Pain…

That was all Harry could feel. His head was pounding and he could feel something sticky and hot dripping down the side of his head. His cheek was lying against something cold, hard, and slimy as his shoulders felt like they had been forced out of their sockets and then beaten back into place. He tired to move, but realized that he was tied with his arms behind his back.

He groaned out, trying to remember what happened, and he heard a voice whisper, "Harry?"

Feeling like he rather have done anything but force his eyes to open, he squinted at first… the first thing that he noticed was that his glasses were gone and everything was blurry. But he could make out Hermione's petrified face across from him behind bars.

"H-Hermione?" he croaked out, his voice sounding hoarse.

"Oh, Harry," she moaned in relief. "I'm so glad… for a while there I thought…"

Harry groaned again as he rolled over onto his side so that he could see better. "What happened?" he asked looking around him to see that the room they were in was made of dark, slimly stone—the same as the filthy floor. There were no windows, and only a large wooden door that led to the outside world. There were bars around him, and Hermione was in a cell just across from him. There was no sign of Ron.

He looked around and then up at her to ask, "What happened?"

"It all happened so fast," she whispered. "I just finished getting the water when suddenly these men with masks jumped out and attacked us. One of them had a club and took you out. Me and Ron didn't last for much longer than that. They hit and knocked him out to, but I was still awake when they dragged us here to this awful castle."

"Who's castle?" he asked, forcing his aching body up against the wall until he was in a sitting position. "What's this about?"

"They keep calling him the Dark Lord," she whispered, fear in her voice. "There's only one person it could be…"

"Voldemort," Harry whispered, having already guessed that he was the one behind it all. "But what about Ron?"

"I don't know," she moaned. "They had him in here a while ago, but just before you woke up, they came in and took him. I don't have a clue to what happened." She shook her head. "I'm sorry, Harry."

"Don't be," he croaked out. "None of us were paying attention. How could we expect this to happen?"

"They took everything," she whimpered. "Everything they had. When they saw the sword that Ron had…"

Harry cursed under his breath. So now Voldemort had both the key and the sword. That was when he felt the pouch under his shirt and he let out a small sigh of relief. The stone were still safe then. But first things first, he had to get them out of here. They would worry about what to do when they were out of here.

He didn't have long to wait however, about ten minutes later he heard voices outside the large wooden door and suddenly it was flung open, blinding them both with light for a moment before two shadows appeared, dragging a body with them. They unlocked the door to an empty cell and threw it in there. With a surge of fury, Harry saw that it was Ron—who was whimpering slightly.

"Ron!" he gasped as the two men in skull masks laughed.

"Don't bother," said one of the men stupidly. "You all will get what's coming to you in three days."

"What are you all talking about?" Harry demanded as fiercely as he could despite the fact that he was stuck here and hurt without being able to so much as move.

"Master says that you three will be dead in a few days," the other said.

"If you're going to kill me, why not get it over with now?" he demanded.

"Not just you," he first one said looking at the three of them. "All three of you, but Master's pet had a feast of the last bloke that was down here and won't eat again for another few days. We'll wait then."

They left after that. Harry made sure that they were gone before the turned to Ron's cell and called out, "Ron? Ron are you alright?"

Silence for a few moments before the red-head looked up to him. "Harry?" he croaked.

"Oh, Ron!" Hermione called to him tearfully. Unlike them, her hands were still free. "Are you ok?"

"Y-yeah," he muttered, blood dripping from his mouth and nose.

"What did they do to you?" Harry whispered, staring at the bleeding cuts all over his friend's face.

"They wanted answers," he croaked. "They wanted to know what I did with the stone and sword."

He looked to Harry who told him, "I know. They took the sword didn't they?"

Ron gave him a miserable look. "Yeah. I know. I was stupid… I was stuck with the sword and I couldn't even protect it properly."

"Ron, you couldn't have hidden something that big from them," Hermione said at once. "It's not your fault. At least you're still alive."

"The stone?" Ron gasped, looking to Harry, who nodded.

"I still have it."

"One less thing to worry about then," Ron sighed in relief. "He was there… he kept questioning me until I thought that I'd go mad."

"Voldemort?" Harry asked.

Ron nodded. "He has the key and the sword now. He was taunting me with it. He knows that we'd worked so hard to get those things…"

"And?" Hermione pressed on.

"He wanted to know if we…" but before he could finish, the door opened again, and the two men that dragged Ron in were back.

"Master wants you," one of the men said to Harry, unlocking the door and dragging him out the door. Through the halls they dragged him, Harry struggling to get to his feet to walk, but it was useless. He couldn't even see straight anymore.

The castle was large, made of a strong gray color—though to be honest it was hardly better than that dungeon that they were just in. The castle was like a museum of the dark – from Dark Arts to simply dark auras. The many rooms that they passed, even with candles lit, felt as though they existed merely to suck the happiness from its inhabitants, like the echo of a demon caught within the walls. Any light shone in was devoured by the shadows, never to be seen again.

He pulled at the ropes that bound his arms before he was thrown face-forward onto the hard floor. Tasting more blood, he glared up before him to see Voldemort sitting there on a black throne.

