Title: "Lovely Lonely Nightingale"
Author: Wildhue
Summary: Teaser Chapter. Why does the caged Nightingale sing its sorrowful song in the cruel and silent night? Maybe because this lovely little bird knows that even the company of a hungry wolf is better than this heart-wrentching isolation. LV/HP Features a take on both the Stockholm and Nightingale syndrome.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all of its related characters belongs to J. K. Rowling. The only thing that belong to me are the situation and how the story plays out.
A/N: Although it is just a Teaser/prologue. My first fanfiction published on FFnet , My apologies if the grammar is lacking (read: sucks) in some places. I currently don't have a beta for this story. Although, If you are interested in becoming one, send me a PM (I say PM because I probably won't check my Email).
I'm not sure what I have planned for this piece, even though it is incredibly interesting to write. I'm not sure the plot I have in mind has enough substance to turn this into a actual multi-chaptered story. If you have any ideas, let me know via review. I'm open up to any suggestions you guys might have.
Stockholm syndrome - In which a hostage shows signs of loyalty to the hostage-taker, regardless of the danger or risk in which they have been placed.
Nightingale syndrome - In which a vulnerable patient develops romantic and even erotic attraction to the person charged with the patient's care and well being.
If anything, it's unnerving, this prison that he is trapped within. Although Harry is not really sure is he should be calling this place a prison. It was definitely different from any prison he had seen, or rather, experienced.
His memories of how he wound up here are muddled and disjointed, like a pond after heavy rain. It didn't help that there was little information available to him, only his sense of touch, smell, and surprisingly taste (though he is not entirely certain that is true, the only taste left to him is bitter afterthought on his tongue which could very well be a mere figment of his imagination).
There was neither a sight nor sound in this place which was incredibly disconcerting. Uncertainly, he reached up to touch his face. With a flood of relief he finds that his lack of sight and the silence are due to a soft cloth wrapped snugly around both his ears and eyes and not to some freaky bout of sudden blindness and deafness. Though, to make matters worse, he finds that his wrists were also bound, though not tightly. Fortunately, he was provided a few inches of space between his wrists, allowing him at least some movement. Unfortunately, try as he might, his blindfold and fabric handcuffs would not come off and no amount of tearing and tugging could remove the stubborn strips of cloth. There wasn't even a knot on the back of head that he could try and untie! With a defeated sigh (somewhere in the back of his mind, he found that sighing without a sound proved to be quiet an unsettling experience) he concluded that the blindfold had somehow been charmed to remain in place.
With sight and sound being out of the question as well has having limited mobility, Harry forced himself to relax. He had to rely on his remaining senses to discern his surroundings. To his horror he found that he had been stripped naked. He could feel the fear bubbling in his chest, making hard to breathe. He clumsily patted around himself in a frantic search for his wand; the floor he found was soft and cushiony, similar to a bed of moss. In fact, for all he knew, he could very well be sitting naked as a blue jay on a giant bed of moss. After several more moments of awkward patting Harry concluded with a heavy heart, that his wand was no where to be found.
He didn't risk wandering far from his original spot, in fear that he might have been placed near a sudden drop or step. He tried to still his frantically thumping heart, I would do him no good if he panicked and somehow injure himself. Even tumbling a few innocent feet could prove to be dangerous, and there was no way he'd risk being injured without fully understanding the situation he was currently in. He needed to have a calm and clear mind too figure a way out this mess. With his current limitations, his best course of action was to sit back and take in as much information about his immediate surroundings as he could, without moving too much lest he stumble to his doom.
Settling himself, he took a soft whiff to see if he could somehow identify an odor that was if nothing else, familiar. With a bit of pride in his sense of smell, Harry identified in the air, the sweetly delicate scent of Vervain and a bit of lavender in the air with an underlying hint of . . . something he didn't know how to describe. . . dark? Yes, dark, but not the bad kind of dark. Dark that was cool and comforting, gentle like the night.
The combination of aromas was intoxicating, almost soporific in its effects. It lulled him into comfortable daze.
He didn't know how long he sat there, transfixed by the calm and placating atmosphere. It could have been minutes, hours, even days. Time did not seem to pass normally in his dark and silent world. Though, something struck him as odd, he felt neither hunger (not at the moment, at least) nor the urge to relieve himself, in fact, his body felt more hale than it had ever felt before.
He felt as weightless as a fish in water, yet remained firmly planted on the weird moss-like ground. Following this train of thought, he brought his wrist close to his face and inhaled deeply, sniffing all the way to the crook of his arm. He certainly didn't smell as filthy as he should have, after going so long without proper hygienic care. He smelt crisp and clean, his natural scent lost beneath the oh-so-delicate floral scents, almost as if he had just bathed himself in a wonderful verbena bubble bath. Nevertheless he was sure it had been quiet a while since he last bathed himself. However, a different aroma under the scent of flora tickled his nose.
