpected voice took them all by surprise; Rabastan was leaning over them, his eyes flicking between them all with interest. He turned to the corner of the room where a group where sorting through the multitudes of wands that had been stolen from Ollivander's shop.
"We killed a few of their's as well," said another voice, deep and soft; Antonin Dolohov appeared at Rabastan's back, a slow grin spreading on his pale face, "And I hear we captured a few more. I wouldn't mind the chance to kill a few more Prewetts," he said lightly.
"Technically they're Weasley's," Thorfinn Rowle said in a chuckle, winding his way through the crowd and lighting a cigarette as he made his way towards the doors, "Though I suppose they're enough Prewett for it to not really matter," Philinoe scowled and tried to avoid the hand he pressed briefly onto her head, but she was unsuccessful, and he laughed low in his throat as he passed, "Niece,"
"I think I might have to give one up to Amycus!" Dolohov called after him, before saying, "Sorry," to Catriona.
Catriona shrugged, and muttered, "Didn't really know her,"
Harry listened more than he spoke, watching as the current, and next generation of Death Eaters interacted. There was something about it. Something uncomfortable. They shared an ideology, but Harry didn't think they quite shared the same conviction. Or madness. Not yet at least.
Was this how he should feel, he thought suddenly? Tense and nervous in the presence of such dangerous men and women. He supposed he would have done two years ago. Now he just felt… acclimatised. Adjusted. Well and truly integrated.
That couldn't be good.
"Ah, another excellent display, Mister Potter,"
Harry could barely disguise his rolled eyes at the sound of an irritatingly familiar voice; Saorise Sayre hid her amused smirk behind her glass.
He let out a deep sigh, "Nott," he said in reluctant greeting as the man encroached on their circle and leant up against one of the wooden pillars that supported the lattice above them.
"Once again, you prove to us all the wisdom of the Dark Lord,"
There was something about the man that Harry just couldn't stand. He reminded him of a more sinister Gilderoy Lockhart. It was clear that he had never tried to use charm to get what he wanted before - or if he had, he couldn't have succeeded.
Rabastan cast a baleful glare in Nott's direction, while the others shifted uncomfortably. It was obvious to anyone with eyes that his intrusion was unwelcome, but he had drawn the Dark Lord's name into their discussion, and none of them would dismiss him and risk sounding as if they disagreed with his praise.
"I suppose so," Harry said mildly, his disinterest clear by his wondering eyes; he froze when his eyes found Macnair's in the crowd. Macnair stared, and Harry stared back until Macnair casually broke their gaze to continue his conversation with Rosier. Was Mulciber there too? He thought probably not - the man had been kept firmly from the manor for months. He hoped that the Dark Lord had found some other purpose for him. Far away from Harry. It was bad enough having to see Macnair.
"Your duel with Ollivander has the making of legend!" Nott continued, catching Harry's attention again.
"I don't know," Harry answered dryly, "I admit that I'll be very disappointed if my duel with an old shop keeper proves to be the peak of my fighting career. Surely, I could do better?"
Nott smirked, "I'm sure you could, but there is something to be said for the power of old men," Philinoe and Saorise exchanged a discreet, amused flashing of their eyes, "Dumbledore himself is well over a hundred years old - would you be so dismissive of your accomplishment should you defeat him?"
"Dumbledore is Dumbledore," Harry said with a shrug, desperate for the conversation to end, "but even he'll be a quivering old man one day,"
"You're not afraid of him?" Nott said, though Harry couldn't tell if he was genuinely, quietly impressed, or if he was still trying and failing to stroke Harry's ego.
"What is there to be afraid of?" Harry asked flatly.
Nott's eyebrows flashed, "He is a powerful wizard! Even the Dark Lord deems it wise to approach the man with caution," Rabastan tensed at his side, perhaps at the subtle suggestion that Dumbledore's power exceeded that of the Dark Lord.
"And I am a young man, and he is very old," Harry couldn't help his frustrated huff as he finished his drink, "He has to die eventually, and then what will he be but an empty corpse?"
