Aspen
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A Year Like None Other
by Aspen in the Sunlight
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Chapter Twenty-Five: Samhain
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Harry lost his concentration as he was forcibly Disapparated, though he didn't realize as much until a new world came into focus around him. A dark forest clearing, the one from his dreams, but it wasn't true now that somebody was coming.
Something had arrived.
Voldemort.
And with him, a horde of Death Eaters, all of them wearing those hideous masks as they stared at the spectacle before them. It certainly was a spectacle; even Harry could recognize that much. He'd fallen to his hands and knees immediately upon appearing in the clearing, and was in the throes of vile convulsions, his body violently objecting not just to Apparating, but also to the lack of any food or drink in his belly. His stomach wanted to reject something, and when it couldn't, it twisted itself in tight knots instead, and tried to propel itself surging up his throat. Or so it seemed to Harry.
He began Occluding the moment he saw Voldemort's fierce red eyes fixed on him, but by then, it was too late.
Laughter rang out in the clearing. Horrid, evil laughter made all the more sinister by the fact that as soon as Voldemort began it, his Death Eaters echoed the sound en masse. A symphony of laughter as Harry crouched, retching. He thought it was his condition Voldemort found so amusing. Yeah, nothing like a bare-chested sixteen-year-old boy tossing up his socks to get your jollies going, he mentally commented, placing that thought above the fire, where any Legilimens could see it. But he'd misunderstood Voldemort's laughter.
The Death Eaters stood motionless, a slight breeze ruffling the hems of their robes while their leader stepped down from the raised platform where he'd stood. Two scaly hands reached out to grasp Harry firmly by the shoulders, the contact on his bare skin horrible, just horrible. Voldemort pulled him upright until he was kneeling, naked from the waist up, then leaned down to peer directly into Harry's eyes.
Fire. Fire. Firefirefirefirefire---
But damn it, damn it! Voldemort's powers were strong.
"You're thinking of your home destroyed," the Dark Lord softly whispered, moving to speak against his ear, though a rustling of Death Eaters told Harry that they could all detect the quiet voice. "You don't care much about that, though." Voldemort laughed softly. "I told Lucius you wouldn't, though it was a fitting end for a houseful of Muggles who thought to use me instead of the other way around. Ah, and you think so too, I see. We're alike, Harry, more so than you know. I told you that; do you remember? You should have listened."
All that passed through Harry's consciousness like candy floss across his tongue, dissolving before he'd had the barest taste, though it grated to hear Voldemort use his name. What mattered was to protect his mind, protect his secrets, to let the evil wizard think he knew Harry to the core, when he didn't know anything at all. Or, not anything that mattered.
But that wasn't true, as Harry found out in the next instant. Voldemort did know something that mattered.
"Pity you've lost your magic," he purred, his hands reaching out to cup Harry's face, his rough fingers caressing his temples, stroking his cheeks. "Of course it's in there somewhere... you know it, so I know it, but you can't find it, can you? My dear Lucius didn't need to take your wand, after all. You're like a child among us, wand or no. No defences, none at all."
Someone in the circle of Death Eaters jerked. Flinched, it seemed to Harry, though his vision was starting to waver. Voldemort was staring deeply into his eyes again, which meant that Harry had seen the slight motion with his peripheral vision, if he'd seen it at all. Lucius Malfoy--or the one he thought was Lucius; it was difficult to be sure now that the man had joined the circle--moved slightly, too. A sharp motion of his hand, palm facing the ground, as though forbidding something.
Harry tried hard not to wonder who it was that had flinched, just as he applied every scrap of mental discipline he'd ever had to not contemplating which one of those masks hid the one he wouldn't think of. Not here, not now.
Discipline, fire, maintain your focus. You can do it, Harry.
Finally recovering from Apparating, Harry found the strength to knock Voldemort's hands away from his face, and then, the strength to stand, though day past day without any water meant the ground beneath his feet felt strangely unstable. Voldemort rose with him, to tower over him, and kept gazing into his eyes.
He felt it again then, even stronger than before, the pulsing sensation of seeking, searching, a mind inside his own, trying to find his defenses, trying to broach them, trying to rape his thoughts. Harry pushed back as he'd practiced, just enough for Voldemort to perceive the fight, just enough for him to think that Harry was resisting... giving him what he expected, protecting his mind from an even greater assault... then a semblance of yielding, of exhaustion, as Voldemort pulled from him memory after memory, thought after thought...
Though only those which Harry was allowing him to plunder.
The world collapsed into a whirlpool of blood, the red of Voldemort's eyes encompassing the whole of his vision, but Harry kept his mental fire burning, and kept all that really mattered safe, though his hands twitched convulsively as Voldemort searched layer after layer in his mind. It was ever so much worse than he had imagined, far worse than he'd been warned. Like slime oozing across the surface of his mind and then sinking into every cell. Caustic slime that burned where it touched, that left in its wake an imprint of evil to taint his soul.
Finally satisfied, Voldemort stepped back and smiled, wicked enjoyment painted across his face. Harry blinked, clearing his vision of all that red, and noticed Nagini slithering in a circle behind the Death Eaters.
Voldemort clapped his hands just once before he announced, "Behold, the so-called savior of the world. Is it not delightful, the prospect he brings to us this night? Harry Potter, without a shred of power. The Boy Who Lived, without a trace of magic." A slight frown wrinkled his scaly face. "I'm surprised you didn't note this yourself, Lucius. It's been true for some while. The boy..." here, Voldemort laughed. "The boy thinks that he can hide the truth, fancies himself adept at Occlusion, but I saw it all the moment he graced us with his presence. He's become little more than a squib."
Harry clenched his fists, knowing that wasn't true, but other than that, he didn't let Voldemort's antics from distract him from what really mattered: keeping his thoughts so well hidden that the Death Eaters didn't even know they were hidden.
"Well, we shall have to change our plans," Voldemort was announcing, his voice consumed with mock sorrow. "Wizard tortures won't mean nearly as much to the boy now that he's barely a wizard." He licked his thin, almost non-existent lips. "Lucius, I believe you had a suggestion?"
A robed man came forward to kneel at Voldemort's feet, right next to where Harry was standing, and again, Harry had the fleeting sensation that someone in the crowd had drawn back from the sight.