Harry Potter was back at Privet Drive and things were not going well, despite the Order's warnings to the Dursleys.  In fact, one could say that the thinly veiled threat merely exacerbated issues because Vernon Dursley was not a man to take a thinly veiled, or a not thinly veiled threat for that matter, well.  So when the car pulled up to number 4 and the "family" and "the boy" entered the house, some ground rules were set. 

"Listen boy, I don't care what those freaky friends of yours say, this is our house and I will not take orders here.  You will write those freaks every three days and you will tell them that things are fine or you will not have a home and those freaks can take you.  You will not leave your room except for breakfast, dinner and the bathroom and any chores that we decide to give you.  And you will do these chores without complaint.  If I hear one word from that bird, it's gone.  If you use that stick, I'll break it.  You will spend the summer in your room not making any noise and pretending you don't exist or there will be consequences, do you understand?"

"Yes Uncle Vernon."

Vernon Dursley could not have known how much that suited Harry or he would not have said it.  Harry wanted nothing to do with the Dursleys; he didn't want to talk to anyone.  He wanted to be left alone.  And for the first few days, that was exactly what happened.  He stayed in his room, laid on his bed and thought. 

If some people would say that he wallowed in self-pity and replayed scenes in his head over and over again, Harry wouldn't care, even if it were right.  If some people said that he flip-flopped between accepting undeserved guilt for himself and assigning blame on undeserving others, Harry would not care, even if it were right. 

He missed Sirius so much.  He thought that he had foolishly gotten his hopes up that he would finally have a family and had those dreams crushed, only to squash those feelings as selfish and self centered the very next moment, when Sirius should be remembered by him for so much more.  He'd think about how unfair life had been for Sirius, how he had spent time in the worse place in the wizarding world, perhaps the whole world, for twelve years for a crime he didn't even commit and curse the unfairness of it all. 

And sometimes he'd think about the people he hated and why and what he'd do to them if only he could.  Voldemort, Bellatrix, Snape and himself, though not in the same order from day to day or even moment to moment.  When he was low and thinking about Sirius he'd just lay on his bed, but when he was thinking about Voldemort or Snape, he'd pace, kicking his trunk every time he came to it.  And if he thought of Bellatrix Lestrange, he'd go mad and just stand there seething.

But for a few blessed hours every day, he'd convince himself to accomplish some task, if only to take his mind from the pain that seemed to pulse within him with a life of it's own.  So he reread his books from last year and did his summer homework.  Chores were the best; he'd throw himself at them with a ferocity few have seen in a teen doing chores. 

Despite the fact that Harry had little contact with the Dursleys, he couldn't help that when he did he was sometimes short tempered and bordered on rude.  The Dursleys never had given him a reason to be nice and he was finally in a mindset not to care about their punishments. 

Unfortunately, Uncle Vernon wasn't in the mood to keep the boy at all.  He may have listened to his wife last summer, but he had had plenty of time to think about the threat to his family, and like it he did not.  Petunia had reasoned with him that they would only have to keep the boy for a small portion of the next two summers.  That Dumbledore had promised her that Harry needn't stay the whole time.  And Vernon had relented, agreeing to pick the boy up from the train station and bring him back.  But Petunia knew that it wouldn't take much to give Vernon a reason to kick the boy out on his backside.  There was nothing she could do.  Rather, there was nothing more she was willing to do beyond that.  She knew she would not be able to stop her husband next time, so she waited, with a slightly sick feeling in her stomach for that day to come.  She really didn't like her sister and she certainly didn't like her nephew, but there was a part of her that knew she had wronged the boy and that tiny part of her made her just a little sick with guilt.  But she would do nothing, she knew.  After all, she had her own family to consider.

Harry was in the back yard pulling weeds on his first Saturday back at Privet Drive.  He had somehow managed to obey his aunt with, if not cordiality, at least a degree of civility.  Things might have gone well for him that day too, had Dudley not come home early from his friend's house.  He was perfectly willing to spend all day in the garden and all night in his room pretending he didn't exist.  But Dudley was bored and he had apparently gotten over the dementor episode last summer reasonably well.  In fact, he was quite determined that it had been his cousin's fault.  Vernon and Petunia were watching TV in the living room so it was just he and Harry in the backyard when he came out.  A full year of training for boxing had made Dudley quite a strong young man and he was about to use that to get revenge on one Harry Potter. 

