"I think we should try dowsing," Hermione suggested.
"What?" Harry looked over at her, surprised in spite of his terror and exhaustion. Hermione was always the rational one in their group. Dowsing was more Trelawney's bailiwick than true magic.
"It worked before during the war with Voldemort, Harry. We found Tonks that way, remember?" Her face fell as she, too, recalled that they'd found Tonks dead. But the dowsing had worked.
"All right," Harry agreed. At this point, he was almost willing to consult the old dingbat up in the Divinations tower for advice.
They both moved to the table near the window. Hermione cleared the chessboard from it with a flick of her wand, levitating it over to the book-crowded coffee table. A moment later, a map of Great Britain floated over.
"You think he's still in England?" Harry asked, not sure of that himself now.
"Well, I know Burke is an extremely powerful wizard, but taking a passenger when apparating creates a tremendous power drain. I'm thinking that Burke would have used a portkey if he were taking Severus really far," Hermione explained.
Harry didn't suggest that Burke could have simply apparated Severus out of Diagon Alley to a less crowded location where the portkey was waiting. Trying to keep at least the semblance of hope, he said, "That makes sense. You should have been an Auror, you know. You'd've been brilliant."
Hermione gave him a tired smile. "And be competing with Ron? No, we all chose the best paths. Here, I have some string, and there's a pebble in the tray on the mantle there."
Harry retrieved the little round white stone and handed it to Hermione, who had a spool of black thread in her hand. He watched her tie a foot or so of string around the pebble. Muttering a locating spell, she held her hand straight out in front of her, dangling the hanging pebble over the centre of the map. The pebble began to swirl in quick circles in a moment.
When they'd done this while trying to locate Tonks in seventh year, the pebble had tugged and moved itself of its own accord over the location where Tonks had been held. This time, the pebble stayed depressingly centred.
After several minutes, Hermione vented a tired sigh. "I'm exhausted. Maybe you should try it."
Harry took the end of the string from her. He muttered his own locating spell, putting enough power into it to find a needle lost in a haystack on another continent, but once again, the pebble didn't budge.
"Burke's probably in an unplottable location," Hermione said at last. "That would make sense."
Harry gave a grim nod. He'd expected nothing else.
Two days. That sadistic bastard of a rapist had had Severus for two days. Every time Harry sat still without a task before him, gruesome images of what could be happening to his lover would crowd his mind, like now.
"All right," Hermione, ever the optimistic Gryffindor, said, "we've searched Burke's holdings. We've searched Voldemort's old haunts. We've tried dowsing. What haven't we done?"
"Consulted Trelawney?" Harry suggested in a dead tone.
"You're not serious, are you?" Hermione asked.
"Almost. I . . . I don't know what I'm gonna do if -"
"We're going to get him back, Harry."
"You know how vicious that bastard is. Do you really think Severus is still alive?" Harry asked, his despair welling up inside him. He'd been trying to keep it down, because he was afraid of what would happen if he gave into it and allowed the madness to overwhelm his controls. Only, the more time that passed, the harder it was to believe. Even hope was fading in him now.
"I think if Burke wanted Severus dead, he'd have cast Avada Kedavra on him right there in Diagon Alley. The fact that he took Severus alive is . . . encouraging," Hermione said, the last word a little flat, no doubt due to her knowledge of why the bastard would have taken Severus alive.
"How long do you think he can last?" Harry heard himself ask. He hated the weakness that forced him to voice his fears. He wasn't a child. He knew, knew, knew what was no doubt happening to Severus while they were sitting here in this comfortable room, but he needed the solace. He needed to hear someone else say that Severus could still be alive.
"He's tough, Harry," Hermione said. Her tone told him that she understood exactly what he was asking for, and she knew him well enough to know precisely what she needed to say to get him back on the job again. "And he's counting on us to find him. So we have to find him. That's all there is to it."
She made it sound like there was absolutely no possibility that they'd fail.
