Voldemort's Pet by novelminstrel

“Come out, come out, little Harry! What did you come after me for, then? I thought you were here to avenge my dear cousin!” Bellatrix taunted him.

“I am!” Harry shouted, enraged.

“Aaaah… did you love him, little baby Potter?” she purred, and Harry could hear her getting closer. He shifted away, but the pain in his head was building, and he was feeling a rage that was not entirely his own. As the pain and the foreign emotions built to a crescendo, he suddenly flung himself out to face down his adversary, a spell ready on his lips.

But Bellatrix was too quick for him. He barely heard the spell that left her cackling lips before a jet of red light streamed over him and he knew no more.

ooooo

Harry woke with a startled gasp and shot into a sitting position, breathing rapidly. Jeering laughter started up all around him, and he looked up to see himself surrounded by tall figures in black cloaks, their faces covered and the muffled voices that issued from beneath their hoods menacing. He tried to scramble away, crabbing backwards on his hands, but only made it a couple of feet before he was brought up short. Looking down, he saw that both of his ankles bore heavy iron cuffs, with a foot-long chain linking them and a second three-foot-long chain leading to a rusted iron loop in the stone floor. He drew a breath in as he saw suspiciously dark stains on the stones around the loop.

The Death Eaters’ laughter only intensified at his fear, and, egged on by this knowledge, Harry drew himself together. The rage he had felt just before the stunning spell had hit him returned easily, and he climbed shakily to his feet, ready to stare down his captors and die with dignity. He knew without checking that he had no wand, that there was no escape from this room, that Voldemort was nearby from the pounding in his head. His only remote hope was that Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix would find him and rescue him, but even that, he knew, was a very remote chance. He calmed himself with the thought that at least he would see his parents -- and Sirius -- soon, then turned as he heard Voldemort’s -- his soon-to-be murderer’s -- voice.

“Ah, Harry Potter has joined us at last.” The voices of the Death Eaters hushed in anticipation as their master spoke. “The lovely Bellatrix has brought him to me, and at last, he is mine.” Voldemort glanced to his left and Harry saw one of the slighter robed figures move forward, throwing off her hood to reveal her wild black hair and bowing low to kiss her master’s robe.

“Very good, Bella,” Voldemort continued, his voice soft and sibilant but heard clearly throughout the large chamber. “You shall be rewarded. But first…” He swung his snake-like visage back towards Harry and Harry steeled himself for the blow. “First, we must deal with this pest.”

“Go ahead then!” Harry shouted, wishing his mouth was not too dry to spit. “Get it over with!”

“Ah, Harry,” Voldemort hissed as he stepped closer. “So impatient. You would do well to learn some self-control, to rein in your temper. After all, rushing off foolishly is what got you into this mess.” He grinned as the Death Eaters guffawed, a twisted facsimile of a smile on his pale face, and stepped forward until he was just beyond Harry’s reach.

“No, I will not finish this quickly. I will enjoy bringing about your downfall, Harry Potter. I will prolong it, so that when at last you are finished, there will be no question in anyone’s mind that I am the greatest wizard alive, and that it was by mere chance that you ever escaped me.”

As he finished speaking, Voldemort stepped into Harry’s reach. But before Harry could react, Voldemort had flicked his wand and Harry felt another set of iron chains dragging at his hands, allowing them to go no further forward than where they were, clenched down by his sides. The Dark Lord took another quiet step forward, and now Harry could feel his breath on his face. It was all he could do to stand his ground as the pain built in his head and stare defiantly into the red, cat-like eyes before him. Voldemort seemed to see the struggle in Harry’s eyes, for his lips twisted upward once again.

