Shackles Chapter 1: Blood: Draco Malfoy, a harry potter fanfic

Title: Shackles

Author: Nacata

Summary: They were trapped there: all of them. In the halls they used to run down, the classrooms they used to sleep in, the dormitories they used to gossip in. They were shackled to the sole place that had ever provided them safety. They weren't kidding when they said school was a prison. AU

Chapter 1: Blood (Draco Malfoy)

Rating: T for heavy language, mildly descriptive gore, frequent sexual situations and heavy violence. (Rating subject to change?)

Shipping: Well, wouldn't you like to know?

Disclaimer: Obviously I don't own Harry Potter. If I did, you would've seen some remarkable changes in the seventh book. The Weasley Twins may not have made an appearance due to the fact that they'd be tied up in my closet. Cedric Diggory too.

Author's Note: I'm back. Again. After another extended absence. This story I fully intend to follow through with and complete at some (hopefully not-too-distant) point in the future! I'm looking for a Beta, as well as anyone who would like to discuss plot, character development, and future possibilities for the story. If I start to slack where updates are concerned, you all have full permission to harass the hell out of me. My profile has contact information for anyone willing to whip me back into shape. :

The moonlight filtered through the fragile castle window and in its fluorescence he saw himself transformed, like his goody-two-shoes werewolf teacher, like the vampire his mother claimed to have spotted in Italy, like Angelina Johnson these past few months, like the very school itself. As the dark hallways twisted and groaned, morphing, stretching, his body accommodated. As the days got longer, as the sun grew thinner, so he accumulated three inches and became sickeningly gaunt. As the stones felt harder so the angles of his face sharpened and solidified. As the smell of death stained the tapestries, the door handles, every crook, every cranny, ever corner of the castle, so it nestled permanently into his skin.

"Scourgify," He was near hysterics in the shower, his wand out and pointed at his thin, papery arm. "Scourgify. Scourgify, scourgify, scourgify." He lifted his wrist again to his nose but death's perfume was strong, musky, overwhelming. He felt dizzy and resisted the urge to turn and wretch into the toilet so close to the shower. The scalding water pounded his flesh, soothing his spine but proving unable in the damnable end to purge his moony limbs of the stench that lingered there.

His hair smelled like an entire bottle of shampoo now, and his skin singed from the multitude of charms he had invested in, hoping one would clean him of the blood seeping through his pores. He'd heard about people dying of lack of blood, but he wondered if it was possible to bleed to death in a different manner. Could one acquire too much blood?

It seemed he was ready to burst with it. It crawled in beneath his skin and settled in his veins, mixing with his own DNA until he could feel their pain nearly as strong as his own. He could taste their fear metallic and sharp in his mouth, could smell their life-wine pouring in thick heavy puddles onto the floors they'd once pranced across with school books and big, bright, innocent eyes.

Some of them, anyway. He had never been pure, even as a child. He was tainted at an early age and he had accepted that fate, that terrible, hell-bound fate of his, and he did not complain about it. He would act as was expected of him, and they would act as was expected of them and that was why Slytherins and Gryffindors couldn't be friends. History was a powerful overlord, and it was determined that they would remain separate entities, existing in parallel worlds of widely different scopes.

He was ready to implode with all the blood running rampant through his veins, making the corner of his lips twitch as he pulled on the dark pants, the dark blouse, the dark cloak and then settled the dark magic of his wand into his pocket. With so much black around him, his face seemed translucent beneath its hood, his eyes glowing a steely gray under thick blonde lashes. His lips, pale and thin, were set in the usual sneer as he traipsed down, down, down, spiraled down, down, down, fell down, down, down the many changing staircases until he was at last in the Potions dungeons, watching his old classmates from the other side of iron bars, new, but rusted already with red stains he tried heartily to ignore.

"Oh." The mudblood's voice was hard. "It's just you."

"Delighted to see you too," He muttered, staring straight ahead at the wall between the two cages Montague had installed just weeks ago.

"You're a dirty coward, Malfoy."

"Shut it, Weasel." His eyes hardened beneath the cloak, his face still set straight ahead by sheer willpower. "If you want to discuss personal hygiene, take a look at the dump you live in and the rats that infest it with you."

"Oh! I didn't know you had a rat problem, Ronald. Would you like me to bring some Scillywigs over? They're excellent rodent-hunters…"

"He was talking about my family, Luna," Weasley hissed low between his teeth.

"…Hm. I didn't know humans could have rat-blood in them. Was it your mother or your father's side that did the inter-breeding?"

"Shhh." The final voice was deep, smooth, velvety. He smiled serenely over at Lovegood, and the only disruption in the comfort of that grin was the burn scalding his left jawline. "Go back to sleep, Luna." Dean Thomas settled back into the confines of the cage he shared with Weasley, his head tilted upward, his eyes closed peacefully. Across the room, Lovegood shied away from Granger enough to allow them both ample room for sleep, curling herself into a contented little ball on her side.

To Draco's utter dismay, however, she simply lay there, watching him, a dreamy smile interrupted by the matted blood covering the roots of her silky hair and a fourth of her passive face. He reminded himself that he hadn't spilled hers—that Crabbe or Goyle or Dolohov or someone else entirely was the sorry Death Eater who had to taste her pain and smell her discomfort. "You heard him," He breathed sharply, unable even still to stand there with her watching him like that. "Sleep, Looney." She giggled, an odd, chime-like little sound that made his ears rattle and his head ache in wake of her voice.

