Caught

Author's Note: According to the HP Lexicon, basilisks come out of a chicken's egg hatched beneath a toad.

Five – The Game Is Afoot

Harry's knees gave away when he landed in the clearing in front of the maze, the Cruciatus Curse having weakened his physique. He stretched out his hands to prevent himself from falling to the ground, as well as trying to subconsciously push the presence of hundreds of people away from his senses. The latter failed; excitement and confusion washed over him, as well as some people's greed – the winner of the Tournament received thousand Galleons after all – and several other shady desires.

A number of people entered his comfort zone, a circle of about three feet around him, making him feel more violated and disgusted. Dumbledore, Fudge, they belonged to the creepiest people ever encountered, their desires and emotions capable of suffocating his conscious the worst. Dumbledore hoped the Dark Lord had risen again, apparently he enjoyed playing 'chess' against, while Fudge was even now looking for opportunities to secure his position as Minister of Magic.

"Death Eaters," whispered Harry, "trying to bring back their Lord." Diversion number one, Harry's analytical side counted. He coughed harshly, finally giving way to the effects of the Cruciatus Curse; that it supported his story was a calculated advantage. He let his body shake subtly.

"They failed, didn't they?" Fudge frightfully asked.

Harry shook his head. "Don't know... Can't remember... Hurts so much..." He let his body slump slightly. "Can't remember."

He allowed himself to blank out and his impressions to wash over him. People whispered his words over to others and murmured with each others. He refused to pay attention to them until someone called out Poppy Pomfrey's name, who pushed her way to the crowd gathering around Harry. With thinned lips and a worried expression she spoke to him, asking about the places he hurt.

"Everywhere," breathed Harry, "my back, my arm."

"Do you recall what they did?" questioned Pomfrey.

"Cruciatus," Harry answered, "don't know what's wrong with my arm... It bleeds."

Pomfrey's expression sterned. "You need to be in my infirmary. Can you walk? No, of course not." Looking around for a strong man, she found one. "Hagrid! Can you carry Mr Potter here to my infirmary?"

The half-giant rushed over and gently lifted Harry into his arms.

"A'right the'e Harry?" Hagrid asked.

"Fine, just fine," Harry responded.

Hagrid smiled sadly. "Ye'll be okay, Harry, ye're a strong lad."

Harry rested his head against the taller man's chest, taking Hagrid's essence. After experiencing the scary impressions of Dumbledore and the lonely, determined feeling accompanying Voldemort, Hagrid's essence was a bliss – a less complex man Harry had never encountered.

In the privacy of the infirmary, Pomfrey cast a sufficient amount of spells and charms designed to detect any physical abnormality. Hagrid left the room at a significant glance from the Healer, after which Pomfrey opened several cupboards, finally returning to Harry's side with a bottle of vile looking potion.

"Drink this Mr Potter," she ordered. "It will help your nerve system recover after that nasty curse."

Harry obediently downed the potion, handing back the vial. Pomfrey took a seat on the bed next to the one Harry lay in and cleared her throat subtly. Harry gave his attention to the nurse.

"Mr Potter, Harry," she began, "during my checkup I discovered several things. There are signs that you have been Obliviated and well, I don't know how to say this, but I suspect that you were raped."

Harry blushed. Perhaps Barty and he had been a bit rough that morning, but it wasn't like he could say that to an employee of Dumbledore, couldn't he?

"What makes you think so?" Harry meekly asked. It might be wise to take caution in the future.

"Well, your anus shows sign of bleeding and a clumsy attempt at healing."

Harry went silent, so Pomfrey let him to his thinking. It must be a frightening experience, learning you were raped but can't remember it.


---


Barty Crouch, wearing another temporary disguise, this time of an unknown Muggle, stepped off the Knight Bus relieved that nobody on the bus had been suspicious of his appearance and his destination, Little Whining, Surrey. While he was a master at Apparition, he wasn't familiar with this area of Great Britain and he felt it was better to be safe than sorry, so he took the bus for the stranded. For absolute discretion, he had first Apparated to Trafalgar Square in London. Taking in his surroundings, Barty felt discomforted. He was in the town center of Little Whining and the houses in the streets leading to the town square all looked alike. Sure, the accents differed, some lawns grew flowers, others contained odd white chairs, but the structure was the same. Why Muggles liked this, Barty would never know.

Barty spotted an old lady passing by, perhaps he could get some directions there?

"Excuse me, Ma'ame?" asked Barty. "Can you tell me where Privet Drive is? An acquaintance of mine lives there; he's been having troubles with his television and wanted me to have a look and see whether it could be fixed." Barty was immensely grateful for Harry's unintentional lesson in Muggle technology, he wouldn't have known another way to approach the old woman with a decent story.

"Television you say?" The woman nearly shouted. Apparently she had a hearing problem. "My son used to sell television, back in the fifties. It was after World War Two, you see, and televisions were a real luxury in those days. Sells vacuum cleaners door to door nowadays, a real shame I tell you!"

