Snape was here! Snape was here. Snape was here!

Harry laughed. For the first time since he’d been captured, he felt like he could breathe. Snape was a master spy. He was intelligent and cunning and always five steps ahead of everyone else in the room. Harry was as good as saved!

Unless Voldemort found out.

His smile gave way to a horrified frown.

What was Snape thinking, telling Harry who he was? Voldemort would Legilimize it right out of him! Perhaps he had managed to kick him out of his head in the end, but Voldemort had found out plenty of information in the meantime. And as soon as he found out this tidbit, he’d capture Snape and torture him and kill-

Just as quickly as the weight had lifted off his chest, it settled back in - as if a feather blown away by a breeze, only to land again in the same place, now ten times as heavy as before.

He glared at the door, though it was so dark in his cell that he only knew where the door was by the faint crack of light at its base. Dark wizards and Legilimency and secret identities and spycraft really sucked.

Like, a lot.

Well, there was no going back now. He’d merely have to get to work readying his mind. All those beginner tips and tricks Snape had taught him had been worthwhile, but they wouldn’t help him against a super-powered Voldemort. He’d have to come up with another plan. He went over the facts, the things that he knew for sure:

One, Harry could feel Voldemort’s emotions and hear some of his thoughts while he was being Legilimized. Which wouldn’t have happened if he had been Legilimized by any other wizard. Due to their unique connection, most likely. He set that aside for later consideration.

Two, he had managed to expel Voldemort from his mind only after giving up on his impulse to fight. Instead, his instincts had urged him to give in, to meld his mind with Voldemort’s somehow. But what exactly had happened and how, he didn’t quite understand.

Three, as far as he knew - and when Legilimency wasn’t involved - their mental connection only went one way. Neither Dumbledore nor Voldemort had ever made any indication that Voldemort could see into Harry’s mind from a distance like Harry could see into Voldemort’s. So back to item number one: was it possible that due to that one-sided connection, Voldemort couldn’t Legilimize Harry without their connection getting in the way? Being so close mentally when Harry already had a path directly into Voldemort’s mind was bound to cause some sort of disruption, right?

So maybe all he had to do was look for the mental threads of that disruption and give a good strong tug…

He hopped up and started to pace in the small, dark space. And that made him stop short to add another item to the list.

Four, he went before Voldemort weak from a combination of pain curses and hunger and blood loss. He could barely sit or hold up his head by the end, much less stand. Now, mere minutes after being returned to his cell, he was strong enough to frantically pace it. How had that happened?

He experimentally stretched his arms and legs. He still felt sore and tired and hungry. He definitely still had bruises on his body, mainly from the first day. His scar still burned, and his headache had never left. But none of it was quite as bad as before, and he now had energy and strength that had been lacking. It couldn’t be mere adrenaline. He’d been too weak and he felt too much better now. Had he somehow borrowed strength from Voldemort’s mind in the same way he’d “borrowed” his thoughts and feelings? Was such a thing even possible?

Well, he wouldn’t have thought before that some ritual involving his blood would strengthen Voldemort either, had he, so who’s to say what was possible and what wasn’t? Especially where their connection was concerned.

He wished that either Snape or Dumbledore were here to bounce his ideas off of. Preferably both. With their joined minds, they would quickly come up with a very excellent theory about what was going on.

Until then, he would be ready to try to replicate whatever he’d done. Voldemort may still be able to get past his defenses, but now that Harry knew to look for and follow those threads of Voldemort’s mind in his, he would try to get the dark wizard out of his head as quickly as possible.

Snape’s life depended on it. And by extension, Harry’s.

He hadn’t been back in his cell for more than an hour when footsteps alerted him to company and his cell door was thrown open. Harry barely had time to register the stream of light and Nott’s angry face before he was hauled to his feet by the front of his dirty jumper and slammed against the stone wall. He winced as his head connected with the wall with a sharp crack and a burst of pain.

“What did you do?” Nott yelled so close to Harry’s face that spittle landed on his cheek.

Harry shook his head to clear it but knew that was the wrong move as soon as he felt a wave of dizziness wash over him.

Nott shook him. “What did you do?” he demanded again.

“I don’t know what-”

“The Dark Lord!” Nott yelled. “He has yet to awake. What did you do to him?”