“Bella, your reward shall be to help me in sealing this pest’s fate.” Voldemort lifted a finger and slowly, deliberately, brought it to Harry’s cheek, stroking softly while Harry clenched his eyes and his teeth in pain and fought to keep his shaking knees from giving out. Finally, he heard the sibilant hiss above him say, “When you wake, you shall be mine.” Then he felt the flicking of a tongue over his scar and the pain consumed all of him. He collapsed and the dark of unconsciousness fell over him before he had even hit the stone floor.

ooooo

He woke groggy and confused. He blinked his eyes open to a foggy world, where only dim shadows and outlines could be seen. His mind struggled to remember, to understand, but then a vague shadow was in front of him and he felt cool hands lift him and hold a glass to his lips, and he heard a soft voice murmuring. He fought to comprehend the words, but he could not hold onto their meaning. Too weary to fight, he sipped from the glass, nearly gagging at the oddness of it. He felt some dribble from the corners of his mouth, but he was too tired and confused to care. After only a few sips the glass was removed and the hands gently lowered him back onto a soft pillow. He felt the liquid wiped from his face as he drifted back into oblivion.

ooooo

When next he woke, he was aware enough to realize how out of it he was. He struggled against the fog that clouded his mind, but could not seem to break through the haziness that clung to his thoughts. When he squinted his eyes open, the world was slightly clearer than before, but still hazy and blurry, as though he was seeing through bubbly, only semi-transparent glass. He saw the form of a person bend over him, and he tried to shrink back but found he was too weak to do so. He felt himself being lifted slightly, and a glass held to his lips as before. This time, he managed to catch snippets of the murmuring as he fought to attain full awareness, as though he was listening to a badly tuned radio.

“...drink, there… Lucky he… left you like that… drink now…”

Eventually he parted his lips and allowed the liquid to flow into his mouth. He coughed and spluttered on the first couple of sips, registering that something felt different but unable to process what it was. After a few sips went down without much difficulty, the glass was taken away and he was lowered back to his pillow.

ooooo

The third time that he woke, Harry finally felt somewhat lucid. He opened his eyes once again to a blurry world, but only slightly more out-of-focus than the world usually was without his glasses. He heard quiet footsteps and looked to his left to see a dark figure moving towards him. Startled, he tried to back away, and suddenly became acutely aware of throbbing pain pounding through his body. He shut his eyes and groaned, then stilled as he heard an all-too familiar voice.

“Quiet, Potter. If you have not figured it out already, attempting to speak will undoubtedly cause you great pain. I would not advise it.”

His eyes flew open and darted to the blurry figure now looming over him.

Snape.

ooooo

A million questions flooded to the forefront of Harry’s mind, but for once he listened to Snape and held silent, believing the warning considering the amount of pain he was in. The pain discouraged him from trying to move again, and so he settled for trying to convey his confusion with his eyes, hoping that Snape might decide to -- for once -- take pity on him and try for an explanation.

“Good,” Snape said coldly. “Now don’t move,” he ordered as one hand snaked quickly behind Harry’s shoulders and lifted him into a reclined position. Surprisingly, the swift ministrations did not exacerbate the pain. Then a glass was held to Harry’s lips and, knowing the drill, Harry tried to carefully sip.

But when the liquid flooded his mouth, Harry gagged and coughed, the liquid spilling onto his front. Shocked, he tried to speak to ask why it felt so wrong, and then groaned at the throbbing emanating from his mouth.

“Careful,” Snape admonished him, keeping the glass at Harry’s lips. Eventually, once he had recovered, Harry tried sipping again, managing a few mouthfuls before the sensation grew all too odd and painful to continue. He turned his face away and Snape relented, setting the glass down and easing Harry back onto the pillow. He looked back up at Snape’s blurry visage, still hoping for an explanation.

Once he had cleaned up the spilled drink, Snape stood to his full height and clasped his hands before him. “The Dark Lord wishes me to give you an explanation. He desires you to be fully trained before he takes you, and is leaving that, along with your healing, in my hands.” Unsurprisingly, Snape did not look thrilled by this, and horror began to swoop into the pit of Harry’s stomach. He had not really believed that he had been rescued, he knew that Snape worked for both sides, but he had gotten the impression that he was being healed, so he had hoped… No matter. It was becoming evident which side Snape truly worked for, and his chances of surviving and escaping were dwindling even further.

