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“Aunt Petunia?!” Harry cries out, voice hoarse after having torn his vocal cords to shreds. “Why?” His aunt, inconceivably walking calmly over from a door leading into the room of which’s floors Harry’s blood now stained, stops off to the side of one Bellatrix Lestrange and lifts her nose at him haughtily.
“Trix,” Petunia turned away from Harry entirely as she spoke. “Is he why you’ve called for me?” Her lips twitch, and Harry could swear his blood has stopped running down the cuts over his skin with how utterly still it went.
Harry watches with a jaw unhinged in an impression of a lunging snake as Bellatrix cackles in what he rightly assumed to be glee, and whips an arm out to press Petunia into her side. A lump forms in his throat at how easily his aunt accepts her touches, intertwining one dainty hand with the one that Bellatrix had holding onto her waist, even as she scrunches her nose and asks when the last time the witch had bathed.
“A gift for you, my Minx, as long as you don’t kill it. That fun belongs to My Lord.” Petunia melts, subtly, but all too obvious to Harry who has over a decade of experience watching her for the smallest signs of her volatile moods.
Bellatrix’s grin grows sharper, and with a mere glance above Harry’s shoulder where Malfoys junior and senior stood over him, Harry now lay without any witch or wizard within five feet of his space. Harry’s breathing only grew more ragged, and the heavy stone over his chest increased in weight.
“I do hope you don’t plan on continuing to use that horrible nickname.” Harry can’t shut his eyes against the nauseating sight of Petunia staring, with eyes softer than he’d ever seen on her face, at Bellatrix’s lips.
Bella throws her head back and laughs, verging disturbingly on a mad giggle. “I could always go back to calling you Tunie.” Petunia scrunches her nose up in disgust, and Bellatrix resumes her laughter. “We rhyme this way!”
Petunia turns to the side so Bellatrix is no longer propped up over her shoulder, and watches her slide to a crouch close to the floor with pursed lips and a narrowed gaze. “Trix and Minx decidedly do not rhyme.” Bellatrix sways as her body spasms, and Petunia kicks her hand away when Bellatrix tries to steady herself by holding onto Petunia’s leg. “Do get up, before you degrade yourself in front of your relatives any further.”
Bellatrix doesn’t wipe her eyes to get rid of the joyous tears that had fallen onto her face, but does sit up straight. Petunia stands ever tall, unimpressed.
“Your little nephew-poo is jealous of me. Look! It’s trembling, and its eyes are red,” Bellatrix sings, and switches focus to address Harry next. “Can’t take it?” She screeches. “Is this all it takes to break you? Betrayal? Death?”
Bellatrix becomes louder with every word, her cheerfully-disguised hatred along with it, and Harry is shocked as his attention is brought to his wet, stinging eyes. He resists the urge to duck his head to hide them.
Petunia rests a hand on top of Bellatrix’s matted, greasy hair, and she falls silent. “It’s probably the swelling, dear.” Harry dry heaves at the level of indulgence Petunia reveals with the nickname, said in a voice not too different from the one she uses to assure Dudley he could do no wrong. “Though the boy is definitely pathetic enough.”
“Bella,” comes a voice behind Harry, from where Lucius and Draco stepped away earlier. It is that of a woman, who speaks in a near whisper, yet indisputably firmly.
Bellatrix’s smile stays strong. She reaches an arm into her robes, and Harry hears the distinct sound of Velcro being pulled apart before she takes out a knife by its blade. The handle is presented to Petunia, who takes it without hesitating.
“The other side of his forehead is boring, Minx.” Bellatrix tilts her head. “Fix it.” Petunia runs a finger down the edge of the blade, the lack of blood or cut as she pulls away proof of her time spent cooking.
“Hold him for me.”
Ice runs down Harry’s spine, and the room that he hadn’t realized had slowly become fuzzy came back into full focus. His friends’ shouts can only be heard for a few seconds before their captors silence them.
