Harry Potter belongs to JKR

A/N: Comments on each chapter are encouraged; I love each and every one of them. Tell me what you like, don't like, or anything that could use improving.

A lot of work has gone into this fic. I hope you find it enjoyable, but even if you don't, please submit a comment and let me know.

Rated M for drug abuse, nudity, language, sex, violence, implied child abuse, and non-con

Harry Potter and the Aevum of Eternity

Beta by FedererRex

Chapter 1

Her mouth opened reflexively and she tried to inhale, but some kind of thick, syrupy liquid choked her throat. Darkness filled her vision, opening or closing her eyes made no difference; it was pitch black. Her hands went to her neck.

"I can't breathe!" she thought, bordering on panic.

A half-step forward and down, and her bare feet landed on cold stone. Her fingers clutched at the outside of her throat as duelling reflexes for gagging and inhaling fought for supremacy. Gagging won out, and she doubled over and heaved, ejecting the disgusting warm liquid with a splatter onto the stone floor and her feet. Her body strained itself until she felt like her stomach was about to rip itself out of her throat, then she tried to gasp for breath but barely got anything in before she heaved again, spewing out another lungful of viscous liquid. Collapsing forward on all fours, she emptied the contents of her stomach in a seemingly endless stream from her nose and mouth before managing to get a half-breath in, her lungs rattling and burbling. A coughing fit wracked her body and somehow even more liquid splattered onto the ground. Throat finally clear, she collapsed and rolled onto her back, gasping in great gulps of air as she lay blinking into the inky darkness. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realised she was lying naked on a cold floor in whatever she'd just vomited up, but she didn't care. She was alive.

It felt like minutes she simply lay there, listening to the sound of her own panting. Once her breathing calmed down, she tried to roll over, but her arms and legs weren't answering properly. Even the tiniest movement sent scorching pins and needles through her as blood flooded life-giving oxygen through her body. Another minute or two and strength returned enough to roll over and push herself up onto all fours again. With no light, her breaths and heartbeat sounded obscenely loud. What had happened?

She closed her eyes (still just as dark) and tried to recall. She had entered the secret room under the manor vault, looking for something… but her memories were hazy. She was due to return to Hogwarts later that day, how long had she been down here? She blindly felt around the dirty floor for a moment.

Where was her wand? Where were her clothes?

"Lumos," she said, trying a bit of wandless magic, but nothing happened.

"Lumos!" she said again, with the same result.

She stood up slowly, the ground wet and cold beneath her feet. Already she could feel the dankness of the cellar seeping into her body, the warmth of her vomit cooling quickly and chilling her skin, sticking her hair to her shoulders and back. It wouldn't be long before her extremities started to feel numb. Reaching out blindly, her hands landed on a metal frame of some kind. Unable to figure out what it was, she moved on past it.

"I've got to get out of here," she thought.

Slowly, she inched her way across the floor, trying her best not to think about whatever it was crunching underneath and between her toes, mixed in with the dust and pebbles and other debris. Step by step, she felt her way around bookshelves and cabinets until eventually she came to a stone wall. Turning right, she inched her way along until she found what she was looking for: a wooden step, the bottom of the staircase leading out of the sub-vault. Sighing with relief, she went to take a step up and stubbed her toe on a jagged rock. Stifling a yelp of pain, she squatted down and felt her way forward, only to come up against a pile of stones, some larger than her torso. The staircase and the wall next to it had collapsed, perhaps the entire vault above her had collapsed. Panic gripped her at the thought of being trapped down here in the dark and overcame her fear of being caught where she shouldn't be.

"Hello? Mother! Father!" she called, "Andy!" The silence was deafening.

"Help! Anybody!" she yelled again.

"Mimpsy!" she yelled, the name of their house elf, but nobody came. She screamed again and again, for hours, until her voice grew hoarse and she could barely whisper.

Finally giving up on being heard, she felt her way around the hidden vault. It wasn't very large, and before long, she'd been all the way around the sub-basement, having only found a few books on a shelf, a locked cabinet she didn't dare try to open, and some kind of standing metal frame. Her own breathing filled her hearing, quicker and louder as the direness of her situation set in. Out of desperation, she tried to climb the rock pile. She managed to scale her way to the ceiling of the vault where she tried to move the stones by hand, but only succeeded in causing a miniature avalanche. Exhausted, bruised, and now covered in scrapes she was sure were a bit bloody, she lay down next to the metal frame and drifted to sleep. She woke some time later, shivering in the chill. Thirst came for her; her mouth was completely parched. She huddled in a corner to try and stave off the cold, but the stones leeched the warmth from her body until her limbs shook uncontrollably and she couldn't feel her fingers or toes anymore.

"Am I going to die down here in the dark, alone?" she thought.

"Help," she called again, but there was no strength to her voice and no response but the silence. She tried to hold out hope someone would come searching for her; surely Hogwarts would realize she was missing by now and alert her parents? At some point she woke again with a start, neck and back aching from how she'd slept.

"Mimpsy?" she called again, hopeless, "Dipsy?"

"Kreacher?"

A loud pop echoed around the room. Then there was light, blessed light, and she gasped. She could even see it through her eyelids. Blinded, she shielded her eyes with her arm.

"Not so bright," she said. The light dimmed until she could see without squinting.

Before her stood the house elf, dressed in a faded yellow pillowcase, complete with a red sash hung over one shoulder. It was even more decrepit looking than she recalled. Kreacher held a ball of light in one hand and leaned forward with an inquisitive expression on its withered face.

"Thank Merlin," she rasped, "Kreacher, I need water."

The elf vanished with a pop, plunging the room back into darkness, and returned a few seconds later with a brown mug filled with warm water, which she gulped down thirstily. The clean, clear liquid hurt her desiccated throat and felt like a lead weight in her stomach but she didn't care; she guzzled every last drop without paying a single thought to manners or grace. As she lowered the mug, she found the ancient elf standing uncomfortably close to her, the tip of its nose only inches away from her face. She scooted backwards and drew her knees up to cover her nakedness.

"Miss is so very young, and alive," Kreacher said slowly, "Kreacher thought Miss had been killed."

"Not quite," she replied, voice still raw. She swallowed to try and clear it.

"Kreacher, I need… a robe, please, and my wand," she said, "or any wand, for that matter."

The elderly house-elf stared at her for several long, uncomfortable seconds.

"Kreacher lives to serve the noble house of Black," the elf replied.