“I don’t know!” Harry cried honestly. Voldemort was still knocked out? Harry probably shouldn’t laugh at that image. He really shouldn’t laugh. For once, he listened to his own advice, if barely. He thought Nott might have caught the twitch of his lips.

He was slammed against the wall again, and he cried out as his head connected with the stone a second time. So that’s what it meant to see stars, he thought randomly, trying to block out the pain in his head by studying the flashing lights in his vision.

“Nott!” hissed a voice from the doorway. “I said you could question him, not rough him up!” Harry thought he recognized Sallow through his spotty vision. The Death Eater looked over his shoulder down the hallway. “Pettigrew will be back any minute-”

“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of that little rat,” Nott growled, his eyes never leaving Harry.

“Only insofar as he is a rat,” shot back Sallow contemptuously. “You know if he catches us in here without permission, he’ll run to the Dark Lord with the tale of our wrongdoing.”

“This brat did something to the Dark Lord, and I will find out what! If you think he’ll punish me for getting to the bottom of this, you’re-”

“You know he may not see it that way,” reasoned Sallow. He nervously stepped into the room and edged closer to where Nott held Harry in a vice grip. “You know how he’s been since…” he glanced sidelong at Harry, as if wondering how much to say. “You know he’s as likely to kill you as reward you these days. So let someone else play the hero, hmm?”

Nott sneered at Harry, and Harry held in a shudder at all that hatred on display, and all directed at him. A man with that depth of loathing in his eyes could do anything in the heat of the moment, fear of a Dark Lord aside. Harry quickly decided that in this particular instance, baiting them would not be the wisest course of action. So he stood silently - not that he had any choice, pinned as he was against the wall - and waited for them to come to a mutual decision about how to proceed.

Unfortunately, it didn’t take long. An instant later, he was doubled over on the ground from a punch to the stomach. A kick to the ribs swiftly followed. He groaned, curling in on himself, but Nott wasn’t in the mood to give him time to wallow in his misery. The Death Eater knelt in front of him and pulled him upright by a painful grip on his hair. Somewhere above them, Sallow sighed in resignation and paced back to the door to keep watch.

“What. Did. You. Do?” Nott seethed.

Harry took a bracing breath, knowing there was no easy way out of this confrontation. He couldn’t give Nott answers that he himself didn’t have. “I don’t know,” he repeated weakly and readied himself for the next blow.

Instead of punching him again like Harry had expected, Nott grasped Harry’s right hand and wrenched two of his fingers as far as they could go without breaking. Harry gasped as tears of pain came to his eyes. He scrambled with his other hand to pull Nott off of him, but it was no use. The man was far bigger and stronger than he was.

“I swear I don’t know!” Harry said in a rush. “It all happened so fast- aaaagh!” He was wrong - they could bend farther without breaking.

“Keep it down!” Sallow hissed from the doorway.

“I can make things so much worse for you, boy,” Nott threatened. “And with no one the wiser.” He let go of Harry’s fingers long enough to put one large hand over Harry’s throat, holding onto Harry’s arm with the other so that he couldn’t move without wrenching it. He squeezed. Not enough to block Harry’s airflow completely, but enough to leave him gasping for breath. Enough to make the threat clear. He pressed harder…

Harry started to panic. He didn’t know what to do. This man was obviously unhinged. He didn’t think he would kill him, not when Voldemort didn’t want him to, but he didn’t want to stake his life on it. And…and he couldn’t breathe. Black spots merged with bright lights as the world began to fade away in a haze of terror and fear…

“Nott!” Sallow hissed and pulled him off of Harry just in time for another shadow to cross the threshold. Two shadows? Then again, Harry was seeing two Notts and two Sallows right then, so he couldn’t quite trust his eyes.

He collapsed, hacking, coughing, and gasping, trying to catch his breath but also not wanting to breathe. It felt like fire in his throat, and the coughing only served to hurt his head, stomach, and ribs. He rolled onto his side, hugged his knees to his chest, and tried to pretend for the sake of his dignity that his cheeks weren’t wet with tears.

“The Dark Lord will not be pleased if you’ve damaged the boy,” came a voice from the doorway. Crabbe? It sounded like Crabbe’s voice, and Harry sent up a prayer that it was him, and that Snape was still in his guise. He stayed on the ground, afraid to look up for fear of betraying either hope or recognition.

“Come off it, Crabbe,” said Nott. “You know he’s our best chance at figuring out what’s going on.”