Harry struggles to get up, but his limbs feel as if they’re wading through molasses, and he can’t get his torso more than a couple inches off the ground before Petunia kicks him on the side of his head. Her heeled shoes are pointy and diamond-hard, and because he was already without his glasses, for many moments after he can’t discern anything.
Two grimy arms hook underneath Harry’s in his disoriented state, and he’s secured into a chest that should be bonier than his, considering Bellatrix lived half her life in Azkaban. Harry’s head lolls forward, but is yanked back upright harshly enough for several bits of hair to be pulled out by the roots.
Petunia’s thin neck is the first thing Harry sees when he’s able to squint and look around him for any sign of two particularly friendly faces. What he finds is their absence. He doesn’t know whether to be relieved or anxious that they won’t be here to watch whatever happens next.
Harry wriggles his shoulders and kicks his legs, uselessly trying to pull his head away from the approaching knife and Petunia’s vice-like grip.
“Don’t spell him,” Petunia harps. “You’ll ruin this for me.”
Harry goes still as he comprehends the wand digging into his neck. It’s similar to the panic rising up his throat, and doesn’t at all feel out of place. Harry doesn’t know how long it’s been there, and suddenly he has trouble exhaling.
“Bella.” Petunia stops approaching, and Bellatrix sags slightly behind Harry. He can imagine her pouting.
When Bellatrix’s wand no longer presses into his skin, Petunia taps the point of the knife a couple times on Harry’s forehead. Bellatrix vibrates in the same way Hermione’s cat Crookshanks always does when she or Harry scratches her neck, and Harry finds himself disgusted.
“Got yourself a witch pet, Pet?” Harry says, mocking the nickname Vernon uses for her, vaguely hearing Hermione in his head screaming about his idiocracy at him. Harry might listen, if the tremors in his limbs didn’t subside as he taunts the both of them.
“Itty bitty Potty thinks he has power here,” Bellatrix baby-talks. “How bold of him!”
“The boy does have a horrible tendency to fight everything.” Bellatrix tsks at Harry.
The knife at his forehead pushes in, and Harry bites back a surprised scream. He won’t give her that, only his attempts to squirm away as she cuts a jagged line down from the hair above the middle of his eyebrow to just above it. Harry closes his eye before his own blood can drip into it.
Bellatrix shoves Harry away, finally binding him with her magic, and Harry bears the unfortunate witness of Bellatrix tenderly licking his blood from the blade, oh so carefully held out to her by Harry’s now kneeling aunt.
A slow clapping sounds from the fireplace, and Harry jolts as a stifling energy fills his lungs and forces the air out of them. He gasps in vain and twists around to face the new enemy.
“Well done, Filth,” Harry’s open eye bulges at the sight of Voldemort’s noseless face. Voldemort has never been this close to Harry, and the details he can see of Voldemort’s looks is infinitely worse than the knife to his face. “I’ll think I’ll save this skin, to frame it at Hogwarts’ gates.”
Harry recoils as Voldemort reaches a hand out to stroke the new mark, and screams, breathless, when his fingers meet his head. Voldemort cackles, delighted, and does it again.
Harry’s vision darkens, and he resolutely doesn’t blink.
“Release him.” Bellatrix’s spell fades away, and at the same time he’s able to take in a desperate breath right as everything goes black.
Harry curls into himself, and wraps his hands around his neck, sucking in oxygen too quickly and coughing. His hands shake against his skin, and he stays in his position longer than what he thought he’d be granted to hide them.
And when he does look up, it’s not Voldemort he addresses. “Why?” He asks Petunia again, his voice determinedly not wobbly.
His aunt glares at him, and her lips stay firmly shut. Though Bellatrix gladly answers. “You’re the son of her mudblood sister.”
“Yes,” Voldemort continues when nothing else is added. “It seems she hates when magic is gifted to filth, and forces the talentless around them to learn of a world they can never join.”