"I'm out of ideas," Harry said. That sleep preventative potion of Severus' that they'd been taking for the last two days wasn't helping his mental clarity any, either.
"There must be something we're missing," Hermione said. She leaned over to pour them both a mug of tea from the magical teapot that was steaming on the end table between their chairs.
Harry gave a negative shake of his head as she offered a mug to him after preparing it to his tastes.
"You've had nothing all day. You have to keep up your strength," Hermione insisted.
Finding it easier to humour her than fight with her, Harry took the mug. In spite of his insistence of not wanting any, he found himself absently sipping at the cup while they gazed into the flames.
"This whole thing feels like one of those goddamned nightmares of mine," Harry said.
"Wait a minute!" Hermione cried out, jolting up in her seat so abruptly that she spilt tea all over her blue robes. "What did you just say?"
Thinking that he wasn't the only one suffering from sleep deprivation, Harry repeated, "Just that this feels like my nightmares."
"That's it, Harry! My God, that's it!" Hermione exclaimed, bouncing up out of her chair.
"What's it?" Harry echoed, utterly confused.
"I think we can find Severus. I read a number of books on Occlumency and Legilimency several years ago. One of them was very old, more than four hundred years. It was the journal a wizard kept while learning the arts. He didn't say much on how to work either Occlumency or Legilimency – they never do – but he did detail some of the unexpected side effects that he experienced."
"What kind of side effects?" Harry asked, unable to imagine anything that Hermione could have read as being helpful in their present situation.
"He said that a link formed between his mind and that of the wizard he practiced with. The book said that they could read each other's thoughts without trying and sense where each other were, even over great distances," Hermione enthusiastically explained.
Harry sighed. "I'm unconscious when Severus helps me with the dreams. There's no link."
"You don't know that," Hermione insisted. "Your minds were joined. It doesn't matter if you were awake during the union. It still happened. The link could even be subconscious."
Harry considered her suggestion. "How . . . how could I find out if we've got that kind of link? I mean, I've never been able to read Severus' thoughts, no matter how close we got. But . . . he is very reluctant to join our minds when I'm conscious." Sensing her curiosity, he softly explained, "He had some bad experiences with this kind of thing when young."
That much he could say without violating any confidences.
"Then he'd probably be very shielded against casual contact. But from what I read in this book, I don't think the link is something he could choose to deny. The wizard said it just happened, even though both men fought it," Hermione said. "Severus mightn't be consciously aware of its existence, either."
Feeling something like hope spark within him for the first time since Severus was grabbed, Harry asked, "All right, let's say the link exists. How do I use it?"
"How do you make contact when you first touch someone's mind?" Hermione countered.
Feeling slightly self-conscious, Harry tried to explain the process he barely understood, "I relax and reach out with my mind from the inside. It's hard to explain."
"Okay," Hermione said. "Lean back and close your eyes."
Harry did as instructed, willing to try anything at this point, including reading tea leaves. As if in response to that desperate thought, he felt her take the tea mug from his hand.
"Now, reach out for Severus, the way you would if he were here in the room. Don't think about how far away he is. Just think about . . . touching his mind," Hermione added, in a tone that seemed to indicate that she was making this up as she went along.
He wished their positions were reversed, that he was the one missing and that Severus was looking for him using these mental skills, for Harry knew his own abilities were miniscule when compared to Severus'. Only, according to Hermione, the link was there and he need only follow it.
Harry relaxed as best he could, emptied his mind, and reached. There was nothing. He could feel Hermione, Ron in the other room, the newly returned students sleeping in the Gryffindor dorm above them, and . . . something else . . . something amorphous that was barely there . . . a fragile trail of magic leading from Harry himself to . . . .
Harry mentally followed the nearly nonexistent, fragile thread, reaching out to touch . . . .
PAIN . . . AGONY . . . ABSOLUTE DESPAIR . . . .
Harry gasped, feeling as though he'd just tumbled into a vat of acid. Every cell throbbed with such intense pain that it almost felt like each and every atom were undergoing Cruciatus. He had never experienced anything like it, even in his worst nightmare.