“And? Was he forthcoming?” asked Crabbe in a neutral voice. Or was it Snape? Please be Snape, Harry wished again, eyes closed.

“No.” Feet shuffled, and Harry tried hard not to flinch when they stopped next to his curled-up body. Nott’s voice was closer when he said, “But give me time, and the boy will sing.” His voice was cold and merciless, and Harry gasped when the man kicked out at him, catching in the ankle. He curled up tighter, bringing his arms up to protect his head, just in case.

“You’ve made your point,” said Crabbe as if bored, though his voice held an edge of steel. “Go upstairs. Cool off. I’ll not have you killing the prisoner two minutes into my shift.”

Harry didn’t know what silent communication went on in the room while he protected his head for dear life, but it took Nott several seconds to huff and stomp his way out of the cell, closely followed by what he presumed to be Sallow’s footsteps.

“Pettigrew. See them to the hall, won’t you? We wouldn’t want them to get lost, wind up back where they started,” Crabbe’s condescension was heavy enough for Harry to catch as the door shut on the three - no, four - men arguing in the hallway. He couldn’t hear them, only the general timber of men’s voices, and he groaned aloud as he started to take stock of his injuries in the darkness.

His fingers and joints throbbed, his ribs and stomach ached, and his throat felt like it was on fire. But his head was what bothered him the most. He wished he remembered how to tell if a person had a concussion. Something told him that nausea and blurred vision were on the list. He groaned again and lay still when moving only caused his body to scream in protest.

He could really use some more of that Legilimency-induced strength right about now.

He flinched when the door abruptly opened and closed, and a muttered lumos lit the darkness before his eyes were prepared. He squinted and instinctively brought his arms back up to protect his head.

“We don’t have much time. Where are you injured?”

Crabbe knelt next to him, his blurry face lined with urgency. Oh, thank Merlin!

“Is it you?” he murmured, trying to decide which of the two Crabbes in his vision to focus his eyes on. He settled on the one on the left.

“Yes,” the man answered quickly. “Where are you hurt?”

Harry thought for a second. He needed to make sure… “What-” he licked his lips in thought, “What did Remus give me for my birthday?”

Crabbe looked about to lose his patience, but he snapped, “a bloody ridiculous pocket watch.”

Harry smiled in relief. “It is you.”

“Potter, we don’t have much time. The Dark Lord trusts no one these days. Since my defection, he is constantly on guard against traitors in his midst. He has us watching you in pairs so that no one is alone with you. I’ve bought us mere minutes.”

Harry nodded, but that hurt both his head and his neck, so he stopped. He tried to focus on Snape’s question. “Um…head, ribs, stomach, neck, hand. That order.”

Snape nodded and set his lit wand aside to pull some vials from his robe.

“I don’t suppose you brought some Harry headache potion with you?” Harry asked softly when he realized that talking any louder hurt his throat too much.

“Your scar?”

“Yeah. It hurts…like, all the time.”

Snape helped him to sit up - which hurt, but Harry wasn’t going to complain - and handed him a familiar-looking clear vial. Harry downed it and instantly felt his head and vision begin to clear. The nausea faded as well. Even the pain in his throat eased up a bit.

“Woah. That’s some powerful stuff.”

Snape didn’t acknowledge his awe, focusing in on the next order of business. “Lift your shirt. I need see the damage.”

Harry obeyed, watching and hissing as Snape carefully poked and prodded his stomach and ribs. It was so strange, this watching Crabbe but knowing it was Snape. Some of the right expressions were there - his frown, his impatient glare - but they looked all wrong on a stranger’s face. Like he had to learn how to read him all over again…and yet at the same time it was like seeing an old familiar friend in a new suit.

“Are you sure Crabbe would be quite so protective of a prisoner?” he asked. “I mean, what if they figure out you’re not him?”

“Are you questioning my spying abilities?” Snape shot him a look. In Crabbe’s face, Harry couldn’t decide if it meant he was amused or affronted. Maybe both.

“No. Maybe. You don’t think they’ll be suspicious of you interfering with Nott all the time?”

“Trust me, Crabbe and Nott bicker at the best of times,” Snape humored him but frowned in concentration as he moved closer to put gentle pressure on Harry’s ribs. “I chose Crabbe strategically. He is neither as dense as Goyle nor as ruthless as Nott. He holds a position of authority but is not so close to the Dark Lord as to be constantly in his presence.”

