A Lost Love

He woke up suddenly, pain searing through his forehead. It hurt so bad he couldn't breathe. Then, just as suddenly as it had started, it was gone. He felt no pain except for the ropes binding him tightly. Wait a second. Ropes? Why am I tied up with ropes?

He tried to speak, but he realized someone had stuffed what tasted like an old rag in his mouth. What's going on here? Why am I bound and gagged?

He tried to sit up so he could see where he was, but the ropes preventing him from doing so. Even if he could sit up, he wouldn't be able to see anything.

The room was round and very cold, with no windows. There was just a single wooden door at one end of the room. There was no way of escape except for the door, but that was at least fifteen feet away. He sighed to himself. I have to at least try. He slowly started to move his way to the door by rolling over and over again. He stopped to take a break when he was about 7 feet away.

He was thinking frantically, questions firing through his head. What am I doing here? What is this place? How did I get here? It seemed all he could remember was that his name was Harry Potter and he had to kill someone named Voldemort. But who was Voldemort? He thought harder and he could remember a beam of blue light and something with fiery red hair. He started to make out a face to which the fiery hair belonged. Whoever it was, it was a girl. He almost made out the eyes, but a noise at the door caught his attention.

The door swung open letting in some light in. People wearing hoods and masks came slowly into the room, surrounding him. Then he heard possibly the most evil voice imaginable. He could tell that the voice was outside of the room, in the doorway. It was high-pitched, but he could still tell it was a man. Or what was once a man.

"Finally. We have the famous Harry Potter alone with no possible way of escaping. I have waited so long for this day. No one will be able to come to his aid. Not Dumbledore. Not his best mate Ron Weasley. Not even his girlfriend, who loves him so dearly." By this time, his voice was dripping with sarcasm. He slowly turned to Wormtail. "What do you think, Wormtail, would be the best curse to put on him first? After all, without you, Harry would never be here."

Harry's mind started racing. How did they know him? Who was Dumbledore? If Weasley was his best mate, how come he couldn't remember him? I have a girlfriend? Is that the girl with the red hair? If I'm so close to them all, why aren't they trying to save me? The questions firing in Harry's head ceased when he noticed that a bald, scared-looking man had emerged from behind his mask and looked at the door. He spoke with a small quaver in his voice, obviously intimidated by The Being in the doorway. " I-I think any curse you choose would suffice."

The Being suddenly emerged from the doorway, as if it had been hiding in the hall way the entire time. It was tall, with a hood pulled far over his face. He spoke to Wormtail in a cold, emotionless voice, "You were a faithful servant, but never very independent. Always had to have someone make the choices for him. It is time for you to make a choice. Which curse do you think you do best, under the circumstances?"

Wormtail looked at the hooded figure with fear in his eyes. " I think the Cruciatus Curse would do nicely."

"Very fine selection. I would have chosen it myself. Malfoy, take out his gag, I want to be able to hear his screams without it."

A hooded figure from behind him came and took out the gag, giving Harry the opportunity to ask the many questions that had been firing in his head.

"Who are you? What do you want? What is the Cruciatus Curse? Why am I here? Who is Dumbledore, and Weasley? I have a girlfriend? Is she OK? What did you do with them? "

The Being looked in Harry's direction and said, "You don't know who I am?" He started walking around Harry like a shark about to capture his prey. "I would have thought you remembered me. Of course, it's been 7 years since our encounter in your 4th year at Hogwarts; but still, I would have thought your memory would be better than that. But then again, you were a Gryffindor." He stopped directly in front of Harry, and slowly started to take off his hood. What he revealed made Harry sick to his stomach. His face was pure white with small slits for eyes. The brightest and most frightening eyes ever imagined lay inside those slits. Where there should have been a nose were two vertical slits. He looked very familiar, but Harry couldn't remember who he was.

The man spoke again slowly, in the same cold voice he had used with Wormtail, " Do you remember me now?"

Harry slowly shook his head. "You looked familiar, but I can't remember who you are."

This comment seemed to make the man even more angry. He yelled with so much anger in his voice that several people gasped. "I AM LORD VOLDEMORT!"

Harry opened his mouth as he realized this was the man he was supposed to kill.

Voldemort looked at him and said, "Do you remember me now?"

Harry slowly nodded and answered, "The only thing I remember is that I was supposed to kill you."

Several people snickered, but Voldemort turned to Malfoy, the man who had taken off Harry's gag, and said, "I told you to preform the memory spell so he couldn't remember where he was, NOT TO WIPE OUT HIS ENTIRE MEMORY!" Malfoy shuddered and took a few steps backwards, toppling over Harry. Doing so, his mask fell off to reveal a man with bright blue eyes and bleached-out, almost platinum blonde hair. "I'm sorry master, but the spell must have been more fierce than I intended."

Voldemort pulled out what looked like a stick, and said fiercely, "AVADA KEDAVRA!"

His voice thundered and bounced off the wall making Harry shiver for the second time that night. Much to Harry's surprise, a green light flew out of the stick, hitting Malfoy square in the chest. Malfoy fell to the floor with a terrified look on his face. It took Harry a moment to realize that Malfoy was dead.

Fear pierced through Harry with this realization. He was amazed that a stick could do something like that.

Voldemort turned to the people in masks and said, "This is what you get when you do not do as I please. Leave this room immediately!" With that, the room emptied out, leaving Harry alone with Voldemort, a dead man laying a mere foot away from them.