Severus? he cried out mentally.
There was no reaction. No thought. Simply animal response to the physical stimulation of pain . . . as though Severus had endured so much torture that there was nothing of himself or his amazing mind left.
Latching on to the suffering man at the other end of the magical trail, Harry didn't withdraw to tell Hermione what he was doing. There wasn't time. He might already be way too late to save Severus' mind. Without hesitation, he once again overruled Hogwarts' security wards to apparate out. He heard Hermione call out his name as he vanished, and then felt equally strong security wards at the other end, plus unplottable spells, and several dozen powerful confounding spells.
But Harry wasn't about to be misled by a confounding spell. He wasn't focused on finding Burke, which was the intent that all the confounding spells thwarted. He was fixed on Severus, and when he pushed at those monster wards, they gave way exactly as Hogwarts' had.
Harry stumbled on the slippery stone floor as he manifested inside a dungeon cell that could have been drawn whole cloth from his worst nightmare. There was a single torch flickering on the far wall, casting a wavering light over the gruesome chamber. The place reeked of human waste and decay. There was a skeleton dangling from chains on the wall in front of him, and when he turned to his right . . . .
The rack was ancient, something that the Inquisition might have employed. Despite its age, it was still effective. Harry's entire being screamed 'No!' as he interpreted what his eyes were showing him. The figure lying so still and naked face down on the device was Severus, but no version of Severus he recognized. There didn't appear to be a single inch of skin that hadn't been pierced or burned.
The bit of tea in his stomach lurched upwards as Harry gaped at Severus' right arm. It ended in a bloody stump above his manacled wrist. The wound had been cauterised. He could see the blackened skin where the stump had been burned. It was Severus' wand hand that had been amputated, he realized, sick inside.
He searched the floor, hoping to see the hand lying there, for magical healing could reconnect a severed limb even if decomposition had set in, but all Harry could see on the floor was excrement, dried blood, and dirt.
Forcing himself to move, he staggered to Severus' side.
If possible, the damage was worse up close. Severus' face, which was turned towards him, was unrecognisable. His eyes couldn't be seen; the discoloured tissue around them was so swollen. His long nose was broken in several places. There were so many cuts and bruises on Severus' face that there was barely any white to his skin.
That was true, everywhere, Harry realized, taking stock. His lover's back and buttocks looked like a whip had been taken to them. Long, bloody rills criss-crossed Severus from neck to knee.
Staring down that no longer familiar body, Harry realized from the unnatural angle of his arms and legs that Severus' shoulder and hip joints had been pulled out of their sockets by the rack. His legs were splayed in an exaggeratedly wide V. Hot, murderous fury swelled in him when he saw the blood leaking from between Severus' buttocks, clear indications that he'd been brutally raped on top of everything else.
The only good news was that Severus' back was shallowly rising and falling. He lived, just barely. The damage wasn't as bad as what had been done to Ron's body, but it was far crueller, for he would take longer to die this way.
Afraid to touch for fear of inflicting more hurt, Harry lightly rested his hand on Severus' blood-soaked, sticky hair, whispering, "Severus?"
There was no reaction, so Harry forced the word out again, a little louder this time.
Severus' face contorted as the swollen, purple mass that was his left eye laboriously parted. Harry supposed that sanity was too much to be hoped for, but something like recognition sparked in that hardly visible eye.
Severus' bruised lips opened and a harsh, guttural grunt emerged, followed immediately by a quick stream of blood.
Panicked, Harry leaned down, terrified that Severus was haemorrhaging. Not sure what to do, he gazed into that open mouth, turning quickly to the side to throw up. With the mess of blood, urine, and excrement on the floor, his vomit was barely noticeable.
Standing back up, Harry pulled in a deep breath of the stinking air as he accepted what his eyes had just shown him. Severus' right hand wasn't the only thing missing. His tongue had been ripped out as well.
