Evanesco

Evanesco

Chapter Six

In Which the Situation Becomes a Lot More Serious

Draco had stepped into the fork of a tree in order to see what was going on. He shivered when the red eyes swivelled to survey the entire group as his father hurried to undo the knots around Potter's - or rather, Voldemort's wrists. Longbottom looked like he was going to wet himself with terror. Although he wouldn't admit it, Draco thought he might be close to that state of mind himself, but couldn't bear to tear his eyes away. This was Voldemort. The Dark Lord. He was real. He was... there. When Potter had gone into what looked like a spasmodic attack, he'd been prepared to be standing there smirking when he came to, but had been beaten to the scene by the entire company, all of whom had been on edge since they'd set up camp.

Draco envied them. He'd been on edge since he'd had to get into that bloody truck again, but this time with her. Nott didn't talk much, but that was fine by him. Bellatrix Lestrange spoke constantly, hardly ever making much sense but always with cold laughter in her words that made Draco's hair stand up on end. It made him sick to see his father fawn over her as though they were young lovers at Christmas. Neither seemed to remember that they were married. Draco knew it wasn't any of his business, but the thought of his mother at home, waiting impatiently for them to return and not knowing of her husband's blatant affections for her sister made him sick to the stomach.

There was something else. Draco didn't know what it was, but he had a feeling someone was going to let it slip soon. Whenever the two of them were in sight, the other Death Eaters would glance over at Draco in an infuriatingly superior way that suggested to him that they knew something he didn't.

"Master..." his father was stammering now as The Dark Lord stood, looking down at himself and turning his nose up at Potter's torn jeans in disgust. "Master... how is this possible?"

"A simple process, Lucius," that horrible voice informed Draco's father. "Potter's mind is weak, and easy to break into. The distance between our bodies causes a little added difficulty, but nothing that cannot be overcome in time. The closer you bring him to me, the easier the journey becomes."

"And is Potter -"

"Fully conscious, I assure you," sneered Voldemort. "And clamouring to be set free as though I might comply out of pity. The idiot boy thinks he has power over me."

It was at this point that Bellatrix Lestrange chose to make herself known. She glided forward through the ranks of men to stand beside Lucius Malfoy.

"Ah," said Voldemort, in a softer tone that was no less terrifying than his usual voice. "Bellatrix, my sweet."

Because of Harry's height, Bellatrix had to lower herself to her knees to kiss the grubby hand he offered her. Voldemort looked at the hand afterwards. "This body is repulsive," he said. "But it is necessary in order to convey my orders to you. Lucius, you are travelling off course. Do what is necessary to correct yourself, even if it means walking."

Draco's mouth dropped open. Many of the assembled Death Eaters started mumbling.

"But Master -" Malfoy protested. "The Muggles..."

"No arguments, Malfoy!" Voldemort hissed through Potter's lips.

--

Harry was angrier than he'd ever been in his life - with Voldemort, mostly, but also with himself. He'd felt the bastard enter his mind and hadn't been able to do anything about it! He could hear Snape's voice laughing in triumph somewhere in his subconcious. He was still in his body, but unable to control anything. Voldemort had completely taken over, and Harry's consciousness had been shoved to somewhere in the back where he could watch, but not interfere.

"LET. ME. OUT!!!" he thought as hard as he could. And the thought of Voldemort came back to him. "Really, Potter? Well, as it is your wish I shall have to comply. Or I could simply continue using your body as a resting place for my mind. I believe I prefer that option."

"Well I DON'T! Go away!" He shuddered inwardly as Bellatrix kissed his hand. "Oh, that's disgusting." Desperately Harry tried to remember something - anything - that Snape had taught him. He tried in vain to clear his mind and was met with pure resistance.

"Desist, Potter, before I do something to hurt your friend."

Voldemort looked at Neville through Harry's eyes, and Harry saw. Neville looked as though he'd been reduced to the boy Harry had met in first year, a nervous disaster just waiting to happen, looking at Harry in disbelief.

"If you even THINK about hurting him..."

--

"Potter, shut up before I lose my temper!" the Dark Lord suddenly yelled, apparently to no one in particular. Draco almost fell out of the tree. For a moment, there was silence.