            "Well Potter, thought you could avoid me all summer eh?  After what you pulled last year?"

            "I'm not avoiding you Dudders and the only thing I pulled was your fat ass home that night."

            Harry knew he should just shut up, especially since his wand was locked away in the cupboard, but he found he just didn't care anymore.  Of course, if he had thought it through, he might have cared, because the next thing he knew Dudley smashed his fist into Harry's face, knocking him to the side. 

It hadn't been a straight shot thankfully.  Nothing was broken.  But his lip had been busted and he had bit his tongue while falling.  Well, that was it.  Jumping back, he swung his leg out and kicked Dudley in the knee. 

For such a tough guy, he didn't deal well with pain.  Falling forward and screaming, he managed to grab Harry's arm and drag him down too.  By now, the adult Dursleys had heard something and were in pursuit of said noise.  Dragging Harry around by the shoulder, Dudley made to put Harry in a headlock, but Harry managed to squirm out and turn.  Kicking Dudley in the stomach and scooting back as fast as he could, he tried to get up, but Dudley grabbed his leg and dragged him back.  Fortunately, one leg was still free and he used it to kick Dudley square in the face.  Dudley roared and pulled back, grabbing his nose while blood streamed out. 

And that was when Vernon Dursley came running out of the house.  It took him only a second to see the blood coming out of Dudley's nose and decide what to do.  Hauling Harry up painfully by his arm, he dragged him into the house.  Petunia was beside herself with Dudley's condition and couldn't spare a thought for her nephew.  Throwing Harry down in the hallway, Vernon ripped Harry's old cupboard door open and threw his trunk out.  Bellowing so loud the neighbors could surely hear, he yelled, "Get all of your things and get out." 

            Harry couldn't believe it.  "But he started it.  Please."  Before he could defend himself though, Vernon grabbed his arm again and hauled him up the stairs. 

Harry didn't even try to fight back.  He knew he shouldn't be surprised, but he was.  He was also scared.  He had spent the last week convincing himself that he didn't care if he lived or died, but now all of a sudden, he changed his mind.  If he left, would Voldemort be able to snatch him up?  No, no the Order would be watching him.  They'd just take him back to Headquarters. 

His uncle threw him in his room and ordered him to get all of his things together.  His only thought was, please let there be an Order member watching.  When he had gotten all his things together, his uncle marched him downstairs, opened the door and threw his trunk out.  Then he grabbed Harry's arm, turned him around, and spat, "Never come back here boy."  And with that he was thrown out the door, tripped over his trunk and landed on the sidewalk.  Then the door was slammed in his face. 

He was homeless. 

He wanted to lie there and cry, but instead he grabbed his trunk and stepped to the corner.  What to do now?  No one from the Order was coming out.  He decided right then and there to go to Mrs. Figg's house.  Surely she could contact somebody.  But first, he remembered that his wand was uselessly stuck in his trunk.  "Right, first wand, then Mrs. Figgs."

            The second he bent down to unlock his trunk, a red light soared right over where his head had been moments before.  Turning his head so fast he nearly passed out, he saw something that made his heart stop completely. 

A Death Eater. 

And he didn't have his wand.  He'd never have time to get to it.  It was time to make a run for it.  Jumping up, he made a mad dash for the alley to his left, hoping, praying that he could somehow outrun them and maybe give the Order time to react. 

But where was the Order?  Surely they hadn't abandoned him.  Another spell sizzled over his head and he zigzagged his way to the alley.  Of all the times to not have one's wand, this had to be the absolute worse.  Swearing, he dove for the alley.  He looked ahead and made a plan.  He'd go through the yards.  Maybe he could lose them.  He looked back to see where his pursuer was.  The man was just now making it to the alley.  He turned back around, preparing to change course through someone's yard, only to have to duck. 

