A Nightmarish Kidnapping
As it always does, it started out as a usual nightmare for Harry Potter
First, he was in the middle of his bedroom back in Godric Hollows. Voldemort stood with a vicious grin as he casted the Killing Curse upon Lily Potter, and soon after the room filled with his mother’s screams, as he viewed her death from the cradle he once rested in before he became the savior of the magical world. The wind was howling through the broken window, brushing up against his skin as if he were truly there.
Cedric’s face followed soon afterwards. Harry was back in the graveyard, the details so clear that he could make out each of the individual blades of grass underneath his feet. Of course, there were the Death Eater, Pettigrew. He watched helplessly as the older boy’s body was struck with the green spell, the light hastily fading from his once so lively eyes. The scene shifted from the graveyard, to the bleachers where all three schools watched in horrid as Cedric’s body was brought back. The crowd stared at Harry with contempt, as if silently telling him that he should be the one whose life was stolen. The Golden Boy found himself agreeing. The cries of Diggory’s father echoed throughout Harry’s mind as he was led away from the scene by what he then mistaken as Madeye.
Sirius was next. Once again, the nightmare felt uncannily real. He could feel the coldness of the Department of Mysteries digging into his skin. If he focused hard enough, he could feel a light aching sensation on his scar, which only grew gradually more painful. But his attention was thrown back to Sirius as Bellatrix shouted the Killing Curse, which struck his godfather. He felt someone holding him back—Remus, he remembers. He looked back, to find that Remus was giving him the same stare that the crowd back at the bleachers were giving him. That same glare, without speaking aloud, that was telling him that the death of his mother, Cedric, and Sirius were all his doing. That aching feeling on his forehead stared to burn as he was thrown into the next scene.
He was underneath the Astronomy Tower, right by the staircase that led up to where the railing was. This fragment of the nightmare felt more real than the last. If he dared, he bet that he could make himself move from his hiding spot. If he were foolishly enough as well, he bet that he could change the outcome of that horrid night. But he was frozen, watching as the silhouette of none other than Severus Snape stood across from Dumbledore. Hatred filled Harry in that moment, burning within his core as he saw that wretched man again. He shouldn’t have stayed quiet. What had he expected Snape to do? Harry had known damned well that the man was once a Death Eater, and he was naive enough to believe that the man had changed his loyalties? Naive enough to assume that Snape ever had good intentions at Hogwarts? He couldn’t believe how idiotic he was. He desperately tried to move as Snape said that horrid spell, watching in slow motion as it hit Dumbledore and knocked him off the tower.
His scar was no longer just aching, but burning. Like if molten lava had been poured onto it. He wasn’t sure if the screaming was his, his mother’s, Cedric’s, Sirius’ or even Dumbledore’s. All he knew that it was loud, his throat was beginning to feel raw, and his scar’s agony was only intensifying by the millisecond. His breathing felt impossibly fast, and his arms were staring to feel a sharp pain, like needles being stuck into them, and numbness at the same time. He wasn’t even sure how that was possible, only that his panic grew more. He felt a thrashing sensation, followed by the sound of a door opening.
***
He was forced awake by a livid Vernon Dursley. Harry didn’t consider the image of a red-faced man, with little to no neck, to be a pleasant image to wake up to.
“That is enough,” his uncle hissed, dragging him off the bed. His body hit the floor with a painful thud, the rug burning his arms as he was forcefully dragged out of his room and down the hall. “I have had ENOUGH of you and your freakish magic nightmares!”
“What are you—“ he yanked his ankle out of the man’s grasp and stood up. It only lasted a few seconds until Vernon shoved Harry to a wall, causing the boy to knock his head against the hard surface. Harry whined, and he hardly had any time to open his eyes before Vernon was dragging him again, this time by the collar. The man’s grip was nearly choking him, and he tried desperately to free himself before they got down to the front door. “Uncle Vernon—“
”I’m fed up with your little stunts for attention, Potter,” he opened the front door and continued to drag the boy out into the night sky. “You’ll stay off my property until morning, so me and my family can get some rest for once without you waking us up!”
Panic filled Harry as he realized that he was being forced out of the blood wards, and without his wand. That was Harry’s first mistake—not running back to his room and getting his wand. He had stolen the trunk just a week into summer, too paranoid to be without any for, of protection he had against his enemies. He had managed to break the lock after a couple of days, which gave him access to his wand, and as a side product, a sense of safety.
“Uncle Vernon please! At least give me my wand—the—they can get me out here!” He pleaded with the man, trying desperately to free himself, but to no avail. The uncle gave a small scoff in response.
”You may be able to fool your poor aunt with that excuse, but I’m not so easily played, boy!” He shoved Harry onto the empty road. Harry could have sworn he felt the Death Eaters eyes penetrating his skin, watching him like prey. Or, perhaps it was his paranoia, he tried to reason with himself.
“I’m not lying!” Harry shot back at his uncle. “If I leave the property they’ll—“
”What? Kidnap you? At this ungodly hour?” The man was already turning away from Harry, walking back to the front door. “I’d consider myself lucky, then. Besides, I’m sure the Chosen One can defend himself, with or without your precious magic.”
”But where will I go?” He stood up and walked backed onto the pavement, not daring to take a step off and into the road. “It’s the middle of the night—it’s unsafe for me to be out in general!”