"Lucius," Voldemort hissed. "Get them to me. Bellatrix will show you the way. Do what she tells you. My dear," he continued, turning to Lestrange almost fondly. "Do not disappoint me again. They're both mine." He looked at Longbottom, who shrunk away, terrified. "Nagini is getting impatient."

Potter collapsed.

--

Harry felt the terrible presence in his mind jerk away, none too gently. He fell to his knees, the pain in his scar fading but still immobilising. Without Voldemort to hold him up, he could not stand. He could move his fingers.

Before he had a chance to even think of making a break for it, two of Malfoy's men ran forward and pushed him back up against the tree, securing his hands once more.

Harry felt like he could be sick, except there wasn't anything left in his stomach to come up. His heart was pounding so hard he thought it would burst out of his chest. People were talking and someone was calling his name but it all seemed to come from very far away. His sinuses felt muffled as if he was underwater. He tried to fight the suffocating air that surrounded him, but in vain, the stress on his body had left his limbs feeling as useless as cooked noodles. He sank, slowly, painfully, into sleep.

--

Several hours later, Neville had passed the stage that some could call nervous and had progressed to what he liked to refer to as bladder-twisting mind-numbing terror. With Harry out of it, there was nothing to distract him from the reality of the situation, which was that they were miles from home in the company of madmen and killers, there was no way out and when this horrible ordeal of a journey ended, Harry was going to have to face Voldemort again and he, Neville, was going to be fed to a giant snake. The future looked dim.

It was cold. They couldn't have been more than a mile from people in any direction and the ground was thick with leaves and other debris, but despite the danger someone had magically lit a fire. It glowed blue, no smoke came off it and it didn't seem to be burning anything, particularly. The Death Eaters were huddled around it, but Neville was in sight of at least one of them all the time. If escape was at all possible, he would not get far.

Neville knew how to light normal fires by magic. He knew that Hermione, who would have been extremely useful on this little escapade, had been conjuring those magic fires since her first year. But no one had taught them how to do it in class. For the hundredth time he resolved to do some extra reading over the holidays to get him up to speed with everyone else.

But you're not on holiday anymore, said a nasty little voice in his brain. You're stuck in the middle of no where with the woman who tortured your parents until they lost their minds, and there's no way you can get out. You're going to die. What'll five years of struggling in class and blowing up cauldrons be worth then? Neville tried not to listen. The voice was the part of him that always tried to convince him he was worthless, talk him out of trying because there was no reason to continue. It's a Deceiver, but what it says makes a horrid sense. Everyone has a part of them like this, but in Neville, the Deceiver was that close to dominating him.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Draco Malfoy watching him, probably thinking the same thoughts he was, only Malfoy was thinking them with glee. Bastard, he thought, thinking the word viciously. Malfoy at least was something that kept him on the ground, away from the Deceiver - Malfoy was regular. He was always there, ruining people's lives one evil step at a time. But he hadn't killed anyone, Neville decided. He isn't the same as the others. Killing changes a person. You could see it in all the men around the fire. A sick power burned within them, the temptation to use it threatening to take over. Neville shuddered.

What would I be doing if I wasn't here? he thought, averting Malfoy's eyes and looking up to the sky, visible through the thin tree branches. It was powder blue. Would he be reading? Writing letters to his friends? No, he never did that. That was something done between best friends, and though he was on good terms with all the Gryffindor boys, and even a couple of the Hufflepuffs who hung around the greenhouses on summer afternoons, he wasn't close to anyone, not really. Insane as it sounded, the plants understood him better than anyone he knew, even his gran. Especially his gran. If he told anyone this they would say that plants were just - well - plants. They didn't think. Neville knew they were wrong. Some of the most magically advanced even understood speech - the venomous tentacular, for one. And those that couldn't... sensed things. Perhaps that's where he would be, by the windowsill, running the feelers of the plants he kept there between his fingers, gingerly stroking the surface of the mimbulus mimbletonia. Or at the hospital, with his gran... his gran. Neville moaned softly. He'd barely thought about her for three days. What on earth was she going to do?

--

The Aurors were suiting up for the day. Kingsley Shacklebolt had received the order and stood now, looking grimly at the piece of parchment, waiting for his three colleagues to catch up. Waste of time, he thought. I should be in that meeting. With Potter missing and Tonks in hospital, the sense of urgency had risen dramatically at Grimmauld Place. Kingsley did not have time for trivial matters.

