Vox Corpis [Harmione]

Chapter 18

Black shadows shimmered at the edges of the room, swallowing the walls, coating the ceiling… they pulsed and surged then moved because they were living. Except not. The room was full of Dementors, their cloaked figures lingering, hovering, stalking, everywhere, surrounding and allowing no hope for escape. The air was bitterly cold, deathly cold. The smell of rotting flesh permeated the air, escaping the Dementors' lifeless mouths.

"Where is the boy?" came a voice. Chilly and sinister, low and hissing, slicing the air as a snake cut through grass. So cold, death sidling closer.

In the center of the room, the eye of the Dementor storm, were two figures. One tall and pale, bald and imperious. His eyes were abnormal, inhuman, serpentine. He had two slits for nostrils, there was no nose. His robes were made of black, airy material, as though he'd borrowed from the Dementors to clothe himself. He moved like a Dementor, gliding and ominous, dangerous and thirsting for death. He bared pointed teeth at the human figure before him. He was Voldemort.

The second person, a man, was doubled over on his knees before the dark lord. But he was not pledging or cowing. He was dying. He was breathing raggedly through broken ribs, he was coughing up blood on the floor by Voldemort's feet. His hands were useless, the fingers broken, unable to hold a wand. He curled his arms, tried to protect his crushed hands. It wouldn't matter. He was dead. He only breathed now, his heart only beat still, because there was something more than his life the dark lord demanded.

"I will not ask you again. Where is he?"

The man almost toppled, nearly collapsed to the floor, but he would not. He fought to stay at least on his knees. He'd lost the chance to die on his feet, but he'd not be killed on his back. "You…" he spat blood, sucked in a broken, wheezing breath, "should know better… than to expect… an Auror to… to answer you."

"Oh, but you will." The flick of a wand, the whisper like a gentle caress around the word "Crucio".

The man screamed and his body convulsed. A spurt of blood erupted from his mouth. The Dementors swirled closer, crows sensing a corpse soon. The air went from cold to frigid. Not long now, life was loosing hold.

Voldemort released the curse's hold. The man gasped and coughed. Blood pooled around his knees. His boneless, shapeless hands shook.

"The boy," Voldemort reminded the Auror venomously.

"I don't know… where he is."

Voldemort flicked his wand again, hissed in parseltongue, and the man cried hoarsely as both his forearms broke.

"Is his life worth yours, Auror?"

The Auror turned bloodshot eyes, sunken in a pale face, up to the dark lord. "Yes."

Magic, dark magic, surged like fire. Ice fire, a wall of cold burning just as sharply, surging with the dark lord's rage. The Dementors keened and circled the room faster, seeming to set it spinning. The Auror offered a last, blood-framed smile of defiance.

"Avada Kedavra!"

Harry bolted awake, opening his mouth to gasp for air, to scream, to cry, and instead he vomited. He gagged and coughed and finally was able to breathe. He sucked in air like he'd been underwater fighting to the surface.

In chunks his surroundings came back to him, starting inside and spreading out. He could feel the icy fear in his gullet, gripping his bones, breaking out on his skin in a cold sweat. He was shaking. He bent forward and grabbed his head where his scar seared painfully. His pulse throbbed, fiery hot on his brow, ice cold in his veins.

It was dark, night… he was in bed. The covers were twisted around his legs, the putrid smell of bile rose from the wet, warm pool of vomit between his knees. The silence of the night squeezed him, compressed him, and he wanted to scream but the cry would be worse than the quiet.