Chapter Text
When Harry awakes, his mind feels fuzzy. He has a slight headache and dry lips. He’s reminded of summer naps and waking up less rested than before with an awful taste in his mouth. He grumbles unintelligible mutterings as he rubs his eyes and sits up, finally opening his bleary eyes. Only, for the first time ever, the blurriness subsides and his vision is perfect. He’s befuddled, and reaches to feel for his round glasses, but finds nothing. However, Harry can’t dwell on his perfected vision for long. The room he’s in is unfamiliar and he grows worried. He lays in a four-poster bed, much like the one from his dormitory, yet it is larger, and the bedspread is a dark green and silver pattern rather than the red and gold he’d grown to love and honour.
Harry finds himself quickly standing, and reaching into his pocket for his wand, only to become aware that not only is he missing his wand and not wearing his t-shirt and oversized jeans from before, but instead, dark green and black sleeping robes. They were unlike his school robes, and more like something a Slytherin would wear on a casual day out. His eyes were filled with the deep green, for the room was decorated with the rich colour, with some accompanying silver and black. The walls were made of grey brick, the floors an ebony wood. There was elegant green furniture near the stone fireplace, and a silver coffee table sat in the centre of the other furniture. Enchanted candles lighted the room along the walls and on the silver chandelier.
Everything was so Slytherin-like in the room. Harry approached the room's single window and drew the curtains, which were, of course, green. The view was stunning. It was a hazy morning, and the yard, which seemed to be at least one story down, was shrouded in a fine grey mist. There was a weeping willow, unlike the one found at Hogwarts, as well as numerous other magnificent trees. The scene would put him at ease in any other situation. Instead, not knowing where he was, caused his nerves to stand on end and he began pacing the room, trying to open the door and window, finding them both locked. He attempted to pick the lock on the door to no avail. Anything he stuck in the keyhole disappeared out of Harry’s hand and returned to where it came from first. Furthermore, the window wouldn’t crack, no matter how hard Harry hit it. The room was inescapable.
Harry felt like he could scream in frustration, and he began picking things off of the wall and tables, slamming them on the ground, hoping to shatter or break something, but they would immediately transfer back into their original placement, untouched. It made everything all the more upsetting. At this point, Harry did scream.
“Whatever this is, it’s a dirty joke. Let me out!” He called out, “Malfoy if this is your doing, you’d better stop it-”
He knew he wasn’t being very threatening, but he was going to try whatever he could to get out of this wretched room. For a moment he thought that it could be Voldemort, but the last time Harry had seen anything of him was in his second year, and that had been nothing more than a projection of him. He shook the thought from his head, cursing himself for being so foolish. Harry, in his pacing of the room, caught sight of the bookshelf in the room, and he decided to focus on it, pulling books out and flipping through the pages, hoping to find some sort of hint as to why he was there.
He sighed once he realised there was nothing, and sat down on the soft green velvet. He thought back to where he had been before. It had been a nice summer day, and he had spent it lying under the kitchen window at the little house on Privet Drive. Every moment he was there, he counted the seconds until he could go back to Hogwarts for his fourth year. He had been excited to live with Sirius during the summer, but since he was still running from the ministry, it hadn’t worked out, and Harry had been left with his hateful aunt and uncle. The last thing he remembered was watching the clock hit midnight before things went black. That was all he remembered. For a second, he felt a brief feeling of anticipation, and he wracked his mind, trying to figure out why he had felt that way. He thought back to the night before, despite its blurriness, and that’s when it hit him. Yesterday was July 30th, 1994. Today was his fourteenth birthday. He smiled softly to himself, feeling a glimmer of hope. Maybe this was some sort of birthday surprise. Maybe Sirius had figured out a way that Harry could finally live with him. That would explain the Slytherin decoration, as Sirius had explained his family had been mostly Slytherin. It made sense now!
“Sirius! I figured it out, you can let me out now!” He yelled gleefully. He waited for the sound of the door clicking, and when it came, he was thrilled, perking up instantly; however, when the door opened, it was not the shaggy-haired man he hoped to see. Instead, it was another familiar man. One that filled the boy with dread and he stumbled backward.
“Hello Harry,” Lord Voldemort said, his mouth curving upwards.
It was shocking. The man looked like Tom Riddle, yet older. He looked to be in his mid-thirties and still had his charm and handsomeness besides his crimson eyes. Despite having a more human appearance, Voldemort held onto his terrifying demeanour well.
“You must be disappointed that it is I and not your dear uncle,” He mocked. Disappointment was not the right word to describe how Harry felt. He felt as if someone had taken his heart and stuck it in a tub of ice. His throat tried to swallow around nothing, and his chest seemed to swell.
“You- that’s impossible- I destroyed the diary- how-?” Harry stumbled through words as he stepped backward, wanting to get as far away from the dark wizard as possible. Voldemort just laughed, and flicked his wand, dragging a chair to Harry and another flick of his wand forced him into the chair, magically bound.
“Take a seat, will you?” Voldemort said, taking a seat in his own summoned chair. Harry struggled in his seat but found it completely useless, so he resorted to speech instead.
“What- what is this? How did you do this-?” A silencing spell cut Harry off, and all he could do was glare pathetically.
“Ah. It was quite easy to get you here. Your aunt and uncle didn’t even stir when my death eaters captured you. No one even knows you’re gone yet.” He explained; however, his voice was not cold or mocking, but like that of a teacher lecturing a student. “Yet how I came back was not nearly as easy. It took many rituals and I’m still working on making sure my body is brought to its prime.”
Harry was utterly dumbfounded. Why was Voldemort talking to him like this? Softly, and not like a dark lord would talk to their worst enemy. Why wasn’t he shooting a killing curse?
As if reading his mind, Voldemort spoke, “Ah. You must be wondering why I haven’t killed you.” He ran his fingers along his long, yew wand. “Answer me this, Harry, does your scar hurt?”
Of course, Harry couldn’t verbally answer, but he scrunched his eyebrows together. Voldemort was correct, his scar wasn’t even tingling, despite him being mere feet away from the dark lord.
“Oh don’t look so worried, I didn’t do much,” His voice had the hint of something darker in it, but he continued anyway, “I just cast a nerve-deadening spell so that you’d be able to think clearly while we spoke. See?” At that moment, Voldemort flicked his wand, and pain bombarded Harry’s senses, filling his skull. He felt as if his scar was being ripped apart, and visions of nightmares he’d had hundreds of times flooded into his mind.
As soon as it had started, it was over, with another flick of the pale-wooden wand. “You see, Harry, I cannot understand. What leads you to have such feelings whenever I am near?” The question seemed rhetorical, and Voldemort stood and began pacing. “Could it be that protective spell your mother cast before she died? It’s quite curious. So no, Harry, I won’t be killing you just yet. I can't allow myself to be injured or killed for being careless. I must work to remove whatever protections you have, strip you of anything that can save you.”
While that made more sense to Harry, it did not calm him. It only meant that Voldemort would have time to torture him before deciding to kill him. He felt a stinging in his eyes that he tried to swallow down. He refused to cry in front of the man who had killed his parents. Unable to wipe his eyes with his hands bound, a tear fell, nonetheless. That seemed to be the breaking point, and Harry began to shake with sobs, and the only part of his body that he could control, his head, fell forward. He choked on his breath as tears fell down his cheeks, and mucus-filled his mouth and nose. He felt ashamed from the fear that wracked his body, but he couldn’t bring himself to calm down.
Voldemort sighed at the shaking boy in front of him and flicked his wand.