"What's the job, sir?" enquired young Robert Burney, who had just scraped through his final exam and had been on the force for little more than a month. He got excited about the slightest thing. This ought to send him off the edge.

"Nothing much," Kingsley rumbled. "Some old woman in St. Mungo's hasn't heard from her grandson in days and thinks he might have been kidnapped."

Olivia Thompson, five years Kingsley's junior and sharper than a knife, looked up from lacing her boots. "What?" she snapped. "That's it?"

Kingsley suppressed a smile. He'd been thinking lately about convincing Olivia to join the Order. She knew what she was about, and with Tonks gone...

"Ah, not quite," he said. "She's sent various people to check on the boy, who is supposedly in the care of an uncle, or great uncle, and there was no one at the house. The door wasn't locked but apparently there's no sign of a struggle."

"So what are we going for, then?" enquired the fourth member of their party, Alexander Higglewick, who insisted on being called Lex, which Kingsley thought was something of a dog's name. Lex was strong as an ox, and quick with a wand, but tended to complain a lot, something which people like Olivia Thompson looked down on. It was a poorly organised group.

"To see if there was a struggle and determine whether the boy was actually kidnapped." Kingsley said firmly, leading the way to the Aurors apparition port.

"I still don't see why we have to go," complained Lex, grabbing his wand and shoving it his holder roughly. If he'd have pouted he would have been the picture of a spoiled five year old. "Isn't it a job for the MLE?"

"The Magical Law Enforcement has enough on its plate as it is," snapped Kingsley, though he privately agreed. "Attacks on Muggleborn homes have increased by almost fifty percent since July, as you well know."

Arthur Weasley was standing outside the apparition port, apparently waiting for him. "Excuse me," said Kingsley to his comrades. "Arthur," he greeted his friend.

"Kingsley, I just wanted to make sure you weren't coming to... ah..." Mr. Weasley glanced at the three Aurors waiting behind the big man. "To dinner," he finished, meeting Kingsley's eyes in a significant way.

"Sorry," said Kingsley, and meaning it. He nodded towards his comrades. "Duty calls, you know how it is."

"Of course," said Arthur, and Kingsley missed Lex's question.

"What'd you say, lad?"

"The boy's name, sir," Lex repeated. "The one that's been 'kidnapped'."

"What? Oh - Neville something..."

Arthur's eyes flashed. He grabbed Kingsley's arm. "Neville Longbottom? Alice and Frank's boy?"

Kingsley glanced back down at the parchment in his hand, suddenly wishing he'd read it properly. "Must be," he said, eyes meeting Arthur's. Mr. Weasley did not release his arm.

"I'm coming with you."

--

"Harry?"

There was no answer. Neville found himself envying his friend. Six hours unconscious had to be better than six hours awake in this place.

"He'll wake," said a voice by his ear. He jumped, then frantically tried to strain away. Bellatrix Lestrange was crouching beside him, an expression of mock innocence on her face. "Poor baby," she giggled as Neville shrank away, against Harry's prone body. "Far from home with no where to go."

God, her eyes were mad. Try as he might, Neville simply couldn't look away from them, they were captivating, hypnotizing.

She stroked his hair, he shuddered at the touch. "I'll take care of you," she said softly. She didn't seem to be talking to him as much as thinking out loud. 'I won't let anything happen to you."

Anger coursed through Neville like fire. "R-right," he stammered. "Like you didn't let anything happen to my parents?"

"They're happy now," Lestrange murmured, still stroking his hair.

"No they're not!" Neville almost shouted. Suddenly the stroking became a forceful tug - the woman had a handful of his hair and was using it to force his head back. Neville's eyes watered.

"We'll be happy, you and me," Lestrange sang. "I'll be your new mummy." Neville shivered, and the madwoman jerked her hand back. It came away with strands of brown hair between her fingers. She sniffed them, smiling. "Pretty," she said and wandered off. Neville took a deep, shuddering breath.

"Disgusting, isn't it?" said yet another voice from behind him, and Neville wondered how many of these shocks would lead him to a heart attack. It was Malfoy, strolling casually to stand beside him.

Neville glared up at him. "I was leaning more towards painful and creepy," he said.

"I mean that," snapped Malfoy, nodding towards the fire. Neville looked and saw Malfoy's father fussing over Bellatrix who seemed pleased at the attention.

