If Paths Diverge

Part I: Chapter 1

Harry closed the door to the document storage room, tucking the brown folder under his arm. At least he'd found that damn death certificate. Now Robards could get off his back. See, I'm not just an expensive waste of an office.

As he walked back towards the lift, he thought about skiving off an hour early. He had to see Ginny tonight and he needed a few hours to lay down on his sofa before he'd be ready to face her. Merlin, dinner. He wasn't even hungry.

Sighing, he pressed the silver button and leaned against the wall, allowing his eyes to close for a moment.

A stifled sound coming from the nearby holding cells caught his attention. That area was supposed to be vacant, there weren't even any guards outside at their station.

He pushed off from the wall and absentmindedly dropped his folder onto the desk. Hermione's voice in his head teased him about his saving people thing, but when he heard what could have been a shout, Harry was instantly following his ravenous curiosity through that heavy metal door.

The unmistakable sounds of flesh slapping and rough, muffled voices from the last cell in the line immediately stilled him. Surely, he had the wrong end of it.

No bloody way.

He forced his legs to continue and prepared himself to be appalled.

The first, and only thought that registered when he saw the scene was: Alive.

He was alive.

Beyond this impossible, incomprehensible fact, Harry numbly saw three men in the cell with him, crowded around his supine form on the table. One had two white-knuckled hands around his throat, strangling him; one was sitting in a chair watching and stroking himself; and the third was thrusting between his thin, naked legs, leaning forward and twisting his nipples.

The last man in the room's red, agonized eyes caught and held Harry. He was the only one who'd noticed Harry's entrance and for a moment, the horror of reality disappeared as Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort were reunited for the first time in twelve years.

Hatred rushed through Harry, licking awake the adrenaline that clenched his fists and accelerated his heartbeat. With his eyes locked onto Voldemort's, he was lost momentarily in the memory of this man torturing and taunting him in the graveyard. Killing Snape with his snake. Striking him down in the Forest. He remembered that gloating, inhuman face, always breaking through into his thoughts, warping his reality. Forcing him to experience the Dark Lord's actions as if they were his own.

Harry stared at the helpless, splayed out figure, trying to catch up, to make sense of what he was seeing. Not only was the Dark Lord still alive, but he was being violently raped in the heart of the Ministry of Magic. Before Harry could figure out how he felt about that, Voldemort's eyes slid closed and he was rendered unconscious from apparent lack of oxygen. The man strangling him didn't seem to notice.

For long moments Harry was caught, contemplating the slender, exposed arc of the man's throat. The way his face had relaxed, the pained creases between his hairless brows smoothing out. His colourless lips parting.

He had never seen the man so vulnerable.

Do something!

Harry shook himself.

"Oi!" he shouted, ripping his gaze away.

All three sets of eyes snapped to him and each man stopped what they were doing, which caused the man strangling the former Dark Lord to release his hold. Voldemort slumped heavily back onto the table and did not move, did not open his eyes.