Author's Note: Okay, so, back in the day, when Order of the Phoenix had just come out, I had this ridiculous theory that the Death Eaters would be in control of like, basically everything but Hogwarts...especially when the Prophet was trying to make Harry look like a lunatic. I considered St. Mungo's to be amongst one of the places that would be like the ancient insane asylums when I saw that it had its own chapter in the table of contents, and because it was known that Lucius Malfoy had donated a lot of money (and thus had some say) to the place. Needless to say, my theory was proven false, but I'd always thought of what it'd be like otherwise. Additionally, I've always had a fascination with the way the human brain works and the behaviors of victims of insanity, psychosis, and abnormality...so that's a fun experiment.
There were no windows on the forty-ninth ward. There weren't any charms to depict a window or the outside world beyond the dirty grey walls. There was no sunshine, no fresh air, no beauty in the ward. Only the putrid smells of spoiled food and rotting sewage filled the halls in a disgustingly palpable manner, aligning themselves with the dark, dank walls. The only source of lighting came from the rusted candelabras on the walls, and eerie shadows seemed to cast themselves along the floor. Faceless, hooded figures with spindly hands hovered in the corners, making the nightmare even more of a Hell.
Suddenly, a horrible laughter echoed through the halls of the ward. Footsteps followed as two shadowy figures tromped through an iron door, and were met by a third.
"MULCIBER! At last, you've followed through!"
The greeting was received with an amused smirk, and a thud! echoed on the ground as if something dull but heavy had been dropped. A fourth figure lie on the floor between the men, draped in soiled cloth. Mulciber, the large man carrying the figure, brushed his hands together while flashing a toothy grin.
"It sure took you long enough to get the boy."
"Yeah well, next time Yaxley, you can try talkin' to that fat ol' Delores-"
"SILENCIO GIBBON!" The man appearing to be known as Yaxley pointed to the other man. There was a small spark of light, and Gibbon's shrill voice was suddenly muted into nothing. Yaxley grinned and this time two horrible laughs echoed through the halls.
"It took longer than expected," Mulciber spoke. "Delores is slowly but surely climbing her way up the political ladder at both Hogwarts and the Ministry." Beside him, Gibbon was nodding furiously.
"Excellent," Yaxley responded.
"And of course, Malfoy's son had his hands full, trying to provoke Potter into fits about Little Hangleton, and our…Lord." His voice took on a different, more somber tone as he spoke the last word.
Yaxley looked intrigued. "I thought you had given Delores orders to provoke the kid? Who introduced Malfoy's son into the manner?"
"Malfoy himself did, actually. In order to, er, speed up the process." Next to Mulciber, Gibbon was rolling his eyes. Mulciber nudged him aggressively. Almost immediately, the smaller man became still.
"But now," Yaxley spoke, "The entire Wizarding World believes that the poor little Boy Who Lived has officially gone mad! Babbling and lying about the return of our Dark Lord! Oh, how I could almost kiss Fudge for his ignorance and incompetence!" They howled with laughter; Gibbon clapping his bony hands together.
"Under dismissal by none other than our favorite Imperiused puppet, Delores Umbridge, everyone shall believe that poor, pitiful Potter has been admitted for treatment here in the Janus Thickey Ward. " Yaxley smirked again. "Ward Forty-Nine."
"How long does the Dark Lord wish to keep him here?" Mulciber questioned. "With the other…patients."
"Until the Dark Lord is recovered enough to handle the boy himself. Mulciber, you know we cannot begin to launch any violent attacks until the time is right. In the mean time though, with this scrawny excuse for a Wizard here under our watch, there's no reason we can't expose him to a little bit of treatment!"
Suddenly, Yaxley drew his leg back, bent at the knee, and catapulted a powerful kick directly into the mid-section of the covered, motionless figure on the floor. There was a cry of pain as the figure flinched and then grew limp once again. Horrible laughter filled the hall, and the floor seemed to vibrate as Gibbon jumped from foot to foot in glee.
The cement floor was colder than ice, and yet somehow managed to stay damp. Harry groaned as he acknowledged it pressed against his face. Fear surged through his body. He didn't know where he was, but even through his closed eyes, he could tell it wasn't good. His entire body felt as though he'd been beaten and man-handled in the worst possible ways. Shivering with cold, he opened his eyes, face-down to a dim and dirty, grey cell. He gasped in fear, trying to stand.