“Ow,” Harry hissed at a particularly painful prod of Snape’s fingers.

“Nothing is broken. Bruise balm would be too suspicious if they check your injuries. A potion and salve for pain will have to do.” Snape began to spread the salve on Harry’s stomach and lower chest, and if he was losing his gentle touch, Harry couldn’t blame him. They were in a bit of a time crunch. Come to think of it, who knew when they’d get the chance to talk again…

“I’m so sorry,” he blurted in a rush. “I didn’t think, and I know it’s not an excuse, but I’ll never do it again, I swear. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I do respect your privacy, professor, I just didn’t connect the dots in that moment, and I was so curious, and I’m used to people lying or not telling me things, and I didn’t think when I got the chance to know what was happening, and-”

Harry stopped talking when Snape held out his hand for silence. “We will discuss it when we get out of here,” he said without giving away what he was thinking. “Now is not the time.”

Harry shook his head, unwilling to wait. What if he went under Voldemort’s sleeping potion and never woke up? “I’ll never do it again, I mean it. I broke the Wall Watchers and-”

“I know,” said Snape. He looked exhausted all of a sudden, and Harry wondered what his last few days had been like. “I saw them. In your room. When we were frantically searching Kneader’s Point for you.”

Harry swallowed. He felt bad about that now too. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare everyone.”

Snape shot him an exasperated look, mixed with something else. Guilt? “You’re sorry for being kidnapped against your will by someone you had every reason to believe you could trust?”

Harry shrugged, sheepish. When he put it that way… “Did you - did Remus…?” He wasn’t sure how to ask what he needed to know.

“I figured it out. And he’s fine,” Snape anticipated his next question as he examined Harry’s hand and rubbed salve into the joints. “Other than recovering from a snake bite, your mangy friend is right as rain.”

His eyes opened wide. “Hunter bit him?”

“Later. We’ll talk later. After we get out of here.”

“Promise?” he asked, bolstered by the fact that Snape didn’t seem like he was going to go back to ignoring him. Not right away, anyway.

Snape gave him a searching look. “You have my word. Now, on to the matter at hand? Your dire circumstances and numerous injuries? Or did you manage to forget you are currently imprisoned in a dank, dark dungeon by the most powerful and evil wizard on the planet?”

Harry grinned. It hadn’t been more than a few days, but he’d missed Snape’s sarcastic humor. But he sobered up as Snape’s words penetrated his mind.

“D’you think he’s more powerful than Dumbledore now?”

“Undoubtedly.” Snape pulled another vial out of his robe.

Harry shivered at the certainty in Snape’s voice…er, Crabbe’s voice, technically. “How do we stand a chance against him now?” he asked in a small voice.

“We always stand a chance until the moment we stop fighting,” answered Snape matter-of-factly as he directed Harry to drink.

They both froze at a sound down the corridor. Harry quickly downed the contents of the vial, and Snape gathered the empty vials into his pockets and hurriedly stood up.

“But I need to talk to you about what happened. With You-Know-Who,” Harry realized in a panic. “I don’t know what happened or how, and what if he Legilimizes me again and I can’t do it again?”

Snape took a deep breath and quickly looked him over clinically, as if making sure he didn’t sport any more obvious injuries. “I’ll be back if I can manage it. Until then, trust your instincts. You have a natural affinity for the mental arts.” He met his eyes, something like awe in his gaze. “More so than I’d imagined.”

Then his neutral, dutiful Crabbe expression was back in place, and he quickly picked up his wand and turned toward the door.

“I’m scared,” Harry admitted to the man’s back. He didn’t want to be a scared kid, but he needed somebody to know that deep down, that’s what he was.

Snape paused with his hand on the door. “I know,” he said over his shoulder, not looking at Harry. “But you are no longer alone.” He quickly exited the room and Harry was left in darkness once more.

At least this time his head didn’t hurt and his heart felt lighter.

I’m not alone.

His circumstances weren’t ideal, and they were bound to get worse, but it was really, really nice to know that he didn’t have to face this all by himself.

He knew the moment Voldemort awoke by the flare of pain in his scar. It felt even more painful after he’d managed to fall into his first headache-free sleep of his ordeal. It had been plagued by nightmares, but the no headache part had been nice.

