If Paths Diverge

Chapter 39

His magic thrashed around him as he paced before the hearth in his chambers. He pushed down the voices that dared to chide him that he should have known better than to trust, that the boy had been persuaded to change his mind. That he was injured.

Three days.

Each hour brought his thundering violence closer to being unable to restrain. Their shared parchment remained blank, even after Voldemort had commanded the boy to come home. Attempts to Apparate to his side had been unsuccessful, meaning either that the boy was dead— a nauseating lurch stole his breath whenever he accidentally considered this possibility— or that he was being held with incredible, impenetrable magic, on a scale that even he was unable to break through.

Anything could have happened in three days.

The possibilities reached up and grabbed him.

Harry, spread-eagled on a table while a faceless figure raped him as he screamed; Harry, naked and shivering, forced to cut off his appendages as a sea of vermin laughed; Harry, terrified and bleeding, his body quaking, alone and injured, alone and frozen, alone and alone and alone—

Voldemort's palms hit the floor, his head bowed, as he tried to master himself.

Nothing had been confirmed, his spies had nothing to report. The Minister was as clueless as each of his anxious Death Eaters.

There was no reason yet to slay every living creature.

The boy's face haunted him, sometimes smiling and carefree as Voldemort had recently seen him, or else in a rictus of agony, swollen and bloody, pleading for Voldemort to save him.

He threw out his arm with a yell and the charred remains of his desk ignited again into flame, the pushback of scalding wind against his face momentarily calming him.

Harry had to be safe.

Surely no one would be doing this to instigate an altercation with the Dark Lord. If this was a maneuver from the Ministry, it was an unwise one. No one survived Lord Voldemort's vengeful attention when provoked.

It was not—

He felt the call from one of his Death Eaters and immediately dropped the wards on his chambers so that they could Apparate to him.

Moments later, Thorfinn Rowle appeared and dropped at once to his knees, head bowed subserviently.

Voldemort dragged him closer with his magic, tearing into his mind to access the information without having to suffer through the man's conversation.

"Tell your Master we've got Potter," an unknown man in Ministry robes said to Rowle, in a dark room that Voldemort did not recognize.

"Why? What do you want with Potter? You're an Auror, aren't you?"

"Sure am. Tell him the Saviour needs saving."

Rowle snorted.

"It's your funeral."

The stranger grinned.

"Make sure he knows that if he doesn't get here fast, there won't be much left of Potter to rescue."

"Where?" Rowle asked, and the soon-to-be-dead worker smirked.

"He knows the place. Tell him to go to his home away from home in the Department of Mysteries. He can find Potter there."

Voldemort pulled out of Rowle's mind and shrieked, every piece of furniture in the room dissolving into dust.

The Purgatory Chambers.