"Come on Atticus," Rabastan said with a snort, "We're too old to be socialising with teenagers,"
"I'm twenty," Philinoe said indignantly.
"You're a child," Rabastan said dryly, reaching for a reluctant Nott and turning him away from them and directing him out into the grounds.
Graham Montague waited until their other watchers had turned away to lean into the centre of their gathering, "I heard that old man Nott has offered Theo up for the Dark Mark," he said lowly.
Saorise Sayre clicked her tongue in disapproval, "Is that how it works then? You just ask the Dark Lord for his mark, and he gives it to you?"
"If you're part of the right family perhaps," Catriona said meaningfully, though Harry wasn't quite sure what she was getting at. Did she mean Draco?
"Why haven't you got one then?" Cassius said, reaching behind Harry to try and poke her head.
She slapped his hand away with a glare, "You don't ask for it," she snapped, "You wait to be offered it. Or you should. It's an honour, not a right,"
"Why'd the Dark Lord agree then?" Jason Pyrites said, something anxious in his voice that Harry wouldn't have expected from a junior Death Eater, "I mean - my grandfather had the mark, but I've not been offered it either,"
Harry didn't speak, but he thought he knew the answer to their conundrum. He imagined that the mark meant for Theo was of the same variety that would be pushed upon Draco and many others. The kind that was made to control them. He felt a new roiling nausea low in his gut, and he swallowed carefully to stop himself from vomiting.
"I wonder what Theo thinks about it," Montague mused.
Next to him, Cassius snorted, "I'm not sure it matters either way - he'll still hate his father, I'm sure,"
"Why?" Harry asked curiously, turning to him.
Cassius froze, his eyes flicking about warily before he turned to speak softly into Harry's ear, "Before the Dark Lord fell, when he was still a baby, his mother was caught selling secrets to the Aurors. Old Nott executed her for it," Harry looked sharply at him, his opinion of Nott Senior sinking even lower, "Father or not, I don't think anyone would like the man who killed their mother,"
Cassius opened his mouth to say more but he suddenly flushed red, his eyes widening as he realised what he'd just said. Harry couldn't help but to grin at his obvious horror.
"No," Harry agreed, "I imagine not," anything else he might have said was interrupted by the calling of his name.
"Potter," the group around him turned as one to the interloper; Lucius Malfoy looked between them with disinterest before his eyes landed on Harry.
Before - before everything - Harry had thought Draco a little carbon copy of Lucius, and while it was true that Draco looked more and more like his father every day (tall, and broad, and strong), in the ways that mattered he looked nothing like him at all. The softness of his mouth and the kindness of his eyes. The love. There was none of that here. Or perhaps not for anyone other than Narcissa at least.
"The Dark Lord wishes to see you in the cellar," Lucius continued, and dread strangled Harry for a moment, freezing him in place as he was confronted anew with the facts he had been trying so desperately to block out.
Mr Weasley was dead, and so were Fred, Charlie and Bill, they just didn't know it yet.
Harry only allowed himself a split second of hesitation, "I'm coming," he said, standing and feeling the eyes of his companions following him.
He considered the Death Eater mask in his hand. He wanted nothing more than to shove it over his face and sink into sweet, sweet anonymity. But he knew that that was not what the Dark Lord would want. He would want Harry proud, his face bare and on show for all to see so that his association with the Dark Lord could not be denied. He would not accept some secret identity. Not in the safety of the manor at least.
He handed it down to Cassius, "Make sure this gets to Rodolphus,"
Harry worked his way through the crowd at Lucius's back, his eyes wandering over the crowd of the Dark Lord's supporters. More than one inclined their head deferentially upon meeting his eyes. He nodded back and pretended that he didn't feel like he was choking on the terror he was forcing down. If he wasn't careful, he was sure that he would vomit with the squirming, clenching feeling in his gut.
Lucius led him all the way to the drawing room, where he opened the door for Harry and stepped to the side to allow him to pass. There was a moment where they were both stood at the threshold, that Harry was sure that Lucius was about to say something to him. Did he know about him and Draco, in the same way that everyone else seemed to know? Or did he actually know? He must do.