Another Death Eater had come up from the other side of the alley.  The spell soared past him, just barely missing his shoulder.  He heard someone shout behind him, but didn't waste time looking back.  Leaping to his left, he dashed for the picket fence, preparing to spring over it. 

And he might have made it too, had his baggy second hand clothing not got stuck on the fence.  Rather than the graceful landing on the other side that he had been going for, he fell over the fence, ripping his old shirt half off his body.  In any other circumstance he might have lain there groaning for a moment, but all he could think of was escape, so he jumped right back up, turned around and started running. 

But that fall had been all the time the second death eater needed to take good aim.  Harry jumped over a lawn chair just as the spell hit his back, and came crashing down on the chair in the exact position he had been in while jumping.  He was petrified!  Now he was really done for.  He prayed to all known deities right then and there for someone friendly to come along and he even allowed himself to hope that the footsteps he heard were someone from the Order.  But it really wasn't his lucky day he realized, as the black robes and white mask of the Death Eater came into view.  Now seemed like a great time to start screaming bloody murder but nothing came out, not even a moan.  Even his vocal chords were frozen. 

The Death Eater was smiling through the mask, he could tell by the eyes.  Harry then prayed for anything to stop what was going to happen next.  The Death Eater reached out, grabbed his arm and they disapparated on the spot.  While Harry's insides were folded in on themselves and then rearranged, all he could think was "Damn damn DAMN!" and even he realized how much of an understatement that was.

Every time he had been in trouble before he had had his wand on or near him.  And every time he had met Voldemort, he had started off with the ability to move and talk.  That realization really brought home to him how very screwed he was. 

He had imagined that someday he would face Voldemort with his wand and just like last time, Voldemort would want to duel with him to prove his supremacy.  And while that thought never gave him comfort before, all of a sudden it seemed like the best possible scenario, especially compared to this.  Because even if Voldemort did want to duel him now, he wouldn't have his own wand.  There would be no Priori Incantantem.  And this time there was no portkey and he still hadn't learned to Apparate.  His mind, unwilling to admit to such dire circumstances, turned to the comforting thought that the Order would find him.  Maybe he was a pessimist though, because those thoughts were followed by the grim knowledge that the Order hadn't found Voldemort before.  And even if they did, he'd probably be a stain on the ground by then. 

Harry had expected to open his eyes and see Voldemort's evil red ones looking down on him.  So when he did open his eyes, he was almost thrilled to find that he was in a room with several Death Eaters but no Dark Lord.  He couldn't move yet though.  All he could do was listen.

"Hey Lestrange, what you got there?  Is that Potter?"

The man who had grabbed him must be Rodolphus Lestrange then.  So where was his evil wife?  Perhaps that thought had summond her, because Harry was watching her lean over him with a sick smile on her face through a sudden haze of red. 

"Why, it's wee little Pottie.  Come to play?  Ooh what a cutie."  She was pinching his cheeks and shaking his jaw like some sort of sick parody of Aunt Marge with Dudley.  Bile was rising inside him.  He knew if he could just get his body to work with him he could puke all over her face.  How cute would she think he was then he wondered.

"Oh Rodolphus, the Dark Lord is going to be so pleased.  When he gets here he will reward you, husband," she squealed with delight.

Rodolphus clearly took his orders from his wife because the very next thing out of his mouth was, "What should we do with him until the Dark Lord returns?"

He was apparently not as creative as his wife.  Cooing as though she were watching a new born she stroked Harry's cheek and said, "Oh dear, what should we do with the Pottie boy?  We must entertain him of course."  This got a good laugh out of the rest of the Death Eaters. 

"Our master will be displeased if you kill him Bellatrix," said one Death Eater out of Harry's sight.  He didn't recognize the voice at all.  All he could think was, yes, I'll be displeased if you kill me too.

"Oh but I wouldn't dream of killing the little dear, would I Rabastan?  Oh no, I just mean to have a little fun with the wee baby.  Yes I do."

Oh Merlin, thought Harry, couldn't she just stop with the baby noises and faces.  He was a little surprised that he could feel embarrassment through his desperate fear.