Voldemort was angry. Harry could feel what Voldemort felt clearly. A lingering effect of what had occurred between them, perhaps? Or a natural occurrence due to their connection and Voldemort’s heightened emotional state?

Whatever it was, he know that the wizard felt fear along with his anger, and Harry clung to that knowledge like a lifeline. If Voldemort feared his mind, then perhaps he wouldn’t Legilimize him again.

Of course, Voldemort was not one to pass up other perfectly good avenues of entertainment.

And so it was that he soon found himself yet again standing - and then writhing on the floor - in the center of Voldemort’s throne room, surrounded by a circle of ten or so eager Death Eaters. Voldemort in his rage had told them to have at it - with the usual stipulations in place to keep Harry from dying - and they had happily obliged with various pain and torture curses. He missed being able to annoy them with Voldemort’s name…but now that he knew Snape was in their midst, he stopped. He didn’t want to hurt him.

He was careful not to give the man away. Snape had entrusted him with his identity, even though it may have been wiser of him to keep himself hidden from Harry until he could figure out a way to get him out of there. And for that, Harry was beyond grateful. He forced himself to not look at “Crabbe” any more than he looked at the rest of them. Which meant that he watched them each in turn, even when he was being cursed, because he couldn’t not look to Snape occasionally to reassure himself that he was there. By the narrowed eyes of the other Death Eaters, he was pretty sure they thought the constant eye contact was a new game he was playing to get on their nerves. Funny enough, it seemed to be working. He felt some satisfaction in getting under their skin even when he hadn’t been trying to.

He was also developing a new level of respect for Snape’s spying prowess. If he didn’t know better, he would swear up and down that he was the real Crabbe. Not that he knew Crabbe, Sr. It’s just…Snape acted the part of a sadistic Death Eater so well that Harry caught himself almost forgetting that he was Snape a few times.

He knew that he was though. As convincing as he was in his role, the man had found subtle ways to let Harry know that he was still him. The first time his turn to curse Harry came along, he sent along with it a subtle silent numbing spell that made the rest of the Death Eaters’ curses tolerable. Harry had had to put his acting skills to the test, not letting them know that he wasn’t in as much pain as he should be. Another time, he taunted Harry about how he’d never again have his cushy life filled with sugar plum puddings and the like.

Harry had almost smiled at the ridiculous insult that the others were stupid enough to eat up and build upon but that reminded Harry of Mrs. Weasley’s care package. Not to mention, that fateful day he and Snape and Dumbledore had talked about whether he had the makings of a Seer.

Snape was careful. He didn’t give Harry many hints, only enough so that he got across that yes, he was still him, not Crabbe; and yes, Harry still was not alone. And that message carried another one to Harry, unspoken but clear: I am here to get you out of here…so hold on until I can find a way.

Harry was holding him to it.

He didn’t know what sort of protections Voldemort had on this place, but he could guess that there were a fair number. Anti-tracking, Anti-Apparition, Anti-whatever else you could block against. And he knew that he was never left unguarded. Even if Snape hadn’t told him that he was guarded by at least two men at a time, he heard enough shuffling at all hours outside his cell to prove that Voldemort wasn’t taking chances on him escaping. Even disguised as a trusted Death Eater, Snape would have plenty of hurdles to overcome to get Harry out of here.

Harry also watched Voldemort more closely after Snape’s talk of his increased suspicion of traitors in his midst. And he had gathered while observing Voldemort’s interactions with his followers that he didn’t trust any of them. He’d always been a bit of a fickle leader, but he seemed to have gone to an extreme since the last time Harry had been in his presence. Whether or not it was due to Snape’s unexpected betrayal, Voldemort seemed more unhinged and suspicious than ever before. Harry knew he wasn’t making it up in his mind, because as he watched, he saw fear and uncertainty in the eyes of the Death Eaters more than once.

He cried out as a particularly painful bolt shot through his legs like lightning. That curse had hurt. Which meant the numbing spell was wearing off.

A man laughed. Others followed. Now that he could feel the pain, he closed his eyes and tried to block it out. He tried to think about Voldemort, not about what was happening to him.