There was a clanging of chains, and a moment passed before Harry realized that he couldn't move his arms beyond a certain point of resistance. Panic signals surged his brain as he struggled to free himself from them.
"HELP! HELP, SOMEONE! SOMEBODY, PLEASE! HELP ME! PLEASE HELP ME!"
His scar instantly began to burn on his forehead. The burning sensation and the freezing conditions of the cell reduced Harry to nothing except a shriek of pain. He sunk back down to the floor, the chains on his wrist connecting with a sharp clank! Harry felt warm tears in his eyes.
He was utterly terrified. In fact, terrified was only of fraction of how he felt. In addition to not knowing where at all he was, chained to a wall in a grimy, wet cell, he could feel that his feet were bare, and that the thin clothing on his body was unfamiliar. His glasses remained on his face, but they too were smudged and sat crooked on his nose. The left lens was shattered. The smell of the place was equally sickening, and Harry could feel his stomach churning with each breath he took.
He could feel that parts of his body were cut and bruised, but it was his head that throbbed with the worst of pain. He winced.
"Ron?! Hermione?! Professor Dumbledore?!" Harry couldn't bring himself to shout again, with the pain searing through his body. "Where am I?!"
He struggled to crawl into a sitting position on the floor, twisting his wrists within the confines. He turned his head to see how much room he had to move in the chains, but to his surprise, they weren't particularly attached to anything. Magicked, he thought. "What the…"
Before he could finish the statement, a sudden dark, eerie feeling came over him, and Harry could feel his body collapsing back against the cold wall. It was a horrible, yet familiar feeling. The lighting in the cell seemed to become even dimmer, and Harry squinted to see if what he expected to find was there.
A wide door of iron bars was several meters to his right. Panic instantly beginning to surge through his body once again as Harry patted the side of his pants, searching for his wand pocket, only discover he didn't have not only his wand, but no pockets at all.
And there it was. Visible between the bars on the door was a Dementor: faceless, hooded, and evil. Harry could feel himself tremble as he let out a scream of terror and closed his eyes. He felt the blood fading from his face as a cold, miserable feeling came over him. He tried to call for help once again, but no words could escape when he opened his mouth. Shrinking back against the wall as much as he could, Harry made to shield his face with his hands –chains clanking –in what he knew was a futile attempt of defense.
Then oddly enough, as quickly as it had come, it had gone. The lights seemed to brighten once again, and Harry let out a breath that he'd been holding. Everything here was far too terrible to comprehend all at once. Even with the blood heavily pounding in his ears once again, Harry could hear angry voices shouting beyond the door in the cell.
"YOU MEAN TO TELL ME IT JUST STOPPED IN FRONT OF THE KID'S CELL?!"
"I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT MEANS, DON'T ACCUSE ME OF TELLING IT TO GO-"
"GIBBON, YOU'VE MADE ENOUGH OF A MOCKERY OUT OF ME-"
He recognized the name "Gibbon" as one of Voldemort's followers, and he knew that he was amongst Death Eaters. He stopped listening for just a second, unaware that the voices were undoubtedly getting closer to his cell. Harry wracked his brain trying to think of what context it was in which he'd heard Gibbon's name before, but he couldn't make sense of it. The prickling in his scar was coming back again. Footsteps could be heard in the hallway outside the door.
"Where am I?" Harry whispered under his breath.
"Your own personal Hell."
Harry flinched in shock, not only because his question had been answered, but because the answer was coming from not outside the cell, but from inside. His head snapped to the furthest corner away from the cell door. Even though the lens of his glasses was broken, he could make out another set of chains. Within them there was a human figure lying still on the floor.
Now he was even more confused. Harry had been entirely positive that he was alone, but apparently his quick scan of the room had missed this crucial detail. "W-Who's there?" he questioned, his voice quivering slightly.
"Oh c'mon now, kid," came the response. "You know me." The figure sat up, and Harry could just make out a blond man with a rather square face.
"Sturgis Podmore?"
"You got it, kid."
"But…but wait a minute! You were sentenced – I mean – This isn't – Why am I in Azkaban?! And why didn't you answer me before?!"
Podmore didn't display any outward signs of remorse to his question. "You ain't in no Azkaban, that's why. But it's damn close."