“As you may remember,” Snape began, “the Dark Lord left the execution of your sentence up to Bellatrix. She is, you might say, a rather imaginative sadist, so the results are really quite exemplary.

“She has taken your tongue, so that you may not speak a spell. She has taken your fingers so that you may not hold a wand. And she has taken your feet so that you may not run away.”

Harry could hear a ringing in his ears. His middle felt empty, as though his insides had been scooped out. The throbbing pain that was still coursing through his body he now recognized was centered in his hands, knees, and mouth. He wondered vaguely if this was a nightmare, and through the roaring in his ears heard Snape continue his explanation calmly.

“She took your eyes as well, but the Dark Lord did not desire you to be blind, so they have been grown back. They should be fully healed by tomorrow, along with your stumps, and then the training will begin.

“The Dark Lord desires a pet.”

ooooo

“I can see the question in your eyes, Potter,” Snape sneered. “No, this is not a nightmare. This is very real. The Dark Lord wishes to have a menagerie, as many of the great kings throughout history had. And to show his complete dominion over you, you are to be the first addition to the collection. He wishes you to be his leopard.

“You may not yet have noticed, but your skin has already begun to spot, and has turned golden. I believe the fur will finish growing in over the next couple of days. To his Death Eaters, along with anyone the Dark Lord may wish, it will be perfectly obvious who you are, and just how humiliated and mutilated you have been. But to prevent your potential rescue, as impossible as the prospect is, you will appear as a true leopard to anyone else.

“Now, you are not quite finished healing. Sleep now, and in the morning you will be healed and your training will begin.” With that, he swept from the bed and out of Harry’s sight.

Stunned, Harry lay still and silent, the shock slowly wearing off as the reality seeped in. He wanted to deny what Snape had said, but the intense pain in his mouth and extremities made the story Snape had told all too possible. Was it permanent? If he ever -- as impossible as it truly did seem -- managed to escape, would magic be able to fix him? Snape said his eyes had been grown back, did that mean the rest could be too? He knew that not all injuries could be fixed, Mad-Eye Moody was evidence of that. He shuddered to think of spending the rest of his life deformed, unable to speak or walk or do magic. He did not believe he would ever fall asleep with these thoughts swirling in his head, not to mention the pain, but after agonizing minutes his mind finally tired itself out and he drifted into an uneasy sleep.

ooooo

When he woke again, he found that Snape was right, on several counts. His eyesight appeared to have been restored, although he hoped that his glasses were nearby somewhere since his vision was still fairly blurry. The pain was gone, and at first his heart leaped with hope, until he began to explore his body. Where his tshirt sleeves ended, he could see that his arms were covered in irregular brown spots, the skins between an odd golden yellow. And he was itchy. He moved one hand to scratch, then stopped. He raised his hands and saw only tiny nubs covered in pink scar tissue where once there had been a thumb and four fingers. He struggled to raise himself to a sitting position and looked down to see that the shapes of his legs beneath the blanket ended about where he expected his knees to be. Finally, he tried to stick one hand into his mouth to feel for his tongue, but found that the rest of his hand was not nearly as sensitive as his fingertips were, and it was difficult to discern what was what. Desperate to hold onto hope, he tried moving his tongue around his mouth, and felt nothing. He attempted to speak, but nothing came out but an odd gurgling sound, quickly choked off as an unwelcome sob rose in his throat.

But the sound was apparently enough to summon Snape, for he quickly came into sight from behind the headboard of the bed.

“You are awake,” he observed as he came to a stop by Harry’s bedside. “Good. The Dark Lord is coming shortly to check on your progress in person, he will be pleased to see you awake.”

Before Snape could continue, the sound of a door opening caused Harry to look to his right. Silhouetted in a doorway that he had not previously noticed was Voldemort.