"Privet Drive, Ma'ame, I'm looking for Privet Drive," Barty repeated a little louder.

"Privet Drive? Well then, you're in luck, young man, I live there! Now be a dear boy and carry this bag for me, will you?"

So that was how Barty Crouch found Privet Drive, carrying a shopping bag and listening to a retired housewife telling stories of her son and how he ended up divorced and in hospital with a stroke. Barty praised Merlin when she entered her house, number Fifteen, after offering him a cup of tea for the sixth time.

Carefully checking the house numbers, it didn't take long for him to reach number Four. He'd said to Harry he would bring along an owl, but in his haste to leave that morning, he forgot to bring one. So he rang the bell, introduced him as Brian Burke and asked for his partner. He didn't enter the house, instead preferring to wait outside. Harry quickly came down, carrying his trunk. The woman with a close resemblance to a Threstal asked something, looked at Barty inquiringly, before nodding and heading out to the kitchen. Barty helped Harry carry his trunk to a park not far from the house before shrinking it and Side-Along-Apparate Harry to the outskirts of Blackpool, where Crouch Manor was located.

Barty showed Harry around the Manor before showing him the master bedroom Barty claimed his. The invitation was very transparant.

Harry embraced Barty and gave him a thorough kiss.

"I've missed you," Harry murmured.

Barty pecked Harry's nose. "I missed you as well. How was Hogwarts?"

Harry grinned mischievously. "Pomfrey, and by extension the rest of Hogwarts, is under the impression the Death Eaters that kidnapped me raped me and that's the reason they Obliviated me."

Barty snorted lightly. "I didn't read that part in the Daily Prophet yet."

"I'm sure word will go out eventually," commented Harry. "Dumbledore was disappointed though, he was looking forward to starting up his game of chess with our lord."

Barty smirked. "Then he'll be surprised to be checkmated soon enough."

"There are plans in motion?"

"Feeble plans really but it's a beginning. We're working on discrediting Dumbledore in the following year while we move our people to the important places."

"When is the Dark Lord coming?"

"Tomorrow evening."

"Then we have sufficient time to catch up."

"Oh? And what did you have in mind?"

"The usual, you know, a bit of kissing, a bit of rubbing."

"And a bit of fucking?"

"Making love, Barty, not fucking. There's a difference."

"Really? I didn't know you laying under me, moaning and wriggling your arse in my groin falls under the category of 'making love'."

"Well, now you know."


---


"Good evening, my lord," Barty greeted, bowing slightly out of respect. "And welcome to Crouch Manor."

"I must say I never imagined myself being welcomed in the house of your late father," Voldemort replied.

"I didn't either," Barty supplied, "but I'm glad I can. Please, enter the parlor and take a seat, my house-elf will bring you a drink. Do you want me to fetch Harry?"

"That is right, young Potter resides with you these days, you may call him over."

Voldemort observed his surroundings; the parlor was a room with a sober interior consisting of four leather chairs situated around an empty fire. Above the fire hung a portrait of a Crouch ancestor, a straw-blond man in his sixties or seventies with a big round nose. Other than that, the walls were bare. Voldemort chose the seat with the best view of the door to the parlor.

Several minutes later, Voldemort was nursing a glass of brandy when Harry Potter entered, Barty Crouch having said something to the younger wizard before heading off to another part of the Manor.

Harry took the seat opposite Voldemort and asked Winky, the rehired house-elf, for a butterbeer.

"You have your cloak and mask back?" Voldemort questioned.

"I have. Why silver though?"

Voldemort smiled. "Because I could; before me, conjuring silver was considered to be an impossible feat."

"That's reasonable, I suppose."

"What do you know of Horcruxes?"

"They're pieces of a soul stored in an object, or like my case or Nagini's, inside a living being. In order to create a Horcrux, one has to murder. You had six Horcruxes: a diary, a ring, a cup, a locket, Nagini and me, though the creation of me was an accident."

Voldemort inclined his head briefly. "How did you discover the identity of them and what do you mean when say I had 'six'?"

"You mightn't know exactly, but you are linked to each of your Horcruxes. Given a lot of concentration, you are able to know where your Horcrux is, what it is made of,.. Everything really. Before Hogwarts, I had a lot of time on my hands, though I didn't know what exactly they were until my second year and this year.

"I feel I owe you an apology. Lucius Malfoy, whom at the time was a desperate man, gave your diary to a first year in the hopes of bringing you back to life. I still was a mess then, clinging to a personality I was not and keeping friends I now don't care a lot of. I destroyed your diary with the fang of the basilisk housed in the Chamber of Secrets."

For a moment, Voldemort felt like being angry, but it evaporated quickly. Fury did not bring back his Horcrux. Besides, looking back at his time at Hogwarts now and especially the time of his first Horcrux, Voldemort was kind of glad the diary was removed from the picture. It wasn't until the decades after his Hogwarts education that he learned some valuable lessons.

