SLAP

"Where's the amulet?"

This is the first thing Harry hears when he comes too. He looks around the room, but it serves no use really for he doesn't have his glasses. What he can gather is that he is tied to a chair and there is a single light in the room. Harry's hands are also tied behind his back. The rest of the room is in darkness but he can make out some details. Harry can tell by the looks of the walls that he is in some sort of dungeon. He doesn't know how he got there. He was only home for the summer. Harry came home after completing his fifth year at Hogwarts and planned on spending his summer locked up in his room like any other summer. But when he got home, Harrys' aunt Petunia was making supper. She apparently didn't have enough eggs and made him run to the nearest store to get some. He was about three blocks away from the store he supposes when out of nowhere Harry was hit from behind and the world went black. Now since he has come to, he can feel the extent of his injuries. Harry can feel pain in his chest so probably a cracked rib. His head hurts bad so that can be multiple things. Though, it does feel tingly right now. He wonders wh-

SLAP

"I said where is the amulet boy!" Never mind. Now he knows.

"What amulet?" Harry responds. He must have been out for a while for his voice is hoarse and scratchy.

"The Slytherin amulet! Where is it? I know you have it." The man screams at him. The voice is unrecognizable to Harry. He turns in the direction of the person. He can see a figure wrapped in all black and a mask on. Death Eater.

"I don't have an amulet." He tells him. This earns him another slap in the face.

"Of course you do! You and that fool of a headmaster have been out hunting all my Masters horcruxes." He tells him.

"What? W-what's a horcrux?" Harry ask him. He has never heard of it. And what's Dumbledore doing collecting them?

"Oh you know what they are," he says to him. He shakes his head at him, telling him that he doesn't know what they are. "Look, kid, I'm gonna give you one more try, tell me where the amulet or say goodbye to this world and I will reunite you with your parents."

"I honestly have no clue what you're talking about. Veritaserum me if you have to, you'll get the same answer." The man turns from Harry clearly upset. If he gets out of this, Dumbledore has some serious explaining to do. This isn't even the first time the things he has done has gotten Harry into trouble. And it doesn't help that all through the fifth year he has basically ignored him. It was only when he started to have those weird dreams that always caused him to wake up in a fit and was dragged to see him did he actually talk to him. But only for a few minutes before he sent Harry off with Snape for those damn occlumency lessons. The only good thing about those lessons is that Harry and Snape have an understanding of one another. He saw a lot of his memories that he didn't want him to see about his home life and has kept quiet about them like he had asked him too. Then one day he accidentally saw his. So they are even. And in truth, they didn't grow up that different.

"God, to be the saviour of the bloody world you sure are useless. What does this world see in you anyway? " the man asked clearly aggravated at him.

"To be completely honest sir, I haven't the faintest idea either," he replies with a smirk.

"Oh please. You bask in your glory. You enjoy the attention of all the reporters and the public! You absolutely disgust-"

"You think I asked for any of this?! I hate the bloody reporters. I can't do anything or go anywhere without them trailing me. I try to avoid the public but it seems fate has it out for me." Harry shouts at him. No one understands just how much he really hates the press and the public. No one understands how he really hates being called the Boy Who Lived or the bloody Savior.

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Severus Snape was sitting in his office in the dungeons of Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry grading third-year end of term essays. He let out a sigh for what felt like the thousandth time that night. Honestly, did these kids ever read the books? But then again, that may be the problem. For Severus Snape does not use the books in class. He instead writes the potion out on the board by hand. When he was a student at Hogwarts, he revised the potion books himself. He made a reminder to himself to write to the publishers to change their books. He reached for his glass of firewhiskey, which was half full, and downed the rest of its contents. He was about to pour himself another glass when an infamous headmaster stuck his head through Severus' fireplace. He gets up from his desk and walks to his fireplace and kneels down in front of it.
"What is it now Albus?" Severus asks the headmaster clearly annoyed.

"Severus I need you to go you Private Drive and check up on Harry my dear boy. "

"And why should I do that?"

"I would do it myself but I have an appointment with the ministry," Albus said, "Just check in on him my boy and do me this favour," he said as his head disappeared into the fire.

"I'm always doing you favours old man," Severus grumbled to himself as he stood up from his spot by the fireplace. He walked over to the door and grabbed his cloak off the hook. Throwing it over his shoulders he made his way through the castle and to the gates where he apparated to Harry Potter's address. Upon his arrival, he found Lucius Malfoy waiting by the front steps.