“He is awake. Good.” His voice was as whispery as a hiss, and Harry suppressed a shudder as the Dark Lord moved toward him. He stopped next to Harry’s bedside, opposite Snape, and looked down at Harry with a creepy smile once again twisting his lips.

ooooo

“My new pet,” Voldemort said silkily. He reached out one long finger and ran it gently through Harry’s hair, and Harry swiped his arm away, opening his mouth to protest angrily and instead emitting what sounded remarkably similar to a yowl.

“Manners, my pet,” Voldemort admonished him, then his lips curled further upward. “Never fear, Severus will teach you right from wrong, and your proper place. I see that your fur is beginning to grow in. Itchy, is it?”

Harry realized that he had been rubbing absentmindedly at his stomach with his palm and stopped abruptly, scowling at his captor.

“None of that attitude now,” Voldemort said, giving Harry a brief pat on top of his head. “I only came to see how you are progressing, and to give Severus some of the supplies he will be needing. I wanted to see how you like them for myself.” A touch of amusement seemed to enter his red eyes, and Harry felt sure that he did not want to know what supplies Snape required.

“A collar, of course. What would a pet be without proper identification?” He held up a strip for Harry to see, but Harry could not make out the details. Despite himself, he squinted, wanting to know what he was getting into.

“Ah, but where are his glasses, Severus?” Voldemort said, “He must be able to see, for this at least.”

“Of course, my Lord,” Snape bowed, then picked something up from next to Harry’s bed and quickly slipped what turned out to be Harry’s glasses onto his face. Harry awkwardly adjusted them with his palms, then turned to look at what Voldemort held.

It was a strip of brown leather with a buckle on one end and several holes spaced out on the other. In the middle, a word was spelled out in large and shiny capital letters.

PEST.

“Your new name. Fitting, isn’t it? Pest.” Voldemort drew the ‘s’ out into a hiss, then swooped the leather around Harry’s neck and began buckling the collar. Too startled at first, it took Harry a moment before he started to resist, and by that point Snape was already pinning his wrists down. He bucked, but all too easily he felt the collar close around his neck and both Voldemort and Snape had withdrawn their hands. He reached one hand up and felt the cold buckle that sat at his throat, close enough that he could feel it when he swallowed, and realized with dread that he would never be able to release the catch without his fingers.

Then Voldemort handed over a matching leather leash to Snape, patted Harry on the head, and sent a parting “Good boy” over his shoulder as he swept back out of the room.

“Come,” Snape said briskly, “Your master wishes me to keep you in my rooms, when you are not in your pen, until you are fully trained. As your pen is not yet completed, we will head to my rooms now.” And before Harry had even processed what was happening, Snape had clipped the leash to the loop in his collar and was tugging on it.

Feeling he had few options, Harry sent Snape a venomous glare, then awkwardly tossed his blankets off two-handed and began considering how he would get down from the bed.

“Your knees have been appropriately calloused during the process of healing, and the bones hardened as well.” Snape informed him. “Your master wishes you to walk on all fours, as any other leopard would do. And really,” Snape smirked, “it is the only way you will get anywhere, at least quickly. Now come, off the bed.”

Shooting his -- likely former -- professor another glare, Harry flipped himself over and attempted to lower himself over the side of the bed. He was only about halfway through the process when he lost his grip and fell the rest of the way to the floor, landing heavily on his knees and then falling to his butt with a grunt. Before Snape could tug at the leash again, he flipped himself back over onto his knees and attempted to stand up, then quickly lost his balance and fell back onto his hands.

“I told you,” Snape sneered, and Harry glared up at him again. Then Snape turned on his heel and made for the door. Harry reluctantly followed behind, careful to keep close enough that the leash would not tug.

When they reached the wider hallway, Snape pulled hard on the leash until Harry was dragged to his side. Harry yelped involuntarily as the collar tugged on his neck.

“Heel,” Snape ordered, then explained, “Stay at my side.” He kept the leash short so that Harry had no choice but to stay close to his side, struggling to keep up with the Death Eater’s long legs.