Harry continued on his way before the question of what Lucius Malfoy could possibly have to say to him was answered. He might have been Draco's father, but Harry owed him nothing, and he refused to pretend that he did. He heard the door to the drawing room close with an echoing bang.
At the top of the stairs, Harry swallowed back his fear, and pushed onwards. He had made this journey a dozen times or more now, this slow trudge beneath the earth. And yet every time felt like the first time. The panic threatening in his chest. The terror weighing his feet down. He pushed on though and greeted the fear like an old friend. Inescapable and eternal.
At the bottom of the steps, still hidden within the shadows, he stopped.
Ahead of him, he could see Ollivander bound to a chair, though he was partly hidden behind the figure of the Dark Lord. Harry's silent arrival did not go unnoticed.
"Come forwards, child," the Dark Lord called softly over his shoulder.
Harry took a single steadying breath, and kept his eyes fixed on the Dark Lord as he stepped out into the light.
The Weasleys gasped as one, and Bill threw himself at the bars with a clang.
"Harry!" His name was forced out as if Bill was choking, then he said in a whimpering whisper, "Oh my God, Harry,"
Harry glanced over at them - he couldn't help it. Fred looked as if he had seen a ghost, Bill was crying softly against the bars, and Charlie (his face smeared with dried blood and his lips swollen) had pushed himself to his feet to stand and watch Harry advance through the room as if he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing.
"Ignore them," the Dark Lord chastised him gently, "There will be a time to turn your attention to them, but it is not now,"
Harry tore his eyes away, and tried not to dwell on what that could possibly mean. The Dark Lord had stepped aside so that Harry could see Ollivander clearly. The man had always been pale, but he looked positively grey now.
"Mr Ollivander - I'm sure you are familiar with dear Harry,"
Ollivander said nothing, his eyes flicking frantically between them, his hands flexing anxiously against the arms of the chair he had been bound to.
"It would interest you to know, I'm sure," the Dark Lord continued mildly, as if they were discussing the weather, "that Harry is the wizard who bested you so soundly this evening - or so I have heard. I regret to have not witnessed the display myself,"
If Ollivander found the news in anyway interesting, it was not enough to overcome the terror that was currently immobilising him. The Dark Lord was not satisfied with his silence, however.
"Come, come, Garrick," he said, his voice as amused as it was dangerous, "If you cannot bring yourself to speak even to comment on the skill of your opponent, then this shall be a poor excuse for an interrogation indeed!"
Ollivander flinched, his eyes flicking to Harry's and lingering briefly on Harry's golden one; he dropped his gaze and muttered in a rasp, "Well… well fought,"
The Dark Lord chuckled, "What do you say Harry?"
"Well fought," Harry answered.
The Dark Lord's responding laugh was cold and breathy and it echoed all around them; Harry heard the shuddering frightened sound that Fred let out, but the Dark Lord ignored him.
"Now then, Mister Ollivander," the Dark Lord began to pace around him in a slow, leisurely stroll. Ollivander followed his progress until the Dark Lord was at his back, and then his eyes latched onto Harry's, the fear in them making Harry's heart leap in his chest. He remembered that fear, "I have questions for you. They are not difficult questions," the Dark Lord offered generously, "but know that if I am dissatisfied with your answers, then Harry here shall make my displeasure well known to you. Do you understand?"
Ollivander made a gasping, stuttering sound, and nodded.
"Use your words, Garrick,"
"Y-yes," the wand-maker gasped out.
Behind him, Harry saw the Dark Lord smirk, "Yes what?" Ollivander gave a confused shake of his head; the Dark Lord sighed and raised his hand, "Harry,"
Harry needed no further instruction. He knew what to do. He had done it more than a dozen times before. He raised his wand, hating himself for how easily he said the incantation, and for how easily he meant it, "Crucio!"