"What?" Your dad and his new girlfriend, Malfoy? Fat lot I care."

Malfoy looked at him in surprise. "An answer almost worthy of Potter, Longbottom," he remarked. "How much d'you pay for the sliver of backbone?"

Neville opened his mouth, then shut it again. "Shut up, Malfoy," he said eventually.

Malfoy sneered, but not in his usual exultant way. He seemed diminished, somehow, like a squishy fruit left out too long in the sun. He even smelled, like dead vegetation and dirt. So did they all, though, Neville realised. "I'm sick of this," Malfoy muttered.

"You're sick of it?"

Malfoy did not answer. He crossed his arms and stood in silence, watching his father on the other side of the blue flames.

Suddenly Neville felt Harry stir. "Harry?" He reached out his foot and touched his friend gently on the leg. The response was startling. Harry's head snapped around and he snarled, eyes green but blazing.

"Leave me alone!"

Neville's eyes widened in fear as he tried to scramble backwards. "Harry, what's wrong with you?"

For a moment no one moved. Then the blaze in Harry's eyes faded. "Oh god... Neville... I'm sorry..." he raised a shaking hand to his forehead and closed his eyes. "What happened?"

"Don't you remember?" asked Neville, reluctantly inching back towards him.

"Sort of. God, that hurts."

"Not surprised," said Malfoy, casually, not moving his gaze from the fire.

"Fuck off, Malfoy."

"Touchy. Want me to send you back to sleep again? I'm a dab-hand with a stunning spell."

"Just shut up. What are you doing over here, anyway?"

"Best vantage point to watch the two lovers," Neville told him.

Malfoy kicked Neville hard in the shin. Neville winced. "Shut the hell up, Longbottom. You don't know a thing." Malfoy stormed back to his tent.

"More than you, probably," Neville muttered. "Are you ok?" he asked Harry.

"I feel like I've been pulled through a grinder," groaned the other boy. "That bastard."

"What... what was it like?" asked Neville tentatively.

Harry stared at him. "I don't know," he said finally. "It was... like I was watching myself doing and saying all that stuff... but still with my own eyes."

Seeing Neville's confusion, Harry shrugged. "I don't understand it either. Oh, and he was talking to me, too."

"He said you were yelling to get out."

Harry shuddered. "It was like being trapped in my own head. And let's not forget the agonizing pain."

Neville frowned. "Trapped inside your own head?"

"Don't ask me to explain it."

"No - I get it - I mean... that's what the Healer's at St. Mungos... about my parents... that's just what they said."

Harry suddenly found himself imagining being helpless within his own consciousness for years, even permanently, and thought maybe there might be a little something left in his stomach to be sick with.

"Wow... Neville..."

Neville shrugged. "Nah, I'm used to it. It's just weird you described it that way, that's all."

"Mmm."

There was a pause. "Does it still hurt?" Neville asked eventually.

"Yes. Getting better, though."

"Do you think it'll happen often?"

"Now he knows how to do it, I'd say it'll happen whenever the bastard feels like it, Nev."

"Great." Another silence. "So how come... I mean, why couldn't he do it before?"

Harry thought about this. "We're nowhere near each other, right?" he said. "I mean, he said that we were going off course, we might not even be in the same country, let alone the same area.."

"Ok."

"I've never heard of Legilimency been done over a distance. I suppose the vision-dreams I get are sort of like Legilimency, except I'm pretty certain Voldemort isn't sending them on purpose, that's got something to do with the connection he made when he tried to kill me..."

Neville now looked totally confused. Harry sighed, then looked at the midday sun, high in what they could see of the sky. They had time to fill in the gaps and then some.

Harry told Neville the entire story - things only Dumbledore, Ron and Hermione really knew. He had a feeling that if they ever DID get out of this - they were going to be looking out for each other a lot more, and Neville had told him that slight bit of information about his parents - unusual for Neville since he normally didn't want to say anything about them. He left out the part about the prophecy, though. He wasn't ready to tell anyone that yet, and besides, how stupid would he have to be to bring that up in the middle of a Death Eater camp and Voldemort able to hijack his mind any time he wanted?

He could tell, though, by the way that Neville nodded slowly and asked innocent questions, that his friend could tell there was something missing from the story.

Too bad.

--

From inside his tent, Draco Malfoy listened, and learned.