Everyone was laughing again at some joke she had made.  Harry could only hope she kept up with the jokes instead of more unpleasant things.  But when she turned back to him there was no smile there.  In its place was a look of such pure hate it went past the border of troubled and planted itself firmly in the insane camp.  Uh-oh, was all Harry had time to think before she pointed her wand at him and cancelled the spell keeping him petrified.  He barely had time to register that he could move before she shouted "Crucio" and every part of his body was in agony.  He cried out but even that didn't relieve the pain.  When she took it off, there was a new light in her eye.  She had enjoyed that.  "Oh little Potter, how you've occupied my mind.  Over thirteen years in Azkaban because of you.  You'll pay now."

Before he could regain his breathing, she flicked her wand and he flew toward the ceiling, hitting it with a loud thud before falling back to the floor.  He could hear most of the Death Eaters laughing and a few of them cautioning her to be careful not to kill him.

"Oh don't worry, I won't break the masters new wee toy."

Harry was trying to sit up.  Nothing was broken, but he had had the wind knocked out of him.  He could feel tears streaming down his face, and whether from the pain or the fear or both he didn't know.  He tried to think through it all, to make some sort of plan, but he was several feet away from all the other wizards in the room.  He couldn't get to a wand even if he tried.  He could barely sit up at the moment.

"Oh is the baby crying?  Oh dear, we can't have that.  What would your dear old Dog-father say if he saw you right now, hmm?"

Rage.  The pain faded away, the fear faded away and he was left with rage.  Snarling, he lunged for Bellatrix like an animal.  Grabbing her feet he pulled her down and climbed over her with amazing speed.

"Shut up you psycho murderer.  Shut up!" he yelled as he brought his fist into her face. 

The others in the room recovered quickly though and all of the sudden he was writhing on the ground beside Bellatrix, trying and failing to block out the pain of the Crucio someone had cast.  When it ended, he was truly sore, but he tried to fall back away from the boot he saw sailing towards his head.  He failed to miss it entirely, but it didn't quite have the sting it would have if he had not moved. 

Unfortunately, Bellatrix was standing now, her nose bleeding freely and a low noise was coming from her lips, which turned into a snarl of rage as she pulled her wand up.  She screamed "Crucio" and his world again exploded in pain, but that was wholly unsatisfying to her.  Levitating a chair, she smashed it over his head.  He saw stars for a moment but managed to stay conscious.  Screaming she ran towards him.  "You evil little boy.  I'll kill you.  AAAHHH!"  Her foot connected with his ribs and he felt a snap. 

Well, there's broken rib #1 he thought ruefully.  She pulled back for another kick, but one of the Death Eaters grabbed her and threw her back.  And then the door slammed open and in walked his Worse Nightmare with Wormtail and Nagini in tow. 

All the Death Eaters bowed immediately.  Bellatrix sank to her stomach.  "My Lord, look what my husband has brought you.  Potter, My Lord."  Her voice was shaking though. 

And then that high, cold reptilian voice answered and it was all Harry could do not to whimper or faint.  But he was stronger than that.  If he was going to die, and there seemed no doubt to it, he'd at least die with some dignity.

"Yes, Bella, I am aware of that.  And Rodolphus will be rewarded.  But you, Bella, you should know better than to harm Potter without my orders.  Crucio."  She screamed a high, ear-shattering scream and in any other time and place Harry might have smiled to hear it.  "Get out of my sight Bella.  You disappoint me again.  See that it does not happen a third time."

She was whimpering on the ground, but at his words she cried, "No My Lord, never again.  I'm so sorry My Lord," and she ran out of the room. 

"Well Harry, we meet again.  But you do not look so well this time.  Pity."  His flat humorless voice made Harry's skin crawl but he made himself stand and look straight at the monster. 