The Dark Lord allowed him only a taste. Ollivander screamed and flinched, jolting within his bindings with such violence that he nearly tipped over in his chair, and he would have done had the Dark Lord not stopped it toppling over with a lazy hand at its back.
"Enough," the Dark Lord said softly, and Harry broke the spell at once. He didn't look, but he could feel the Weasleys' eyes on him. The Dark Lord released the chair, and turned to look around the cellars as if they were the most interesting thing in the world, "Yes, what?" He said again.
Ollivander flinched, clearly panicked. He didn't know the game the way that Harry did. Harry couldn't help himself. He couldn't keep this up. With the Dark Lord's back turned, he sighed softly through his nose to steady himself, and pressed gently against the wand-maker's mind to whisper carefully to him:
'My Lord. Say, 'My Lord,','
Ollivander flinched in alarm, his eyes fixing on Harry and widening, but he stumbled out the words before the Dark Lord could ask the question again, "Yes, my Lord," he croaked out.
The Dark Lord hummed with pleasure, "Excellent," Ollivander's eyes seemed to be glued to Harry, and he only looked away when the Dark Lord circled back in front of him again, "Now… let us begin. I seek something. A wand. Perhaps you have heard of it? It is known as the Death Stick,"
Understanding flickered in Ollivander's eyes, and Harry's shoulders sagged with relief that the man might be able to answer the Dark Lord's questions, "I… I have heard of it," when he said no more, the Dark Lord sighed and began to raise his hand for Harry, "My Lord," Ollivander stuttered out, "I have heard of it - the… the Elder wand. It is a thing of legend,"
"But it does exist," the Dark Lord pressed.
Ollivander nodded frantically, "Oh yes. It is very real,"
"And where might I find it?" Ollivander hesitated, and the Dark Lord sighed yet again, "Harry,"
On and on it went, a never-ending cycle. The Dark Lord would ask, and Ollivander either stayed silent, or denied any knowledge as to the location of the wand. Again and again until Ollivander was near hanging from his chair, blood dribbling from his lips from biting his own tongue, and he was gasping out a name.
"Gregorovitch," he stuttered, his words thick around his swollen and bloodied mouth, "Long ago. Gregorovitch. He bragged," he paused to groan and spit blood onto the floor, "Claimed to be in possession of the Elder wand. Claimed he alone w-was recreating its p-properties,"
The Dark Lord stepped forwards to rest a hand carefully on the back of Ollivander's head, "Now, Garrick. Was that really so difficult?" Ollivander whimpered, "Come now Harry. That is enough for today," a hand on his shoulder, white and skeletal, turned him from Ollivander and guided him towards the stairs.
He caught a glimpse of the Weasleys' and their wide horrified eyes.
"You have done well," the Dark Lord whispered in his ear as they left the cellars behind them.
Harry allowed himself a moment of relief - that he hadn't been forced to hurt then. But he was no fool. He knew that he would be coming back down these steps again before the end. But then what? What precisely would the Dark Lord expect from him?
Harry doesn't know where he is. There's a cobble stone street beneath his feet, and though the night is dry, he can see by the moon light that reflects in the puddles that it has only recently stopped raining. The path is bordered by stone walls, but as he steps forwards, they melt away to reveal town houses, and the narrow path widens and gains stairs and a rail and streetlights that remind him of Hogsmeade.
This isn't Hogsmeade though. He knows that it's not, in the same way that he knows that the castle in the distance isn't Hogwarts, as much as it looks like it is.
He shouldn't be here, and just as the thought occurs to him, he peers over his shoulder, half expecting someone to be in pursuit of him. But he isn't running away from something.
He is running towards something.
Something that has his heart racing in his chest with anticipation. Something he has missed. Something he has longed for. Something that he feels innately drawn to. A part of himself that exists outside of his body, and all he wants is to be reunited with it. To hold it in his arms again. Only then can he be whole again.
And so, he walks. Onwards and onwards, down steps and down streets and through crowds - enormous crowds that almost suffocate him and look at him strangely, but he doesn't stop to think why. He just keeps going, the thudding in his heart growing louder and louder as he gets closer and closer to his quarry.