"Oh, to what do I owe the pleasure?" Harry demanded fiercely, feeling humiliated at being so helpless and unable to protect himself.

He had heard many rumors on what Voldemort was like… but he never expected his imagination to be so poor. He was uglier than he ever thought possible.

The man was bald and his veins stood out, almost like scales, on the ghostly pale, snake-like face. His mouth was curled into a twisted smile that looked like it belonged to the devil himself, his fingers were long and thin… like a pair of giant spiders resting oo the arms of the black throne.

But the worst part were the eyes… they were a blood-red color with black strips like a cat. They were such cold, terrifying eyes… devoid of any emotion other than sick amusement.

Voldemort smiled cruelly down at him. "You've got spirit. We'll see how long that lasts."

"What do you want with me?" Harry demanded, trying not to show the fear that he felt.

"I must say that after all this time, I didn't expect a chance for the royal family to be saved," Voldemort said. "You've been travelling around the prince for some time now haven't you? I knew that old fool Dumbledore would do something to prevent the princess from dying…"

"You were the one who cursed her!" he called. "What did she ever do to you?"

"That is none of your business," he answered silkily. "I merely caused some trouble."

"You caused the whole kingdom to sleep for a hundred years!" he yelled at him.

"That was the old man's doing, not I," he answered coolly. "Because he believed that true love would be enough to break my curse. He should've just let the girl die. At least then the rest of the kingdom would've been awake all this time. That way, your fellow commoners wouldn't have had to suffer all these years."

"He only did what he thought was best," Harry retorted, refusing to listen to anything that this snake had to say. "If you never cursed the princess, then none of this would've happened."

"That is a matter of opinion," Voldemort answered him, the smile growing a little wider. He then reached into his pocket and pulled out something.

It was a small silver key. At first glance it didn't seem all that special… that is until he saw that the key had a set of wings attached to it—one of which had a crooked wing.

"Is that…?" Harry asked, staring at it.

"It is indeed," Voldemort chuckled. "I went to the shrine in the middle of the forest and found it among hundreds of others flying around. It would've taken a normal person days to have found the right one. Luckily, I've always been—ah—above others."

"Well, what do you want from me?" Harry demanded. "If you wanted us dead, you could've done so before."

"True," Voldemort answered with another smile. "I could've. But then I never would've gotten the answers that I'm looking for."

"What answers?" Harry asked. "Not that I'll tell you even if I knew the answers to them."

Voldemort smirked again. "You've got a mouth on you. That appears to be the only weapon you seem to have. But that's not why I brought you here."

"Then why?" Harry asked.

He watched as Voldemort leaned comfortably back in his chair, that was when he realized that there was something else in the room. Harry froze and watched in terror as a snake, the largest snake he could ever remember seeing slithered up from behind the throne and settled itself on its master's shoulders.

"My dear Nagini," Voldemort cooed to the serpent. "I know that you are still full from your feast the other day. Don't worry though," he smiled evilly down at Harry. "I've already got you three people… one for each meal of the day."

Harry tried not to show fear, but it was hard as he watched the enormous, diamond-headed serpent looking over at him.

"I seem to have gotten your attention now," Voldemort spoke in that same cold, silky-smooth voice. "Now maybe you will be more willing to answer my questions."

"What questions?" Harry asked.

Voldemort stroked the snake's head for a second before he asked, "Who is it?"

"Who is what?" Harry asked, now starting to feel angry again.

"I've done more than my fair share of research for this spell that the foolish old man performed," Voldemort informed him. "I know that only a kiss from true love…" he said that last word in a hiss, as though it was something too disgusting… or maybe a word that he didn't fully understand…? "Could awaken her. Tell me…" He leaned forward and asked, "Who is he? Have you found the one that the princess loves? Who is this lucky dreamer?"

Harry honestly had no idea to what he was talking about. "What do you mean?" he asked carefully. "Dumbledore never gave me a name or anything. I don't know anything about this."

Voldemort gazed at him. "What you say isn't a complete lie. I see… you honestly don't know who it is. Well, that is rather unfortunate. For you see, I wanted to know who the princess was in love with. That way, once I had the pleasure of removing him from this world, the curse could never break."

Harry stared at him. "What the hell is wrong with you?" he demanded. "What did any of those people do to you to make you want them to suffer like this? First you curse the princess—a baby that never did any harm to you, and now you want to take away any chance that they might've had to saving her! Why? What did they do to you?"

Voldemort tilted his head to the side as he observed him. He then clapped his hands together once, and the doors behind Harry opened up and the two servants who had brought him in here came back.

"Take him back to his cell," Voldemort commanded in a bored way. "I see that there's no more point in questioning them like this. No matter… we've got three more days before Nagini must feed again. Perhaps they will be more eager to speak then."

Harry was, once again, grabbed by his arms, and forced up. He managed to get one last glare at Voldemort as he was dragged from the room. But as he did, he couldn't help but notice the silver and ruby encrusted object that was leaning right next to the throne…

Even after he was thrown back into his cell with Hermione and Ron, he knew that there must still be a way to get out of this mess.

A/N: Things are looking bad. Now Voldemort finally comes into the picture! How do you all think that they'll make it out of this situation alive?

Thanks for reading and please vote and comment!