"Oh yes Harry, how brave you are.  You think to stand and face your death.  How...noble."  With a lazy flick of his wand, Harry was bound with glowing chords and dropped to the floor.  He couldn't help but hiss at the pain from his wounds.  He was exhausted from the Crucios and the kicks.  "Ah, you're hurt Harry.  Let me order you some help before you die.  Make no mistake Harry, you will die, when I am done with you.  Wormtail!"  Wormtail, who had been in the corner pretending to not exist, scurried forward looking for all the world as if he were about to piss his pants.  "Y...yes Master?"

"Bring me the potion we were just discussing.  Harry here has come just in time to sample it."  Wormtail ran through the door as if he were being chased through it.

"Harry Potter, your lucky day.  You'll be testing a potion that your own Potions Master made for me.  In the meantime, Crucio." 

Harry screamed.  Had he been able to think through the pain he would have been cursing Snape's name but as it was, all he could do was focus on the curse.  When it was lifted, Voldemort was standing on the other side of him.  He regained his breathing while Voldemort and his followers laughed at him. 

Wormtail came running through the door with the potion then.  He looked back to see the pleased expression on Voldemort's face.  Desperate times called for desperate measures and he was desperate not to sample that potion.  Gathering all his energy, he threw his bound body into the path of Wormtail, who fell hard and crushed the vial of potion. 

Harry barely had time to see that he had succeeded before Voldemort shrieked and began firing hexes at Wormtail.  The screaming seemed to go on forever and Harry thought once again, that if the situation had been different he'd have been able to spare a smile for Wormtail's pain.  Voldemort was yelling at Wormtail, threatening to kill him or disembowel him or both.  The torture lasted for nearly five minutes and when Voldemort finally stopped, Wormtail was a quivering mass of flesh on the floor right next to Harry.

"You're lucky, Wormtail, that I did not kill you.  Next time I will not be so forgiving."  He then turned to Harry, his eyes narrowed and Harry could barely swallow past the lump in his throat.  "It's no matter, Potter.  My Snake can make more." 

At first Harry thought he was talking about Nagini, but Voldemort's next words were, "I'm sure Severus will be pleased to see you.  You've been quite the thorn in his side." 

Laughter greeted these words and all of the sudden Harry couldn't keep the contents of his stomach down.  This made them all laugh harder.  He didn't trust Snape.  He never had.  Any joy at being proven correct however, was drowned out by the fear that was twisting his empty stomach.  He hated Snape and he hated Voldemort, but really he was terrified of them both. 

"Take him to his guest rooms Rodolphus.  I think he's feeling a little ill from his journey.  Make sure he gets plenty of sleep.  We wouldn't want him to be exhausted during his little holiday." 

Harry listened to the sounds of their laughter as he was levitated out of the room.  Rodolphus seemed to take great pleasure in bouncing him off the walls and skimming his head along the ceiling on the way to what Harry assumed were the dungeons. 

And he was right.  They passed through a darkened hallway, turned right and descended into the cold and damp sublevel.  All in all, Harry was surprised to have survived thus far.  But he didn't have much hope for his continued survival.  A small part of him was rationalizing.  Surely Dumbledore has a reason to trust Snape.  Snape had saved him before.  But even if he could be trusted, and Harry had a lot of doubt there, how could Snape do anything without risking himself. 

He selfishly started in on an inner tirade about how he was important.  Surely Dumbledore would order Snape to rescue him.  But there was no love lost between them.  Even if Snape was on their side, he could just tell Dumbledore that he was dead by the time he got there. 

Yes, he hated Snape.  Snape wouldn't save him.  He'd be too thrilled to have him at his mercy, right where he'd always wanted him.  This internal rant was going through his head while he was levitated into the cell and dropped three feet to the floor.   He had been terrified only seconds before but now he was pissed and that felt a lot better.  He knew he'd be terrified again soon enough but for now, he let the anger take over.  He was going to die because Voldemort hated him for nothing that he'd ever done.  He was going to be humiliated by Bellatrix because he was powerless to fight back.  And he was going to have to look into Snape's black eyes and know that he and all the rest of his friends had been fooled.  And then he was going to have to die. 

He turned his head toward Rabastan, fully intending to lose his temper and yell at someone, but only got as far as "You..." before Rodolphus flicked his wand and he lost consciousness.