Chapter 45

The moment however was short lived. In a flash, a black blur flung himself upon Harry and before anyone could take in what was happening, the pair was whisked away by a portkey.

The pair re-appeared in a small room with no windows. The odor of trapped air immediately overwhelmed Harry's senses as did the gray that surrounded them all around. Without thinking, he kicked hard at the mass that had grabbed him and took a quick look around the room. There was only one way out- a lone door guarded by another man in a black cloak. Around the room, there were a total of four men in these cloaks, their faces shrouded.

In an instant the three others (one being the thing he kicked) raised their hands and bound Harry to a chair in the corner of the room. His hands were bound tightly to the back of the chair, giving him very little range in which to move them in.

"What the hell do you want?" He spat at the hooded figures. In this darkness, they resembled shadows more than actual humans. None of the four bothered to respond to him, but instead stood in front of his, all four wands pointed at a nearby wall. Soon Harry could make out a shape appearing in the wall. It was a face, one that soon came into focus as Lord Voldemort's. It seemed that the Dark Lord was in a dark and dreary living room, his trusty pet snake at his side. His right hand slowly stroked the snake's head, as the snake's eyes looked into Harry's menacingly

"Hello Harry," the dark lord said casually. "Welcome back to Britain."

"Thanks," Harry responded dryly. "The welcome party however was quite unnecessary."

"It was no trouble," Voldemort assured with a cruel smile.

"What do you want?" Harry asked, getting straight to the point.

"Now, now, is that any way to talk to a man who may hold your life in his hands? If I wanted to, I could kill you right now," Voldemort warned.

"If you had wanted me dead, you would have killed me by now, so you need me alive don't you?" Harry replied.

"Very clever, as expected of a fellow Slytherin," Voldemort said. "Yes you are correct, I do want to ask something of you. We have no reason to fight do we Harry? Yet we both have a common enemy, your brother. I can see it in your eyes that you despise him, just as I do."

"I don't despise him, he's my brother!" Harry responded through gritted teeth.

"Oh but you do. You've hated him for his fame and his glory seeking ways. You've hated how he was always the object of everyone's affections, and you've hated him simply for being who he is," Voldemort said with an evil smirk. "Join me Harry, and I will help you rid yourself of him."

"And if I refuse?" Harry asked, trying desperately to find a way out.

"Why would you refuse? I can offer you power you can't even imagine, knowledge you didn't know existed and spells that can do amazing things." Voldemort said gesturing around him. "Take a look at my newest experiments; these four men in the room with you now have taken a potion to remove their emotions. They are a breed of soldier that feel no fear, loss or pain achieved through research and breaking of boundaries. You cannot learn magic like this at Hogwarts or Durmstrang. Join me and I can show you the true wonders of magic."

Harry slowly began to form an idea. "Sorry, but I'm going to have to decline your generous offer," he responded looking Voldemort's projection straight in the eye.

"Very well Potter, you leave me no choice," Voldemort said, his voice turning cold. "Kill him," he ordered his four minions.

Harry however was ready for this sort of order. As soon as the four figures raised their wands, he pushed himself and the chair backwards as hard as he could into minion number one. The minion crumbled under the physical blow and Harry heard a few of his bones crack. Before the other three's spells hit him, he flipped over and shielded himself with the bottom of the chair. With a resounding crack, the wooden chair burst into thousands of pieces which flew all over the room, some taking refuge in Harry's back and legs. Luckily, one of the disembodied legs of the chair flew into another one of the minions, knocking them out as well. Now it was a bit more fair a fight with only two left.

Both fired of a series of killing curses silently as Harry moved to avoid the green beams of death while firing back spells of his own. The minions were quick to wave his magic off with a quick flick of their wands.

The exchange continued as the two soon began to back Harry into a corner, away from the door. Slowly running out of options, Harry panicked.

"Salvo!" He hollered and a jet of flame erupted from the tip of his wand. The blast caught the robes of the two minions and burned away their hoods. What lay beneath the cloth scared harry to his very core. The faces of the two were no longer even remotely human. Their faces were adorned with wrinkles and their eyes empty and devoid of any soul. Ontop of that, their skin was peeling and had a greenish hue to it.

Harry had no time at all to wonder what had been done to the two as one of the walls caught on fire. The room must have been painted with highly flammable paint perhaps even on purpose. Without thinking, he ran to the door, blasting it open before he reached it and running as far as he could from the fire.

The door led to a poorly lit hallway, of the same dreary design as the room. This led Harry to believe that he was in the depths of a manor or castle. Behind him, he could feel the heat of the fire creeping up on him from behind, so he took a chance and turned right. Out of the corner of his eyes he could see a flicker of fire dancing towards him gleefully.

Another intersection came and he took a sharp left. As he gained a few feet on the fire, he realized he may be able to apparate and so with hogsmeade in mind, he tried to disappear with a pop only to find himself dizzy on the floor of the castle/manor with the fire inches from his person.

With a quick thrust of his leg, he pushed himself away and cast out a jet of cold water upon the fire. While this did subdue the flames slightly, it also served to cloud Harry's vision by creating copious amounts of steam.

A final idea entered Harry's mind and as any other alternative would have been more tedious he allowed himself to try it. With all his might, he pointed his wand towards a wall and cried "Confringo!"

The wall crumbled, much to Harry's relief and released him from his very dull prison… only to put him in a very dreary graveyard.

Slowly, his eyes wandered from the hundreds of headstones to the thousands of skeletons lying amiss the place. The smell of rotting corpses filled his nostrils as he turned to find freshly dead bodies leaned up against the infrastructure he had just escaped.

"Where the hell am I?" He muttered to himself. Suddenly he felt a small prick at the back of his neck. Turning swiftly, his wand poised to attack, he saw the building behind him being swallowed by the growing fire. He needed to get as far away as he could.

"Help!" He heard a voice call from above. Looking around, he saw a boy behind a window, knocking on the glass on the higher floor of the structure. "Please, help me Mr. Potter!" The boy screamed and Harry couldn't help but stare.

How did the boy know his name?