Feel the Pain

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns Harry Potter. I am not fortunate enough to have come up with that idea.

Warning: This fiction deals with material that some might find disturbing. Please consider this before reading any further.

A/N: I felt I should add a note to this story to reflect some of the queries I have received in reviews. For those interested in a second chapter your wait may be considerable if not infinite. I have taken a few stabs at a follow-on chapter to Feel the Pain and found it very difficult to maintain the dark, descriptive writing style seen here given where the story is taking me. Therefore I can make no promises for additional material. Additionally, I am working on a second chapter in Revealing the Prophecy which is written in my natural style. As such, I have added an additional note at the end of this chapter hinting at where the next seen may go.

A/N: This is a significantly darker fiction than I might normally write, but everyone has a dark side that escapes the Azkabans of our mind now and again; this is my escapee, hopefully there won’t be a full prison break in the future. Enjoy it or don’t. I, myself, was pretty disturbed by it when I wrote it, but as my skin is pretty thick, all input is welcome. Also, this was originally meant to be a one shot deal, but I can foresee another chapter to this and may add it at a later date. So without further ado…

Feel the Pain

Spots of the alabaster ceiling danced in and out of his vision as the streetlight filtered through the shadow created by the swaying leaves outside his window. This sight had filled his vision before – slowly his mind was able to wrap itself around the image. The darkened ceiling became the inky blackness of a tattered black veil. The flickering shafts of light elongated and sharpened to become the tears within the cloth. Only the man’s form was missing. His mind supplied that. The haunted eyes, darkened from years in Azkaban, widened in shock as the thin body tumbled gracefully backwards through the cloth. And like the flame of a candle in a hurricane, the man was gone. His light had gone out, never to be rekindled.

He would see it again tonight, he knew. The Dark Lord paraded that sequence over and over again in Harry’s mind. The boy could do nothing to prevent the visions from cracking his psyche. And with despair seeping from his every pore, his mind opened with ease whenever the assaults came. For three nights, the Dark Lord ravaged Harry’s mind, tearing his heart from his chest and burying it in guilt and loathing.

The process would start any minute. The Dark Lord was vicious in his promptness. Submitting to his fate, the boy discarded his glasses and waited for the onslaught. He wasn’t kept waiting. He came to the boy gently at first, stalking around the edges of his consciousness, before launching into a ferocious rape of the boy’s sanity.

The first wave of sorrow crashed over him eroding away all awareness of the world outside his head. The visions came fast and furious with the intensity of a wrecking ball, leaving no opportunity for recovery. The boy saw the lithe body fall through the veil ten times before the boy could pull in a single breath. Tonight, though, a new element emerged. He saw an unspoken curse break upon her chest like waves against the shore leaving only a crumpled heap of brown hair and another snuffed future.

“Can you feel the pain, Harry?” The whispered voice slithered from the dark depths of his mind.

“I always feel it.”

“She means something more though doesn’t she, Harry?” the silky voice teased. “I can feel it. It’s woven throughout the fabric of your mind, Harry. I believe my Death Eater was unable to finish what he started. Her loss would have been even more painful than Black’s, would it not?”

The boy drew his knees to chest, willing the fractured shaking of his body to cease as another nightmare sequence plowed through his fragile consciousness, pulling the sweat from every pore in his body and convulsing his lean frame. The Dark Lord forced the vision of the girl’s near death experience into the boy’s mind time and time again, reveling in the boy’s terrified screams.

“Can you feel the pain, Harry?” hissed the voice again.

A choked whimper was all the boy could muster.

“She can be left untouched,” the Dark Lord tempted. “Your mother understood this; she bought your life with her own.” Another torrent of visions sheared away the boy’s connection to reality leaving a distorted mind unable to discern fact from fiction.

“You can give her a life, Harry. There is no need for her to drown in death. That, my friend, is your fate.”

The young man mustered what strength he had left, “How could I ever believe you would let her live?” he breathed.

“As I said before, your mother had the answer. Similar to her sacrifice, I offer you a binding magical contract, not unlike the contract requiring you to compete in the Triwizard Tournament. Neither of us is powerful enough to break the spell. Your death buys her life, Harry. Let me show you what awaits her if you decline.”

Another sequence of images of her cold, still form plagued him. Unfocused, her brown eyes lost their depth as a pool of blood issued from between her legs and a man with striking blonde hair admired the scene from the periphery. Immersed in the timeless void of the repeated vision, the boy’s never heard his screams rip through the tapestry of the night. A lifetime passed before the Dark Lord relented.

“A binding magical contract, Harry. My offer still stands. Will you accept it?”

His last remaining thin thread of hope was severed cleanly. He dragged himself to the dish of rotting food near the bedroom door, grasping for the dinner knife lying there. Placing the ragged edge against his wrist he whispered his response to the night, “I… accept,” yanking the cutting edge across the pristine skin below.

“Very well,” whispered the voice with a soft undertone of mirth, “she will not be touched.” The Dark Lord departed from the boy’s mind, confident of the boy’s imminent death.

The boy rolled onto his back as the crimson liquid rushed forth from his body, pooling on the hardwood floor beneath him. In his mind’s eye, the boy saw the grim specter of death pacing just beyond the veil waiting for the final grains of sand to cascade to the depths of the hourglass that was the boy’s life.

As his senses began to shut down, the boy faintly acknowledged a crash echoing from somewhere beyond his bedroom door. Desperate for death’s release, he turned his attention to the blackness creeping into the edges of his eyesight, mixing with the dance of the shadows across the ceiling. A grim smile played on his lips at the lasting vision of brown curls obscuring the shadows above. He never felt the burning rain of tears against his face once his consciousness had ebbed away.

A/N: The astute reader will observe that I intentionally left it ambiguous as to whether or not Harry really dies in this scene. The same reader will also note the time frame that Harry has been plagued by Voldemort’s attacks. Do you really think he is in much of a condition to be sending correspondences? This is least cryptic I can manage to be at the moment. ; )