A/N-  This is my first fanfic posted online, so I hope you like!  Please review!  Any and all flames will be used to make S'mores…

Bonds of Pain

Ch. 1-  Pain and Visions

Severus Snape was not having a good day.  Only a week ago, he had gotten rid of those blasted children for two months.  He had been summoned yesterday evening, to endure yet another round of torture by Crucio at the hands of the resurrected Dark Lord.  He ached all over, and Poppy simply would not leave him alone.  How could it get any worse?

The raven-haired boy shifted and tried to stifle a moan of pain.  Evidently Uncle Vernon could and would hold a grudge nearly eleven months.  ~At least I sent Hedwig to the Burrow with Ron,~ Harry thought.  ~This way I know she's being cared for properly.~

            Very few people would have cared as much for the safety of a bird when in the boy's situation.  Of course, very few people were as selfless and compassionate as Harry Potter, wizard in training and The Boy Who Lived.  Harry was locked in the cupboard under the stairs at Number Four Privet Drive. Home of Vernon, Petunia, and Dudley Dursley.

            Uncle Vernon was feeling particularly spiteful towards Harry due to the incident last summer as Harry had been leaving for the Weasley residence.  The Weasley twins had dropped an experimental prank toffee, which Dudley had gobbled.  The whale-sized boy's tongue had become the size of a large anaconda before Mr. Weasley had been able to restore it to normal.  Uncle Vernon believed the trick to be all Harry's fault, and was now punishing his nephew with unprecedented physical beatings.

            None of the Dursleys took any consideration for the events of Harry's fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, despite the terse and explicit letter they had received from the headmaster, Professor Dumbledore.  At the end of the term, Harry had witnessed the murder of another student, Cedric Diggory, and had been forced to help give a new body to one of the worst dark wizards in history.

            Not only was Vernon Dursley beating and starving the fourteen-year-old boy in his care, Harry blamed himself for Cedric's death and the return of Lord Voldemort, once Tom Riddle.  The boy couldn't sleep for an hour without having the nightmare that replayed the Third Task, and angry Cedric and the specters of his long-dead parents berating him.  He hadn't had anything to eat since the Leaving Feast, and he was almost beyond caring.

            "BOY!!!"  Uncle Vernon's bellow shook the cupboard, and Harry flinched.

            ~What can it be this time?~ he wondered.  He couldn't even leave the cupboard, as it was well locked from the outside.

            Metal rattled as Vernon opened the locks, and the door was wrenched open by a very purple Dursley holding a piece of parchment.

            "Explain!  Who did you write to?"  Harry tried to protest that he'd written no one, but Uncle Vernon hauled him from the cupboard by the remains of a once-huge t-shirt.  The shirt was little more than rags now, and Harry had only a pair of trousers in little better shape.

            The Dursleys had tried to burn all of his belongings when he came home after term, but, fortunately for Harry, only his textbooks and school clothes would catch.  His beloved Firebolt, his father's Invisibility Cloak, and his wand were safe, aside from being locked in the linen closet.  Dudley had finally gotten his second bedroom back from the "freak."

            "Those freaks won't be able to get in here no matter what you do, hear me, boy?"  As Vernon slammed him against the walls, Harry begged to be released, agreeing to anything.  Disgruntled that his new favourite sport was not going to yield any fun this evening, Vernon stuffed Harry back into the cupboard with another mild concussion and several new bruises to go with the old, and a leg and arm Harry could swear were broken.

            However, his own problems were of little concern to Harry at the moment.  Somehow, he could feel and almost see the similar plight of another boy his age, a boy he though he hated.

Draco Malfoy groaned and opened his eyes.  ~Dear Lord, I hope Father has forgotten about me for a bit.~  Used to being pampered, this summer was a shocking change for the blond boy, and it was all because of one little word.

            No.

            He had never disobeyed his father before, and now he knew why.  Lucius had commanded that his only child swear himself to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named when he picked the teenager up at King's Cross Station.  It only took the memory of the look on Potter's face when he had reappeared after the Third Task, the limp corpse of Diggory clutched in his arms, a bleeding cut inside his left elbow, and that famous scar, angry and throbbing on the boy's forehead.  Draco had immediately refused.  His father had responded with unbridled cruelty.

            Despite beatings, starvation, and the Cruciatus Curse, Draco refused to change his mind.  ~Damn him, but Potter was right all along.  I won't join someone like that!~  Draco might be ambitious, but he was not selling his soul for power.  He'd do it on his own.