Harry stands up on shaky legs, and the last of the uncomfortable pain from Hermione’s stinging hex fades away. He stares at Petunia, incredulous at the way she allows the freaks she’s immersed herself with to treat her. She still refuses to speak.
“It’s a grudge ? You’re jealous ?” Harry shouts at her, not moving. “Why is that why so many people hate me?” He cries, and hears several people start snickering.
“Harry Potter, finally—” several spells are shot off at Voldemort and his death eaters. Harry rubs the tears from his eyes, and turns around to start sprinting from the scene. Petunia shrieks, and the low, enraged voices of the death eaters start their own castings.
“Harry Potter.” A small hand grabs his own before he can get more than a couple feet. The sound of his name spoken with hurried reverence steadies his heartbeat. “Must be coming with me.”
Harry squeezes Dobby’s hand, gently and to assure Dobby he understands. The next second, he’s being pressed and pulled from all directions and deposited onto a grassy beach.
“Harry Potter stays here.” Dobby demands, and pops away again.
Harry nods his head at the empty space Dobby vacated, and falls to the ground as his knees are no longer able to hold him. His stomach clenched, and he sits with his knees to his chest and face in his hands, waiting for anyone else to join him.
He’s not waiting for long, but the minutes alone he spends burns him.
“Harry!” Harry looks up blearily and wipes some of the dried blood off his face as Hermione calls out to him. She’s rushing towards him, and Ron isn’t far, carrying the limp body of the very house elf who’d saved them.
Hermione crashes into him, and Harry buries his nose in her hair, breathing in the smell of the forest they’d been in before Harry accidentally called out Voldemort’s name.
“Dobby?” Harry asks hoarsely, watching from his spot with Hermione as the elf’s arms dangle with the strong breeze.
“He’s fine, Harry,” Ron calls out. “Got hit with some spell, but he’s still breathing.”
“Ronald,” Hermione admonishes, and pulls away from Harry slightly. Ron jolts and gapes. “Bring him here.”
“What? What’d I do this time? You confirmed it yourself, didn’t you?” Harry remembers how he didn’t hear them apparate in.
Hermione huffs. “Give him to Harry.” Ron blinks and brings himself and Dobby over to sit with her and Harry, though not relinquishing Dobby.
“No offense mate, but you look like you’d drop him.” Harry laughs weakly as Hermione hits Ron over his shoulder, and reaches out to hold Dobby’s hand. He feels for his pulse, and double checks that he is breathing and for the severity of his injuries.
“He didn’t fall unconscious until after we apparated here,” Hermione explains. “Which is why it took us a little bit to find you. The spell that hit him looked like the one Madam Pomfrey used to put you to sleep after that one quidditch injury.”
Harry sighs in relief.
“We don’t know if he’ll be out for longer though—or for less time—since he’s not human.” Ron adds. Harry smiles. “Either way, it’ll probably take a few hours.”
“Thank you.” Harry says, and the three of them fall silent until Harry begins sniffling.
“I just,” Harry wipes his nose on his arm, sagging when Hermione pulls it away to wipe down with her shirt sleeve. “How long were we there for?”
Ron slips his arm out from under Dobby’s legs and lays it firmly on Harry’s shoulder. “Long enough to miss whatever Humdinger Luna said we’d find if we got out by midnight.” Harry startles and straightens.
“Luna?!” He looks between Ron and Hermione.
“Yes, Harry. She’s perfectly alright,” Hermione assures. “We were thrown into the dungeons. She, Griphook, Mr. Ollivander, and Dean were already down there.”
“And they’re all okay?” Harry says worriedly.
“We’re all in one piece.” Harry takes the answer for what it is, and hopes without expectation that Luna’s smile won’t be too dim by the time he sees them.
Hermione tightens her arms around Harry’s waist again, and Harry returns the hug this time, but with one arm as he doesn’t want to let go of Dobby. Ron leans in a bit so he can put his forearm over Harry’s upper back instead of just his hand. Harry closes his eyes and lets himself drift for the moment.