"When you do get some rest, Draco, pleasant dreams."

She couldn't see because she'd closed her eyes now, but a bitter smile dangerously paralleling hysteria tugged upward at his lip and he fought the ball of laughter and sobs spun together, creeping lethally up his throat. Pleasant dreams? He couldn't remember a time when he'd had those to begin with. It was why he took the night shift.

"Malfoy, you're done." The voice was a twisted joke some deity was imposing upon him as he pushed himself up off the wall, tugged his hood away and walked blank-faced back up the stairs descending into the hell formerly known as his Potions classroom. He was on vacation. He was not done. He would never be done so far as he could see until he became fed up with it all and decided to pitch himself from the astronomy tower or else piss off another Death Eater enough to earn himself a tempting Avada Kedavra. Perhaps those words would sound sweeter when directed at him. Perhaps not. He wouldn't be sure until the time came for him to leave one filthy hell behind and advance to the next.

Something hard and wonderfully jolting stirred him from his reverie and he scowled despite his silent gratitude until he realized who was standing before him. The sweeping black hair, the sly smirk, the arch of a single dark eyebrow and the copper hand resting on his pale elbow gave Montague away. "Oi. Malfoy, you look a bit dazed. They giving you trouble downstairs?" His voice betrayed an odd mix of amusement and threat. Beside him, his spouse looked as impassive and uncaring as Draco himself. For a moment the two statue-esque prisoners locked eyes, shackled to one another by a sort of understanding that this was what had to be done, that this was the only way to survive. Then Angelina Johnson looked away and Draco turned his eyes back on his fellow Slytherin.

"No," He replied quietly, the haunted lilt of his voice causing even his own eyebrows to rise in momentary disorientation. "They slept through the night." Seeing the odd edge of both suspicion and fear creeping into the older boy's gaze, Draco continued, "I was surprised. Figured you lot would've come down to continue their proper welcoming."

"You've been welcoming them for the past three weeks."

Montague raised his other eyebrow at the snide tone of voice his companion had taken, giving her a hard look which she ignored with a reminiscent bout of Gryffindor pride—stupidity seemed more the appropriate word to Draco. "We had other things to attend to." A superior smirk tainted his lips upward at the corners and he looked down at Draco, a single inch separating their gazes. "Would you have been able to handle it anyhow, Malfoy? You 'ave a rather weak stomach for their screams, it appears."

All the blood running rampant beneath Draco's flesh froze in its place, time standing still for a solitary second before the life-liquid pumped hard and fast and painful through his veins again. Scowling in an appropriately convincing manner, he turned his nose upward and retorted sharply, "On the contrary. I just find the silence of their submission much more satisfying." He squared his jaw, challenging his opponent with an arch of his own eyebrow. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought Johnson might look mildly intrigued.

Montague at last nodded, surrendering his temporary power over Draco's mood. "Angelina, run along to breakfast." She wasted no time in evacuating from their cruel presences, her chin stuck out stubbornly, the green satin of her dress billowing slightly as she turned the corner. Montague's eyes followed her for a split second, then returned to the platinum blonde before him. "Listen, Draco…" He winced at the sound of his own first name. "I know you're reliable. You were a bloody brilliant Seeker. Give you a job n' you'll do it. But there's been…talk. Suspicion. Not everyone is as sold on the Dark Lord's faith in you as I am. They wouldn't dare cross you in front of him, but do remember that he spends the majority of his time up in his chambers. He doesn't see everything that goes on down here in these halls and you'd do best to watch yourself. After your slip up with Dumbledore, you can't afford to look soft, eh? They'll think you're hesitant about all of this. That maybe you…" He studied Draco a bit closer for his reaction now, "actually care about what happens to the mudblood scum." When Draco opened his mouth to protest indignantly, Montague held up a single hand. "Look. I'm not accusing you of anything, alright? I'm behind you. If the Dark Lord says you'll come through, then you'll come through, eh?

"But the fact remains that you look like hell these days. You walk around like a bloody zombie—actually, in all honesty, a zombie would be an improvement on your mannerisms. And you're thinner than some of the prisoners. N' you spend a ridiculous amount of time alone, and it's unsettling some of the other blokes. It…seems like you're frightened. Like you might chicken out again, they say."

Draco scoffed, rolling his eyes with feigned nonchalance. "Don't get your knickers in a twist. For Merlin's sake, Montague—they're just being little pansies. Flint and Percy always did have a remarkable flamboyancy about them. If we hadn't shared a locker room playing Quidditch together, I'd stake a few galleons that they weren't blokes at all. As it is, I'll have to settle on queers." He angled his nose up just a bit higher and turned on his heel, starting back towards the dormitories, no longer hungry for breakfast.

Montague, left in his wake, smirked at his disappearing figure. Though his voice was low, Draco managed to catch a faint, "That's more like it. Thought we'd lost you for a while. Glad t' have you back." Draco smirked in a twisted manner similar to the one Lovegood had earned from him earlier. The oblivious. Did they really think it so simple to snap back like that when he'd been wandering for years now? How easy life seemed to them. –Was for them. And he envied them that. They, as sick as it was, were happy here.

Author's Note: And there's your first chapter! Chapter Two will feature a different character—we'll have a wide scope of viewpoints throughout this, I think. Any requests who to hear next? I've got chapters for Hermione and Angelina started, but suggest away and perhaps my muse will cooperate with you. I'd love to hear what you think so far. Constructive criticism is highly encouraged. Now see that pretty purple button? Press it, please.