"Chapter 7"

A/N: It's been a very long time, I know. I'm sorry! I hope you enjoy, though.

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"Good, Potter. Now steady yourself before you take another step."

Hermione watched with heightening elation as Harry slowly, carefully, placed a hand on the wall and tentatively took a step forward, his limbs trembling slightly with the effort to remain upright. He allowed himself a moment to simply breath before he attempted another step, and his gaze swept over to Hermione for a split moment before his attention was back to what he was doing—but even that one look made her stomach leap.

Progress in Harry's recovery had slowly picked up—at least in the physical sense. The potions Madame Pomfrey gave him having cleared his body of the dysentery's toxins, he was then able to eat and drink, and finally began to gain some weight back. Hermione almost couldn't believe that Harry had pulled through, and simply took delight in the fact that as the days and weeks went on she saw his brittle frame start to fill out from the food and nutritional potions he managed to get down. With his recovery he gained some strength back, and soon he was able to pull himself into a sitting position without help.

Now the next step was walking, which was what he was currently attempting to do.

He was still painfully slow, and it was clear he was also still rather weak, but with a familiar tenacious stubbornness he refused to let that stop him, and he took another tentative step.

His fingers trembled against the wall, healing nerves twitching and making his hands curl, beating out a soft, irregular beat against the wall as he continued on his way. Hermione was tempted to help him, to hold onto those slim fingers and straighten them out, but knew that he would not appreciate that, and so she simply sat and waited. Seated beside her on the bed, Neville grinned and looked over at her, guessing all-too-knowingly her thoughts. She blushed.

"He'll be okay, now, Hermione," he said softly, and for a moment his fingers gripped her own. He seemed just as relieved as anyone knowing that Harry was recovering, and more like himself.

"I can hear you, you know," Harry grunted, stopping for a moment.

Hermione blushed, but Neville's grin merely widened. "'Course you can, Harry," he replied, "and that's what matters."

Harry snorted. "Don't get all sentimental on me. We're not done yet."

Neither of them had to ask what he meant. Hermione's stomach tightened knowing that one last showdown with Voldemort would be fought before all of this was over. But she rallied herself quickly and raised her chin, opening her mouth to reply—

And with a suddenness that startled all of them, Harry's knees buckled and he fell where he stood, crying out in pain. No—not just pain; there was fear mixed in his outcry, a terrible fear born from true horror, and his hands shot up to the lightning scar on his forehead, which was suddenly shining a deep, angry red. Hermione shot out of her seat with a cry of his name, but Neville grabbed hold of her before she could run, shouting out himself in his shock and fear, and still Harry seemed to writhe on the floor, under some nameless onslaught of pain. White, Madame Pomfrey rushed to Harry's side and knelt, but it was clear she could do nothing.

"Granger!" she barked. "Go and fetch a Sleeping Potion. Quickly!"

But Hermione balked. She had seen these things before, had witnessed Harry's visions, and knew that no amount of potions or spells was going to help.

"Granger!"

Hermione shook her head. "That won't help!" she exclaimed, feeling terror pound in her veins; but she shook herself sternly. This was no time to simply lose it! She floundered for a moment, unsure of what to do—but then abruptly she fell to her knees beside Harry and, quite suddenly, slapped him soundly across the cheek.

It was a blow without power, just enough to jolt him, and it managed to snap him out of his pain—with a hoarse gasp of relief, he collapsed limply onto the stone floor, his eyes watering. "V- Voldemort—" he whispered, very white in the face. "Voldemort knows where I am—he- he'll come!" His hands were trembling as he rubbed at the scar. "He's angry," he breathed, and something in his tone told them he wasn't just furious.

The sound of the doors swinging open made them all jump, and Neville and Hermione looked up to find Snape—Snape, of all people—walking swiftly up the room, his face drawn and dark.

"Potter!" he barked, and Harry flinched back. "What did you see?"

"Severus!" Madame Pomfrey exclaimed, and her glare was fierce as she rounded on the potions master. "You can't come barging in here and frightening my patient-!"

"Forgive me if I did so, Poppy," Snape snarled between clenched teeth, "but this is of the utmost importance. Now, Potter, what did you see?"

Hermione helped Harry up into a sitting position, and she could feel him trembling. "I- I saw—Voldemort—"

"Potter!"

"Sorry, sir," Harry said in a small voice. "He was in a room, I couldn't see anything specific, and he was… torturing Lucius Malfoy. He said that Malfoy had failed him again."

"And?" Snape prompted.