Tingly and acidic, much like the smell of ozone just before a crack of lightning. It was the smell of magic.
'Magus Hypersensia, The ability to sense magic as one or more of the five senses'. It was a nifty little skill he had picked up during his time with the Dursleys. Or rather the time during which he was transferred from Hogwarts to the Dursleys and from the Dursleys to Hogwarts. Being repeatedly exposed to supersaturated magical surroundings and then completely isolated from anything even remotely 'freaky' over a lengthy period of time (years, in his case), had messed with Harry's magical core in the oddest ways possible.
Like a person who had been locked in darkness (he couldn't ignore the total irony of that statement) and then suddenly thrust into the light, He had developed super sensitivity to any 'light', or rather, any magical change in the atmosphere. Ergo, Magus hypersensia.
He brought his delicate and thin wrist close to his face, and let his tongue dart from between his lips to lap at the milky skin of his wrist, tasting the subtle different odors clinging to him. He was rewarded with tongue full of that acrid taste, informing him that his previous thoughts were correct. Whoever was holding him captive was keeping him sanitary (and disturbingly enough, his bladder/bowels purged of waste) through magical means.
However, no matter what means his captors used, be it magical or otherwise. It could only spell waste and filth away. No magical means could provide nutrition like real food could. There were only spells to stave off hunger for some time (these interesting facts were learned through his numerous stints in the hospital wing under Madam Pomfrey's stern lecturing). The embarrassing gurgles and grows of his stomach proved this much (although Harry couldn't hear it rumbling, he could definitely feel it).
As if on cue, he could feel the air as well as the magic around him shift. The once barely noticeable scent of Vervain and cool darkness gradually began to grow. The air around him seemed to hum and crackle with energy, the fine hairs on the back of his neck and arms stood on end. Anticipation coiled in his stomach like a viper ready to strike, the sensations achingly familiar yet alien at the same time. Whatever it was, it was confusing the hell out of him.
After moments of agonizing eternity, Harry could feel the air around his unfolded legs change suddenly, signaling that someone had landed near his feet (seeing as Harry was still sitting on the ground, this meant that the person was still a few feet away). The feeling was almost like an apparition but not quiet as violent. It was smooth, almost as if someone had slipped through silk curtains, this person was definitely magical.
The newcomer didn't move for a while, which Harry was thankful for. It allowed him time to adjust to the new presence and change in environment. When the stranger finally did move, he gently tapped Harry's ankle with cool fingers. Harry figured it was to let him know where the other was. He swallowed thickly and gave a small nod of the head in the person's general direction. Harry wasn't entirely sure whether or not he got his message across or what he was even trying to communicate. Nevertheless, the stranger responded, laying his cold hand lightly on Harry's ankle, his long fingers wrapping around the delicate appendage.
Wait, when had 'stranger' become 'him'?
Despite Harry's conjecture on the stranger's gender, his heart continued to thud painfully in his chest. Frantic thoughts raced through his head. Who was this person? What did he want and why was he here? Was this person the one who bound Harry and put him in this timeless place? Did he want to kill of the infamous Chosen One, to claim the glory of finally being the one to off the boy-who-won't-die? If he did want to kill Harry, why hadn't they done so already? What in Merlin's name was going on?
And the question that somehow frightened him the most, why was this stranger being so gentle? Was it some kind of trap to lull the boy into a false sense of security? Not that he was doing a good job anyways, what with the blindfold and handcu--
His thoughts came to an abrupt halt when he felt the stranger's cool hand relocate itself to Harry's pale and creamy stomach. The coolness of the hand clashed terribly with Harry's warm skin.
He could feel the warmth rising to his cheeks and ducked his head in mortifying embarrassment. Ah, so the stranger had noticed his body's call for nourishment. To make things even worse, his stomach's growls came back with vengeance, making its call much more intense this time. Merlin's balls, he wanted nothing more than to crawl under a rock and just die. That, or a whole fucking hippogriff roasting on a pike.
With one hand still planted firmly on his stomach, the stranger used his other hand to gently grasp Harry's chin, turning it (he assumed) to face the stranger's general direction. The size and weight of his hand on Harry's face confirmed his thoughts.
The stranger was a man, and a tall one at that, judging by the length of those cool fingers. The rough calluses along the stranger's forefinger and thumb proved that the man was a wizard. Only magical folk developed callous in those particular places, (much like how a gunslinger develops calluses in the underside of the forefinger and on the palm).
Through his jumble of thoughts, the enticing scent of fruit caught him by surprise. Why the hell was there fruit around?