Who: Harry, Ron, Hermione What: a very bad dream. When: very early Saturday morning. Where: their hideout. Warnings: mentions of torture Status: Incomplete
Harry's wand lifted. The faces of his victims were in darkness, but he smiled at them anyway. It was not a pleasant smile, but a cruel one, taking delight in their pain. He cast the curse, making them writhe in agony.
One of them fell to the ground, and her face was visible, eyes wide with horror.
He recognized her, at last. Looking up, he saw the other, a man - and recognized him, too. Given a moment of freedom from being their torturer, he tried to round on their attacker with a hoarse shout. "No!"
Suddenly there were things on top of him, over his face, and Harry panicked, shoving at them. It was a blanket, he realized after a moment. It took a moment for him to register that he was tangled in a blanket on the floor, having rolled out of bed. His vision was blurry; his glasses had fallen off. He made a lucky grab for where he thought they were, and shoved them back onto his face.
It had been a dream. Yet his throat felt raw; had he shouted aloud?
No, no, that wasn't the important part. The important part was that his scar was a line of searing pain in his forehead, prickling ominously. The most important part was that he now knew who it was that Voldemort had captured, who he had been dangling anonymously in front of Harry to torment him in his nightmares. Nightmares that he had been trying to keep from Ron and Hermione, because they hadn't been helpful at all, except...
Oh, Merlin. All this time, it had been Hermione's parents.