Harry scrubbed the wooden floor of the decaying cottage on his hands and knees. This was nothing new. The Dursleys always had him scrubbing something (except they usually gave him a mop). That he had done it without arguing with the strange man who had kidnapped him a week ago was a testament to how well the Dursleys had trained him to obey (or to be afraid). Harry didn't need training to be afraid of this strange wizard though. The man had surprised Harry in the park down the street from his aunt and uncle's house over the summer, taken his wand, and apparated him to this miserable place at the beach. Harry always thought he would have liked the beach, but now he was certain he didn't. The air was always damp and cold, and it made wood decay. Wood that he now had to break his back to repair. The entire cottage smelled of mildew, and Harry felt sick from it. Or maybe he felt sick because he'd been disarmed so easily there in the park. He certainly wasn't happy about it. He'd fought Voldemort, giant snakes, and acromantulas, but this man had gotten the better of him. There hadn't even been much of a firefight. Harry suspected he had been drugged before being kidnapped, but he wasn't sure how since the Dursleys hadn't fed him in several days. Harry had been at the park looking through rubbish bins for anything at all to eat when he'd been taken.
The man who had kidnapped him was tall and wiry and had thinning black hair, a sallow face, and a hooked nose. He reminded Harry forcefully of Severus Snape, but as far as Harry knew Snape had no family. Then again, Harry didn't know much about him at all aside from the fact that he disliked children and liked to take points from Gryffindor. And he didn't like Harry. No matter, neither did this man. Harry didn't seem to have any luck at all when it came to adults liking him. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Sirius, Remus, and McGonagall. That was the list he kept in his head of adults who didn't want to harm him or put him in harm's way.
"Don't be so slow! Yer like a damn sea slug," the man shouted at Harry as he walked through the living room on his way out to the rotting porch. Harry pretended to scrub the floor with a little more vigor, but as soon as the man had disappeared from sight, Harry dropped the scrub brush and sat up on his knees. His back was aching. It didn't help that the man had whipped him yesterday. The Dursleys punished him often and for no reason, but never like this. They withheld food or told him to get lost for the day or stay out of sight, but they'd always been too afraid to lay a hand on him. This sour man had no such fear.
Harry wasn't sure if he was being held to take to Voldemort at a later date, but if that was the case he couldn't see why he hadn't been taken right away. He'd asked the man on the second day (and got punched in the side for his question) why he'd kidnapped him, but the man had only snapped, "You owe it to me, boy! You're gonna pay your dues!"
The man didn't talk much except to snap out orders or disparage the hard work Harry had done. "A troll could have done better boy!" "Is that as fast as you can move?" "Make my tea and there'd better not be anything in it that's not supposed to be there!" "Clumsy fool! Fall off the ladder like that again and I'll turn you over my knee!" He seemed to need as little reason as the Dursleys to punish Harry.
Harry had tried to escape on the second night. He had waited until it was dark and then left the house not caring that he didn't have his wand, running as fast as he could down the coast. He didn't get very far in the dark though, and his angry kidnapper had given him a fast punch in the face and dragged him back, kicking and fighting all the way to the cottage. Harry still had the black eye and it still hurt. What an awful way to spend the summer. He'd been hoping for an owl from his friends so he could write a plea for help, but no owls had come and Harry suspected the property had been warded against intrusion somehow. Maybe that's how he'd been caught while escaping. He had triggered some kind of ward alarm and the lanky elder man had come to find him.
He had no idea where his wand was being kept (maybe it had been snapped in half by now), but he was determined to get away at some point. He'd been biding his time, plotting while he cleaned and patched the roof and re-built the porch roof. He kept track of how many days he'd been there at the cottage too. It was August first when he'd been kidnapped, and he knew he had to figure out a way to escape by September 1st so he could get back to Hogwarts. The real problem was, he had no idea where he was being kept or how to apparate away. If there were no towns nearby where he could seek out help, that could be a real problem. It was August eighth and as each day passed, Harry grew more anxious that he'd never escape; and would never get back to school again.