"And what, pray tell, are you doing here?" he asked as he approached the blond haired man.

"Oh, I think you know why I'm here," the man purred in his ear. Severus reflexively stepped back. He should have just apparated back to Hogwarts at that moment, but he stayed planted where he was.

"In all honesty, I do not see the reason, nor could I fathom as to why," he growled out as he looked around, "so why don't we just skip this guessing game and you just tell me."

"Now what fun would th-" he was cut off when Severus pulled out his wand and pointed it at the man, "fine. Sourpuss," Severus sneered at the name, "I'm here on business. The Dark Lord has been getting restless over the past few days, seems to be getting more paranoid each day. Then I find out your little headmaster took it upon himself to find all of his horcruxs. And supposedly he got the boy involved with it. I'm sure he's already told you."

Severus lowered his wand and looked at Lucius with a calculating look. Did Albus really take it upon himself to go looking for them? And what the hell was he planning to do with them anyways? Severus let out a frustrated sigh as he turned his attention back to the blond in front of him. 

"No, Albus did not mention anything to me about this," he said barely above a whisper. "So you're just stalking outside the boy's house?"

"No. I'm supposed to... interrogate the boy to see if he has any on him," Lucius told him, "Why are you here?"

"Albus sent me to check up on him. He could have come himself but he had somewhere to be, " Severus told him.

"Must know something's wrong," Lucius said more to himself than to the man in front of him.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, it's just that... he's never checked up on the boy before. Why suddenly do it this year? And why you specifically? Why not his head of house?" Lucius asked him. Severus thought on that. Did Albus know something was wrong? And really, why not send Minerva? The boy at least liked her.

"How long have you been here?" He asked the blond.

"Oh, I don't know. A long time I can tell you that."

"Idiot. Do you even know if the brats home?"

"...no." Severus let out a great sigh and marched up to the front porch and knocked on the door, Lucius trailing at his heels. A woman answered the door and this female Severus knew all too well.

"Severus," she said as if his name was a vile poison upon her lips. Lucius looked to his friend with a confused look.

"You know this woman?" He questioned him.

"All too well," he drawled out as if it was the most boring thing in the world. "Where is the boy Petunia?"

"How should I know. Little freak must have run off on me," she replied.

"What do you mean?" Lucius asked this time.

"I sent the boy off to the store and he never came back. That was about two hours ago," she told him.

"What direction did he head?" Questioned Severus. Great, Potter went missing meant more work for him. Petunia pointed down the street and the two men left in search of the brat.

"So what's your plan?" Lucius asked as he rounded the corner.

"Locate the boy, what else would it be?" He said as he kept up his long strides.

"I thought you would have something more creative than that old friend," Lucius replied. Severus was about to reply back when he came across a spot on the sidewalk that was tingling with magic. Dark magic to be precise. He stopped on the spot almost making Lucius run into him. He bent down closer to the ground to find some loose change scattered about. He looked around more and saw something sticking out from the bushes.

"What do you see?" Lucius asked from behind him. Severus made his way over to the bush and pulled out a wand. This wand was made of holly, and he estimated to be 11 inches in length. Potter's wand.

"Damn it," he swore to himself and pocketed the wand in his robes. 

"What is it?"

"Potters wand," Severus said as he stood and made his way back to Lucius. 

"So he was kidnapped by a death eater and he doesn't have his wand," Lucius said and groaned. "Great, how we gonna find him now?' 

"Easy."

"What do you mean?"

Severus held back the urge to roll his eyes at the man in front of him. "Idiot. If the Dark Lord sent you to find him, why would he kidnap him? This is a death eater how is deciding to play cowboy on his own without our Lord's permission." At that Lucius's brain started putting the pieces together and they touched their wands to their left forearm and apparated away to Riddle Manor in the main hall.

"Ahh Lucius, oh and your brought Severus with you. To what do I owe the pleasure? Did you complete your mission early?"

"Ah no my Lord. I-we ran into a small problem." Voldemort raised his eyebrow.

"We checked his relatives' house. He had left earlier in the day to go to the store but never returned. We followed his path to find a magical signature in the air and Potter's wand on the ground. No doubt, a lower ranking death eater is out to please you and captured Potter without your knowledge." Once Severus spoke the words showing Voldemort that one of his own betrayed his commands to let Lucius handle this he took Lucius by the arm and using the dark mark summoned the other death eaters. 