Harry shuddered, but rallied himself. "And he said that if Malfoy failed to fulfill his job again, then he would be stuck in that room forever, which he built specifically for me— for "Potter" he said. And it was like he knew I was there! He knew! And he laughed!" He was trembling harder than ever, clearly frightened by the implication of Voldemort's threat, and not even Hermione's presence could soothe him.

That job, shockingly, fell to the professor himself. Snape's eyes flashed with irritation. "Losing yourself to panic will do no one good, Potter," he said sharply. "Pull yourself together. Now!"

"Professor!" Hermione exclaimed, outraged that he could be so heartless at a time like this.

"Harry."

The name stopped Hermione in her tracks, and she and Neville looked at each other with equal looks of shock. They could not have heard that properly, there was no possible way—

But they had, indeed, heard Professor Severus Snape call Harry Potter by his first name. The potions master was ignoring the others and simply looking down at the trembling wizard with something different in his eyes. "Close your mind. You know how to." Even his voice, while still caustic, had softened a little.

And even more shockingly, Harry obeyed him without arguing, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath to calm himself. Hermione's jaw almost dropped in her surprise, and as one she and Neville looked up at Snape, whose expression had gone quite forbidden again.

"I will go and explain this new vision to the Headmaster, Potter," he said, ignoring the others, and he turned on his heel and started to leave. "No doubt he will want to speak of this with you."

Neville waited until Snape had shut the door behind him before rounding on Harry, his expression blatant disbelief. "What the hell was that about?!"

"Was he just nice to you?" Hermione exclaimed, looking almost nauseous at the thought.

Harry managed a wry grin, but he was still too pale to be perfectly fine again, and his scar still stood out livid through his long bangs. "I think he just gave away his position," he whispered, looking regretful, and allowed Hermione and Neville to haul him to his feet. Madame Pomfrey tutted, her expression severe, and started to perform diagnostic spells to see if he had managed to hurt himself by his fall.

"Before the end of sixth year," Harry began quietly, sitting in his bed, "Dumbledore was concerned about Voldemort's hold on my mind—you know, our connection." Hermione nodded, and Neville, although confused, simply accepted it. "He wanted me to learn Occlumency again, and had me doing lessons with Snape again." Hermione nodded again, remembering the nights in which Harry would go to the dungeons for "Remedial Potions". "But I never got the hang of it."

"Of course," she sighed ruefully. He managed a rather shame-faced smile before continuing. "The visions just continued, though I was at least able to meagerly shield myself from some of the pain. Of course by this time I started to realize that maybe, since I couldn't stop them, I could make the visions useful. So Snape and I started a- well, I guess you could call it a correspondence between us. Since he's still spying on the Death Eaters—"

"He's a spy?" Neville hissed, his eyes wide.

Harry nodded. "Yeah, I know. I didn't believe it at first. But I would tell him what I saw and he would confirm worked pretty well between us, and he was still trying to teach me Occlumency when I—when Voldemort finally caught me. Doesn't stop him from being a greasy bastard, though," he added quickly, seeing Hermione's look of incredulity, and she had to grin.

"But how did he know you had had a vision so quickly?" she asked, finally realizing that that was what was bothering her.

When Harry only looked at her, she realized. "Oh." Without conscious thought she rubbed at her arm, where she knew that Snape's Dark Mark would be. She knew enough about Death Eaters now that she knew that they felt their Master's fury through their Marks.

"What concerns me most is the mentions of that room," Neville remarked, his eyes dark with thought and anger. "Whatever it is, it can't be good."

"It could be anything," Hermione said softly. Harry shuddered. "Sorry, Harry—you must not want to think about it."

"It sounds too much like the room I was in… before," he replied quietly, refusing to meet either of their gazes. Both Neville and Hermione stilled—Harry had not once talked or even so much as mentioned his time as Voldemort's prisoner, least of all where he had been. Neville never spoke of it either, but Hermione knew that it had been a terrible place. "It was like a tomb."

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The boy was protected at Hogwarts. Voldemort was no fool about that. For the moment Harry Potter had found sanctuary with Albus Dumbledore, and there was no way to take back the boy until they found a way through the wards.

But the Death Eaters would eventually find a way—and when that happened then no force on Earth would stop them from taking back what was theirs. What was his. Potter was claimed, and Lord Voldemort always got what he wanted.

Smiling a smile that held no humor, Voldemort looked at the room he had prepared for his escaped bird and laughed.

Potter was going to be his—his forever, once they got the boy here.