Finally, he is through the crowds, and at a river. A path leads down to the riverbank, while a bridge offers a route to the other side. He must cross. His bones tell him so. He takes a step forwards, then freezes.
There is a wolf on the bridge.
For a moment, they just look at one another. Then the wolf's lips flicker into a snarl. The wolf growls. And then the wolf attacks, scrambling across the bridge in Harry's direction, and leaping at him. Harry gasps, flinching back and holding his arms up to defend himself.
He expects to feel teeth sinking into his arm, but he doesn't. His hand, tingling and numb, is wrapped around something. A handle he thinks. He opens his eyes carefully to find the wolf pinned below him, a knife in Harry's hand plunged into its chest.
The wolf is panting and wheezing, a terrified look in its eyes. It gasps, then opens its mouth, and speaks in Harry's own voice:
"Don't pull it out!"
And Harry, his heart racing in his chest, wakes up.
For nearly a week, Harry was left alone by all but Severus, and even though they never discussed the prisoners residing in the cellars beneath their feet, their presence was felt almost as keenly in the words they didn't say. Severus never asked Harry what he had been made to do, and Harry didn't volunteer the information. Equally, Harry didn't ask about the pain of the Weasley family, with three brothers gone and a father dead, and Severus didn't tell him about it.
It was easier that way.
It all came crashing down around his ears though, the day before Draco was due to return home.
Severus was stood silently at his door, and until he spoke, Harry, seated at the drawing table with a needy three-headed serpent in his lap, refused to acknowledge him. He would carve from the day what extra seconds of peace he could find, and he knew that Severus was there to drag him back down to hell.
Finally, Severus spoke.
"The Dark Lord is asking for you," he said solemnly.
Harry ran a finger down Clotho's nose, and said, "What for?" Though, of course, he knew the answer.
The Moirai had barely left his side all week. One sniff of him after returning from torturing Ollivander, and she had been all but glued to him. They only parted when he showered. He had tried to take a bath one night, and in an act that had inspired his only smile that week, they had clambered clumsily into the tub to be closer to him.
"You know what for," Severus said softly, his voice barely more than a whisper.
Harry let out his breath in a shudder, "He wants me to torture them,"
"I know,"
"I don't think that I can,"
"I know,"
"What do I do, Sev?" Harry said desperately, turning from the Moirai to the wizard stood in his door, "What do I do?"
"Whatever you must to survive," Severus said heavily.
Harry couldn't help his derisive snort, standing and allowing the snake in his lap to slide carefully down to the floor, "Survival," he said bitterly, "What's the point? Survival is not living. I'm a corpse, Severus. I have been for the last eighteen months. My heart just hasn't had the good sense to stop beating,"
Severus said nothing, and Harry ignored him, pulling his cloak around his shoulders and brushing past him to head for the staircase, only speaking to stop the Moirai from following him. He was numb as he made his way down the stairs; so locked in the depths of his own mind, that it was only when he was at the ground floor that he realised that Rodolphus had been dutifully following him the whole way down.
"You don't need to be with me for this," Harry said dismissively, "There's no one in this house that would harm me, you know," Rodolphus raised a slow eyebrow at him, and Harry managed the ghost of a smile, "No one but Bellatrix," he allowed, "and a not insignificant portion of her ire is directed my way because of how you follow me around like a little lost puppy, you know" he pointed out.
Rodolphus ignored him, and said in his rumbling voice, "I have a duty,"
Harry nodded but couldn't bear to argue further.
He left his bodyguard at the doors of the drawing room, and tried to pretend to himself that his hands were shaking by his sides because of the cold. It was a weak lie.
The sight ahead of him was nearly an identical reproduction of the last time he had been down there, with the Dark Lord stood and partially blocking the view of a figure strapped to a chair. Except this time, it wasn't Ollivander.
This time it was Bill.