"And do you have any insight as to the influence my Horcrux has on you?"

Harry thought about that for a moment. "I know that several traits, like the ability to speak Parseltongue, has been carried over to me. I know that you are me, yet I am not you. I know that we are closely linked; that should all else fail, I would be able to revive you. It is a possibility for me to access your memories, like I briefly mentioned in that graveyard, though that seems to be very limited at the moment.

"I am not completely dependent on your existence, though living becomes more bearable when you live. It's also a given that I can't or won't address you as 'my lord' or 'master' to you, though I do so when I converse with Barty and will when I need to contact another Death Eater. I can't call you 'Voldemort' because of the taboo, it repulses me to call you 'Tom' or 'Riddle' and 'Marvolo' might remind you too much of your grandfather."

Voldemort nipped his brandy, thoughts swirling in his head.

"If we were to experiment with the Horcrux inside you, would that make you a more devoted follower, or more of an equal loyal to my cause and myself?"

"Perhaps my personal interest might be greater, though I sincerely doubt I could ever be as loyal to your figure as say Barty is. My abilities make that improbable. That doesn't mean I cast your beliefs and goals aside, but it implies that I can and will be more critical about them than others. Let me word it differently: you do not care about friends, don't trust people enough for them to be your friends, but the path of immortality you walk is a lone path. History has presented quite a unique situation where a part of you harbors inside another and if you can't even trust yourself, then why would you be trying to become immortal and change the world you live in into a world you want to live in? In order for me to survive, I need you alive and preferably well – and that's a whole different reason for becoming a Death Eater and aiding you than others have given."

Voldemort's red eyes searched Harry's face, looking for signs of dishonesty.

"There is more, isn't there?"

"There is," Harry considered, "I've researched you extensively, you know, trying to have as clear an image of you as possible. I know from firsthand experience that you were a twisted teenager frightened of death so much he sought out immortality. Once you found your solution, you started looking at the wizarding world and observed the evolutions happening in the Muggle world. Through Grindelwald's, and indirectly Dumbledore's, influence you saw what wizards and witches could do to Muggles and you witnessed the Muggleborn's reaction to that chain of events – the elimination of three quarters of Russia's magical community. You saw, just as I see right now, how dangerous wizarding and Muggle interaction has become, how the Secrecy Act gradually becomes more difficult to maintain as wizards and witches grow careless and Muggles become more advanced. It isn't comforting to know that the largest law enforcement troops of the Ministry of Magic are the Obliviators. One day Muggles will discover the secret to detecting the odd happenings magic causes and hell will break lose. I don't need to explain more.

"So you saw and decided to act. I know you tried to convince the Ministry in the late fifties, late sixties, but nobody listened, men like Dumbledore with peculiar thoughts about 'the greater good' ignored you because your ideas contrasted their opinion. When that didn't work, you tried to become a teacher at Hogwarts so you could convince the younger generations of the need to change, but that attempt was thwarted as well. Then you called the Death Eaters into life and tried to enforce changes, your methods were and are brutal, but effective. Unfortunately a lot of people that operated under your banner weren't as convinced as you are, were too young. That alongside your more private evolution caused your downfall, but you have learned since then, haven't you?"

"I have," the Dark Lord acknowledged. "Like you said, I tried one method, I failed, I tried another, it failed, I tried yet another and it failed. I only hope a fourth method works."

"And that is another reason you have my assistance," said Harry, "For you prevailed where others failed and I respect that, but there's only so much a man can bear - I want to be there for you if change remains a contradiction in terminus in the wizarding world."

The utter conviction resting behind those words convinced Voldemort of Harry's place in the world more than anything else. Like the younger wizard said, if you couldn't even trust yourself, what kind of life did you have? It was oddly comforting to hear those words spoken – never before had Voldemort had someone to watch his back like this, aside Nagini of course. He was curious though.

"And would you do if circumstances came to pass and I needed to be resurrected again?"

"Create your body and haul you far away from the wizarding world, for they would have lost their chance, and take you to a remote host suitable to live long and contentedly like the Dominican Republic or the remnants of the Mayan Empire."

Voldemort couldn't help it. He laughed. The idea of 'Lord Voldemort' lounging on a beach, cocktail in his hands, sun glasses on, was a very entertaining dream. People that didn't have a piece of his soul inside of them undoubtedly would have experienced the Cruciatus Curse by now.

Voldemort reached out his hand. "You can call me Marvolo."

Harry shook it firmly. "Then you may think of a name to call me in informal settings such as this."

"I will expect your compliance outside these rooms."

"As I have said," Harry answered, "I am you, yet you are not me. I am your friend and your servant, the observer and participant."

"Then we will be experimenting with that Horcrux."

Harry gulped down his butterbeer and rose out of his chair. "I have something to show you, I think you will appreciate it."

"What is it?"

"I am breeding a pair of basilisks," smirked Harry, "though I don't know how long it will take for the toads to breed the chicken's eggs decently enough."