He didn’t know if Voldemort’s paranoia was good or bad for them. It could be good if Voldemort felt like he was losing control of his support or if his paranoia caused any on-the-fence supporters to leave him. Or it could be bad, because a paranoid Voldemort was more unpredictable, more easily enraged. And the more enraged be became, the more he wanted to hurt someone, anyone. It was also bad for Snape, because it made it basically impossible for one person to get to Harry and get him out of this place without being detected by multiple guards and extensive wards.

And yet, Harry was optimistic. He wondered if the pain curses were permanently messing with his brain, because he was lying in the middle of the large stone room, twitching and gasping at the pain any movement caused his overstimulated nerves, while smiling inside his head at the thought that Snape was the best spy in the history of wizardkind, and he would find a way.

But - ow - he sure hoped he found a way soon, because - ow - the numbing spell had definitely faded, and he was about to sob from the pain of it all.

He sniffed to hold back the tears forming in his eyes. It was becoming a daily routine, this trying desperately not to cry, either from pain or from despair. But even though they’d all seen him cry over the past days, the last thing he wanted was to be seen as easily broken. He couldn’t help screaming while the pain was inflicted, but he could keep himself from sobbing after. Even if they did eventually break him, he was determined to make them hate how long it took.

“Aw, poor ickle baby Potter,” came one of the voices he hated most in the entire world. Bellatrix’s face swam in his vision. “Are you going to cry? Cry for your mummy? Oh, that’s right. Mummy’s dead, isn’t she?” She laughed. No…she cackled. “I’m sure she’s said hello to Sirius for you.”

He thought he might thank her later, for she had given him anger to focus on instead of tears. If he hadn’t been trembling from pain, he certainly would have been from the anger now coursing through his veins. He looked around the circle, needing to ground himself with a glimpse of Snape, but the man was grinning too, pretending to enjoy this. The only hints that he felt differently were the hard glint in his eyes and the white knuckles holding too tightly to his wand.

Bellatrix knelt over him. The other Death Eaters just watched, as they had while others had taken their turns taunting Harry. He could at least be grateful that the verbal taunts had given him a reprieve from the curses on his body.

He hated all of them. They were sick. How could grown adults enjoy torturing a kid? They were evil to the core.

“Maybe your little friend will soon join them,” she taunted. “Ronnie, was it? That was one of my finer moments, wasn’t it?”

It took him several seconds to register her words, and his eyes swiveled to hers. She was grinning more widely now that she knew she had his full attention. And he knew - without a shadow of a doubt knew - that she had been the Death Eater who had cursed Ron. White hot hatred ran through every nerve in his body.

He didn’t hesitate. One second he was painfully twitching on the ground, and the next he was lunging for her with a throaty yell. He registered her wide eyes and gasp of shock before he took her down, hands around her throat. She scratched at him, and other hands began to pull him away. No. That wasn’t going to happen. She’d killed his godfather, and she’d as good as killed his best friend. No way were they taking this away from him. He yelled again as fingers ripped his hands away and lifted him and - a surge of something flowed through him, so basic yet powerful, and he couldn’t control it as it ripped outward from him. The hands fell away in a haze of shouts and he met Bellatrix’s frightened eyes and he was plunged into their depths.

Memories flew through his mind, memories that weren’t his. Bad memories, memories he wanted to forget as soon as he saw them. Torture, death, and things he didn’t think could be worse than death but were. And instinctively, he searched for one particular moment. He knew - just knew somehow - that he could find the information that Kneader needed to break the curse. He knew just what he was looking for…and - he laughed - there it was.

Hands succeeded in pulling him from her this time. Whatever mysterious energy had pooled in him was draining away. But he smiled. He knew what curses she’d used on Ron! He knew, and he just needed to get it to Snape, and Ron would be saved. It would all be okay and-

He screamed as Voldemort’s Crucio erased all conscious thought from his mind. His body curled up in pain, so much pain. Pain pain pain pain pain.

Crucio again, and he couldn’t help it - he started to cry between his screams. Bellatrix was right - he did want his mum. He wanted his mum and his dad and Sirius, and he wanted Snape. Snape would have a potion for this, as he did for everything. He would take the pain away. If Harry really, really needed him to, he would even hold him and make it all better. He would slay the dragons and chase away the nightmares. He wanted Snape so badly that he almost called out for him. He bit his tongue, felt the taste of blood in his mouth.

As the third Crucio hit him, and just before he lost consciousness, it occurred to him that Voldemort wanted his body intact, but it would suit his purposes just fine if Harry were to lose his mind.