Harry raised an eyebrow. "Then where…"
"You're in the Janus Thickey Ward."
"Janus Thickey Ward?" Harry repeated mostly to himself, trying to think if he'd heard a reference to this place before. However, it was just a foreign name, and it made him wish even more that Hermione was there.
"Yeah, that's the common name. The nice name. Everyone else here just calls it Ward Forty-Nine. As for your other question, I don't got an answer. Figured I'd let you take it in for yourself. No use tryin' to sugarcoat this hole."
Harry's brain was going into overload. He wanted to give Podmore a nasty response, but he couldn't think of anything. Neither the Janus Thickey Ward nor Ward Forty-Nine had any familiarity to him, and now here he was, practically playing guessing games, in the midst of it.
"What is Ward Forty-Nine?"
Podmore chuckled dryly. "The closed ward of St. Mungo's that no one knows about."
"You mean like the psych ward?" Harry asked, eyes widening. If it really was part of the renowned St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, there was no way it was under innocent Ministry control.
"Is that what the Muggles are calling it now? Last I'd heard they'd called it an insane asylum. Yeah, that's what it is –or is supposed to be."
Harry was practically distrait. "But! Why am I here?! How can this be allowed?! And the Death-"
"SHH! Not so loud!" Podmore had interrupted him. "For Merlin's sakes, kid, you're screamin'! Now listen to me for a second and I'll tell you what I know. But you ain't gonna like it, kid, that's for sure. This ain't no pretty picture they're paintin'."
He looked over at Podmore with an indignant expression for a moment before he realized the man was right. This definitely wasn't the place or time to overreact, but he was so confused and he had so many questions. Relaxing his back against the wall again, he waited for Podmore to continue.
"The Janus Thickey Ward was established back a few generations ago, just before You-Know-Who's regime had taken over the first time. At the time it was a nice place for patients, I guess, for anyone with permanent brain damage from spells or curses, or who had just had some sick blood. It wasn't anything special, and only the people that needed to be here were admitted."
"Not like me or you," Harry commented. "So why the Death Eaters?"
"Right, I'm gettin' to that part, kid." Podmore looked around suspiciously, as if someone were spying on them. He continued in a hushed voice, "The Order has been suspicious of the place though, ever since before this second confirmed rising of You-Know-Who. Too many shady characters were starting to "volunteer" there or "donate" their money to the cause. Dumbledore considered demanding an inspection of the ward himself, but because of his reasoning for why he wanted it inspected, well…"
"What was his reasoning?" Harry asked.
"Imperius Curses," Podmore's voice was practically a whisper as he said it. "Dumbledore expected that the Death Eaters were using Imperius Curses to run the place like a prison for hostages…and he was right. Anyone runnin' this joint that isn't a Death Eater is controlled by a Death Eater."
Harry shuddered. It did make sense once it was put together this way. It was basically a torture chamber for any soul misfortunate enough to be there. "So then…why are you here? Why am I here?"
Podmore sighed. "This is the part you really ain't gonna like, kid. That High Inquisitor bitch you deal with? Ain't just a spy for the Ministry."
"Umbridge?" Harry scowled as he spoke her name. "She's not-"
"Yeah. She's Imperiused too."
He wasn't as surprised as he was angry, and he couldn't help gritting his teeth in his mouth. "Damn it!"
"They're makin' it look like you're more than just a little cuckoo, kid, for supportin' Dumbledore. It's their way of getting' you out of their hair before more people start believin' these "lies" you're tellin'. The more they can accomplished unnoticed, the better. They're scared of you, kid."
Harry felt a pit forming in his stomach, and he wanted to be sick. "What about you, Sturgis? The Prophet said you were in Azkaban."
Podmore rolled his eyes. "Figured they'd publish that. Six months was my original sentence, but it was suggested that I was given the choice between prison and here. I thought I'd picked the lesser of two evils, but that's not turning out to be the case so much. Once we get out, kid, we can tell them everything we've witnessed. The original patients are still in here, y'know, and they're just as ruthless with them."
Harry swallowed hard, "But then…they're coming for us, right? They're gonna get us outta here? The Order?"
The second he said the last word, he regretted it almost immediately. A large, shadowed human figure appeared at the door, and let out a menacing laugh.
"The Order doesn't stand a chance, boy!"