Silence reigned supreme in the darkened room. Although dark did not come close to describing it, Draco mused. Could it be a velvety darkness? No, velvet was soft and beautifully smooth to feel. An inky darkness? He considered this for a moment before discarding it. Inky implied fluidity, with changing hues. This was black darkness, the total absence of light. This was the kind of darkness that made small children whimper in fear at the thought of what could be hiding in it, except intensified a thousand times. It was cold, unyielding, unchanging. It was in this darkness that he had lived for the past- how long had it been? It felt like years.
With a huge effort he pulled his mind back, derailing his train of thought from the track leading to the station of insanity. He would not succumb. They might have taken everything else from him: his home, his family, his identity, but he would keep his own mind at least. And in his right state of mind he would not be attempting to poetically describe darkness. Dark was dark, that was all there was to it.
He leaned his head back against the brick wall behind him. The bricks were rough, and crumbled a little to the touch. There were two thousand, nine hundred and forty nine bricks in the cell. He had counted. Fourteen times.
He lowered himself to the hard concrete floor and stretched out his stiff legs in the impenetrable darkness. The room was roughly six feet paces across and five long. He had walked around it countless times. It was the only exercise he could get.
The wall he was leaning against shook a little as something thudded hard against it on the other side. He grimaced, and shifted his position. The idiot in the adjacent cell was trying to knock himself out again, rather than face the silent darkness any longer. Draco had never sunk that low. He had found ways to occupy his time. He would stay sane. He didn't deserve otherwise.
Memories kept him alive. He forced himself to relive each of his mistakes and bad decisions, right up to the point where he made the biggest mistake of his life. He had been all right up until then. He knew he wasn't perfect, but remained confident that his was right cause, and anyone who crossed him deserved whatever they got. That incident had changed him forever. He had discovered that, actually, he was not a good person. He was a weak, cowardly bully who couldn't even face up to his own actions properly.
He brought his shaking hands up, dragging them through his greasy, unkempt hair. He must keep his composure. They must not know what they had done to him. It was no use. He drew his knees up to his chest, and gave himself up to a black pit of depression. A frantic sob clawed its way up his throat, desperate for an outlet to his grief and regret. The Silencing charm forced it brutally back down again.
He dropped his head onto his knees and rocked back and forth. Three months, the Wizengamot had decreed. Thirteen weeks of solitary confinement. Ninety-one days without human contact, except when someone came to renew his Silencing charm. Two thousand, one hundred and eighty-four hours in the utter darkness. One hundred and thirty thousand and forty minutes in absolute silence. Seven million, eight hundred and sixty-two thousand and forty seconds with only his torturous thoughts for company.
Sometimes he wondered if they had forgotten him. It had to have been more than three months since he had been doomed to this. The Silencing charm had twice been renewed. He automatically glanced blindly at where he knew the door was. Its cold steel barred the only way to freedom from this cursed place. Yet his meals, such meagre affairs as they were, appeared twice a day in a corner of the cell.
Boredom is not sufficient description for what he had felt since he had first come here. In a way, the first few days had been the worst. Then, he had yet to learn the tricks of keeping his straying mind on the narrow road of sanity instead of the abyss of madness. Sleep afforded some reprieve, but he was always troubled by haunting nightmares, forcing him to relive that awful moment in time where he had destroyed his life beyond repair.
His head flew up sharply at a sound from outside. Anything which offered a respite from the monotony which dictated his life was a good thing. A tap resounded throughout the room as something hit the impervious door.
Blinding agony pierced his hitherto useless eyes. Instinctively, he buried his head in his arms, protecting his head from the brilliant, searing light. He heard a voice say something roughly to him. When he did not respond strong hands took a grip of steel on his arms and hauled him to his feet. He opened his eyes, squinting against the brightness. His disbelieving legs followed his releaser automatically through the open door and out into the beginning of his new life.