Harry found himself in front of him, not quite sure how he had gotten there and staring down into his bright blue eyes. Harry didn't know what he could see in them. Bill didn't look afraid in particular, but he didn't quite look defiant either. He looked pained. But for who? For Harry, or for himself?
"This is a test, Harry," the Dark Lord whispered in his ear, his hands resting on his shoulders.
Harry's heart was hammering in his chest, panic building and building until he was panting with it. Cold hands soothed him, rubbing carefully up and down his arms and squeezing gently.
"A test that I know you can pass,"
Harry's eyes darted to the side where Fred and Charlie were stood at their bars watching him. They looked as frightened as Harry felt. Ollivander was sat in the corner of his own cell, his back pressed flush against the stone wall. He didn't stir, but he watched silently, his lips pressed together.
"It is easy to do what must be done, when it is done to those you care nothing for,"
The Dark Lord's chest was pressed flush against his back, and his head was inclined down to speak directly into Harry's ear, his lips almost brushing against Harry's skin.
"But the Order… the Weasleys? I understand that they were like your family once, weren't they?"
"Yes," Harry gasped out, and the Dark Lord didn't even chastise him for not addressing him properly. He just shushed him, a low soothing noise.
"But they are not your family anymore, Harry. We are your family. I am your family," his words were a gentle vibrating murmur that had the hairs on the back of Harry's neck standing on end, "They're the enemy, Harry. I know that this is a difficult thing to accept… it is a difficult step to take, and so I am here to help you. Take your wand in your hand,"
Harry did as he was told, squeezing the handle of his wand as hard as he could, until his knuckles were popping, and his skin was bone white. He felt the Dark Lord's hand sweeping down his arm, and then pressing up so that Harry's elbow was resting in his open palm, and the tip of Harry's wand was pointed directly at Bill. Bill's eyes remained fixed on Harry's.
"Remember Harry," the Dark Lord whispered, but his voice carried in an endless echo around the cavernous room, "You must mean it,"
And so, Harry swallowed, took a deep breath, and he tried.
He tried to find the resolve that had carried him through so many other of these torture sessions. For the conviction that this was what he wanted - what he needed to happen. That it was required of him, and so he would perform as was expected. Just another curse. Another scream. Whatever it took so that he could walk out of this cellar again, rather than finding himself locked in a cell all of his own. He dug, and he dug deep, hunting and searching within himself for the determination he so sorely needed… but all he could see was Bill Weasley and his gentle, understanding blue eyes.
Maybe he was imagining it, but it looked like forgiveness - like acceptance. As if Bill knew that he had no choice and was silently offering Harry clemency ahead of time.
"I can't," Harry gasped in an explosion of air, his arm trembling; it was only the palm beneath his elbow that stopped it falling, "Please. P-please! I can't. I can't!"
The Dark Lord sighed in his ear, the sound sympathetic, but the sudden vice like grip around his forearm that kept his wand pointing in Bill's direction was anything but.
"You will, Harry," he hissed, his nails digging into Harry's skin through his clothes, "You must. Or else I shall drag Narcissa down here right now, and give you a practical demonstration every single day until you do as you are told,"
"No," the word came out of Harry's lips before he had even thought it, "No. I can't. I won't!"
The Dark Lord stilled at his back, and for a long silent moment, he simply breathed into Harry's ear.
"Well then," he said softly, "I suppose I shall simply have to wait until tomorrow evening instead then. What time does Draco normally get home from school, hmm?" Harry froze, barely able to breathe as he suddenly understood why he had been given a week's reprieve, "He will take their place, Harry," the Dark Lord whispered, "And I will use the cruciatus on him until all that remains of him would be better off as Nagini's supper, rather than being made to suffer his new miserable existence… do you understand, Harry?"
Harry's arm trembled where the Dark Lord held it aloft. Slowly, very slowly, he pulled his arm free, his wand trembling but trained determinedly on Bill's chest.
He steeled himself. Both against the curse he was about to cast, and against the truth that was threatening to tear him in two.
That Draco had to leave. He had to leave, and he could never come back.
"Crucio!"