”You should have thought of that before you decided to wake the entire damned house up, boy!” Vernon was at the front door now. He turned back to Harry with a glower. “But I know that if I see you on my property before the sun is well up, then I will call the police and tell them that you were trying to break in!”
Before Harry could say anything else, the man slammed the door shut and locked it. Harry stood still for a moment, noticing that a few of the neighbors’ lights were now on, probably due to the commotion. He didn’t know what his neighbors thought of him, since he had never been aloud to even glance in their direction. He would be shocked if the neighbors even knew that he lived there, which, if they didn’t, would make it seem that Harry was actually trying to rob his own house.
He let out a cuss. No doubt the nosy people that lived next door would be watching, and no doubt that the Death Eater were watching as well. Harry once again tried to reason with himself. Maybe Vernon was right—it was easily beyond midnight, and perhaps all of the Death Eaters were asleep already. Besides, Ms. Figg lived close enough that if he ran, he could make in there within no time. If he explained his situation to her, she would let him in a heartbeat. He took a deep breath, and a few steps off the property. The lights in his house were already out, which signaled that the man had already gone back to his bedroom to sleep.
Harry took off in a bolt, running down the street as fast as his legs could take him, until he made it onto her lawn. He let out a shaky breath, exhaling deeply as he walked towards the woman’s front door. That was his second mistake—walking. The moment that red flash of light raced towards him, he knew he shouldn’t have left Vernon’s property at all. That he should have his in a bush, or a tree, or anywhere other than leave the safety of the blood wards.
Pain was too light of a word to express what he felt the second the Cruciatus Curse hit his skin. If the molten lava was the sensation he felt in his scar, then he couldn’t even begin to describe what he now felt across his entire body. It was beyond agony, it felt like all his nerves were being personally lit on fire repeatedly. His knees buckled, and he felt down onto the grass. He was so close, if he could just find the strength to crawl a bit further to the door…
”Ah, Harry…” a familiar voice came from his side. He will any remaining strength to look up and catch the eyes of Peter Pettigrew. The rat grinned down at him, his crooked teeth peaking through. The man crouched down, giving Harry a little wave before the boy passed out.
***
The usual nightmares filled Harry’s mind. His mother’s screams, Cedric’s lifeless eyes, Sirius fading body, and Dumbledore falling off the Astronomy Tower. Expect for when the last scene ended, Harry was shallowed in pitch blackness. He could hear voices, but no coherent words he could make out. His couldn’t feel much of anything, expect for the ice-like air that stung his bare arms, which he had begun to grow well accustomed to. When he tried to open his eyes like he normally would, they didn’t budge. Not even a fluttering feeling washed over his eyelids as he tried to forced them open.
Rapidly, his anxiousness from the nightmares turned into paranoia. He was in Privet’s Drive, expect the surface of his bed wasn’t not this hard against his body, nor was his room this cold. Especially not during the summer. He backtracked to what he last remembered—it was late at night. He woke up Vernon, and was thrown out of the house… then he made it to Ms. Figg’s before—it all rushed back him, so quickly that he didn’t believe himself at first. He was half expecting to wake up in his bed, being yelled at for sleeping in late and missing out on valuable time to complete his chores. But the voices that floated throughout the void did not belong to his relatives, nor did the cool, metal shackles he felt against his wrist and ankles.
His paranoia turned into panic. Pettigrew’s hideous grin was the last image he could conjure up, and if Harry focused enough, he could feel the stinging after effects of the Cruciatus Curse he had been subjected to. His chest, from what he could tell, felt tight. The realization that he had been kidnapped by the Death Eaters, and was laying on some stone floor in a location he didn’t even know—presumably in a dungeon of some sorts—and the possibility that no one in The Order knew that he was even gone, it petrified him. He felt like a little boy again, all defenseless again Dudley and his gang of friends as they were beating him up.
“The potion seems to be working wonders, Severus…” Harry felt chills run down his spine as he heard the Dark Lord’s voice approaching him. The dread that washed over him was indescribable. He wasn’t able to do anything besides listen. “He is in a complete coma.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Snape’s silky voice responded. The boy could feel the man’s eyes on him, making him feel itching and nauseous. Of course, he couldn’t scratch his skin, or act upon the rage that had been simmering in his chest. He could only lay helpless. A shoe nudged his side, as if Snape was testing if Harry was still alive or not. A moment of silence elapsed, before Tom’s voice rung out again.
“Watch over him, make sure that if he wakes, you force more of that potion of yours down his throat,” he heard footsteps retreating. Another nudge to Harry’s side as Snape replied.
”Yes, my lord…” he murmured lowly as Voldemort’s footsteps slowly faded until a thick quiet overcame the room he was in. Harry could make out the sound of fabric scrunching up as he felt the man body knelt down to his side.
Harry expected gloating from the man. He expected snarky remarks, or possibly even more curses to torture him while he was immobilized. The silence was so loud, that was beginning to cause Harry to hear ringing. Rage, that is all he felt in that moment. All he felt as the man’s cloak brushed up against his arm. His anger had completely engulfed any fear he had moments before, leaving him just a bowling ball weight of fury and hatred seeping into his bones.
He was waiting for anything. Remarks, hexes, curses, even more potions. Much like Harry thought that he could make it to Ms. Figg’s house unharmed and undetected, his expectations were crushed by Snape’s next actions.
”You are an utter idiot,” the man hissed out, sounding completely outraged as he took ahold of Harry’s wrist. The feeling of Apperation hastily forced itself over Harry’s entire body.