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Potter looked at the death eater before him through hazed eyes as sweat and blood dripped in front of his eyes. The man left his wand in his robes instead, choosing to torture Potter with his own hands. His new favourite thing to do at the moment was to strangle him to the point of unconsciousness then letting him go. Literally holding his life in his hands. 

He was just about to grasp his neck again when he let out a startled cry and grabbed his arm. Quickly he took hold of his mask and vanished leaving Harry chocking and coughing on the ground, no doubt with bruises around his neck.

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Everyone landed in the meeting hall. all confused and scared. Their Lord had meetings, yes, but they were planned. Each death eater knew when a meeting was scheduled and when they would be called. But this particular meeting was not planned and everyone was on edge. 

"My dear and beloved followers," he said as he glared around the room "it pains me to learn that one of you has disobeyed my orders. You ALL knew that the mission to capture the Potter boy was left to Lucius and Lucius ONLY. Yet, one of you - or maybe more - have decided to take it into your own hands and take him yourself, and not even ALERT me. Confess now and I will go easy on you. But force me to drag it out of you I will also drag out your sanity with it." he scanned the room and looked each of his death eaters in the eyes. He scanned quickly through memories until he came to a certain death eater who had an interesting memory.

"Crucio!" he shouted at the man after drawing his wand with the blink of an eye. The man fell to his knees gasping in pain before laying on the floor convulsing as the curse ran through his veins. 

He let the curse off after a minute and the man knew better than to stand and instead opted to stay laying on the floor with his face to the ground.

"Tell me, why?"

"I-I thought Lucius wasn't worthy enough to complete the mission s-so I took it into my own hands." This earned him another blast of the curse causing him to wither more on the floor.

"Where are you keeping the boy?"

"D-dungeons," the man replied back. Voldemort looked to Lucius and Severus. 

"Go and retrieve him and take him to the spare room in the East wing." The two bowed to their Lord and made their way to the dungeons. They checked each cell looking for the boy but found nothing but blood-spattered walls on the dark stones that made up the lower part of the manor. 

"Perhaps he lied," Lucius asked as he opened a cell on the left side.

"Then he will be killed after having the location tortured out of him," Severus replied as he opened one on the right. They continued their search until they came to the last cell.

"If he's not here..." Lucius said as he opened the door. Two things happened at that moment. Satisfaction washed over them as they saw the Potter boy laying there. They had found him. But then a sickening feeling feel in their stomachs as they laid their eyes upon the broken and tattered body. Casting a silent sleeping spell on the boy, Severus picked him up and was hit with so much shock that it showed on his face.

"What is it?" Severus used one of his hands to signal the man to come closer to him and he approached. Severus passed the boy into his arms and the same shocked face duplicated itself onto his. "He barely weighs anything," said Lucius as he looked at the boy in his arms. Severus lead them out of the dungeons and to the East wing as the Dark Lord instructed them too. 

Upon entering the room Lucius laid the boy on the bed in what looked like to be a comfortable position but couldn't be certain as some bones were facing the wrong direction. Severus summoned a house elf to alert their Lord that they found Potter and that he was in the East wing badly injured. Within moments the Dark Lord was in the room looking at the boy that look so deformed laying them.

"This is how you found him?" he questioned the two death eaters in front of him. At their nods, he let out a frustrated sigh. "This was not how this was supposed to happen. Heal him and call for me in the morning. With a bow from his two most loyal death eaters, Voldemort swept from the room and down to the dungeons where the rouge was waiting for his punishment which for this, will end in death.

It took them nearly all night but with a joint effort, they eventually got Potter into a stable state and comfortable position. Treating his injuries would prove difficult. In total it took three scans to find what was done to him. But most surprising was some injuries, so of the worst, were done prior to his capture. Which raised more questions than answers. Severus had seen these types of injuries before. He would find them on his snakes when they came back from the school breaks. Potter's breathing came in more even, steady breathes and the bruises on his body were faint and would soon be nonexistent with time. Now it was the waiting period for the boy to wake up. They sat in shifts, watching over the boy looking for signs of alertness or failure. This schedule lasted for two days before the boy showed signs of waking up. When he did open his eyes the sight he was meet with will be one that will shock him to the core for days to come. It was of Lucius Malfoy kissing Severus Snape.