AN: Hi, this is my first time writing anything creative since high school probably, so please let me know what to work on. Expect sporadic updates since some weeks I'm extremely busy and others I'm very free.

Chapter One

I ignored the screaming. I had grown used to it.

I continued down under the watchful gaze of the guard. I went deeper and deeper down, where the crashing waves were but a whisper, and then faded to nothing at all. It was cold, so cold.

I stopped at the bottom floor, and walked forward, down the hall. The screaming had stopped; the faces that surrounded me were bleak and almost lifeless. A couple more cells, and I had reached my destination.

"Hello mum, dad," I said.

They looked awful. Both were gaunt, with their ribs easily apparent, and my mum's once fiery-red hair had faded to a light-gray. They didn't turn to me when I spoke to them, but that was nothing new.

"I'm starting Hogwarts tomorrow. I already have my wand, my spellbooks, and everything else I need."

Mum drooled a bit, while dad moved his head down, seemingly fixated on the floor in front of him. I turned to where his eyes were facing; it was a plain stone floor.

"I'm pretty excited about it," I said. "It should be fun to learn about magic."

Dad turned to stare at another wall. At least he was moving. Mum just lay there.

"Anyways, that's a bit rude of me, sharing when I haven't even asked you how you guys are doing. So, how are you?"

Dad looked directly at me. For a second, he seemed almost lucid. Then he screamed. Which, of course, set mum off too, leading to her own screams.

"I should probably go. I think visiting hours are almost over," I said. I turned to leave when I paused at a rasping voice.

"Ha … rry," dad rasped out, seemingly taking all of his energy. And then he looked back to the ceiling, examining it as though it held the secrets of the universe.

I left. I didn't dare to speak what I was thinking out loud. I guess it didn't need to be said.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"You went to visit your mum and dad again, didn't you."

I ignored Ron, instead focusing on the long green fields that the train was passing. There wasn't really any point in denying it at this point. Ron and I had differing viewpoints on whether we should visit our parents in Azkaban. He claimed that there was no way that we would be allowed to go if it was beneficial to us in any way (not in those exact words, of course). And he made sense logically, but … I couldn't not visit my mum and dad.

The compartment fell into a stale silence for a bit, before I responded. "What, aren't you going to tell me how it's unhealthy for me, or how I'm too young to be dealing with this?"

"Nah, I've told you enough times, mate. It's honestly not worth it at this point."

There was another uncomfortable silence, as we had neared a topic that we wanted to talk about, but couldn't. When you have your mind searched every week for signs of treason, and when the punishment for saying anything negative about the Dark Lord is at least five seconds under the Cruciatus, you learn quickly to avoid stepping out of line.

Neville interjected, breaking the silence. "Do you reckon we'll be sorted into Gryffindor?" he asked.

Since Voldemort had taken over, they had gotten rid of the Sorting Hat, and instead sorted based on blood-status and the side your parents were in the war. The houses had a definite tier system. Gryffindor took us blood-traitors, and Slytherin took Death Eater kids. Everyone in between was put into Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw depending on their family name and how much their family supported Voldemort in the war.

"No way around it," Ron said. "All of my brothers were Gryffindors, and all of the older blood-traitors were as well."

"But maybe things will be different for us," I said.

"I don't think so, unless you found out your uncle was secretly the Dark Lord's number two guy." Ron replied.

"My only uncle is a Muggle, so the odds of that are literally 0." I said. "As for my godfather, on the other hand, wasn't he at one point suspected to be a Death Eater? And he does come from a dark family. Maybe that'll get me somewhere."

"Yeah, but I think he was pretty firmly a blood-traitor," Neville said. "I have a couple of relatives that chose the right side during the war. Plus I'm a pureblood from a noble family, so maybe that'll get me somewhere. But then again, considering the policy on blood-traitors, we're lucky to even be going to Hogwarts."

And again we'd come close to an unmentionable topic. So again we went back to silence. This time it was broken by a commotion outside the compartment.

We squeezed together to look out the window and saw a small, brown-haired girl being kicked out of the compartment across from us, her trunk thrown on the ground. Inside were three brutish boys who were easily fourth or fifth years. She turned back up and the characteristic dirt-brown circle sewn onto her robes became apparently visible. Etched onto it in fiery-red ink was the number 85.

I already knew what they were thinking.

"No," I said. "We can't. We don't need any more trouble."

"We have to," Neville said.

"We can't be friendly to Mudbloods. That goes against everything we learned in the last three years." I reasoned.

"We're not being friendly. We're just letting her sit in our compartment. If it helps, you can plot casting Crucios at her." Ron said.

Ron opened our door. "You can sit in here," he said.

The girl had a blank look in her eyes, before she accepted, wordlessly placing her trunk above and taking the empty seat, closest to the door. She stared at the ground.

"I'm Ron, and this is Harry and Neville," Ron said. He paused, waiting for her to introduce herself. When she didn't, he asked, "What's your name?"

She briefly looked up. "I haven't been given a name yet," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "I am to be known as Number 85. If I perform adequately over the course of the year, then I may be rewarded with a name."

None of us knew what to say to that. We had never seen a Mudblood before (after the end of the war, of course), and we imagined that they were treated even worse than us, but this - this was just inhumane.

"What is the first thing you remember?" Neville asked. We, fortunately, had our memories left mostly intact. I'm not sure exactly why they didn't completely wipe all of us. Maybe it was because they wanted to scare us into submission by having us constantly remember how our parents were captured or killed, or maybe they felt that as blood-traitors, we were too close to real wizards to be treated that inhumanely.

But we knew some of the Order kids - some of the more disruptive ones - didn't have that luxury. Ron's twin brothers, Fred and George, lost two years worth of memories in the first week. And, as it turned out, the Mudbloods lost everything.

"My first lesson," 85 said, "That Mudbloods are inferior to all but filthy Muggles."

"I remember that lesson," Ron said.

"Anyways, are you excited to be learning magic?" I asked, wanting to change the subject.

"Yes," she droned, "I am glad that the Ministry of Magic is giving me a chance to prove myself, and I won't waste - "

The door was slammed open, and two brutish boys flanking a small, blond-haired boy walked into the compartment. The blond took a good look at each of us. He focused in on 85.

"You know, I'd heard a lot of things about Mudbloods. But I never imagined them to be so ugly."

The two brutes laughed uproariously, and the blond had a smug smirk on his face. I laughed out of courtesy, but neither Ron nor Neville acted particularly amused.

"The name's Malfoy," he said, "Draco Malfoy. My father is a Death Eater and the headmaster of Hogwarts. That's Crabbe and Goyle; their parents are also Death Eaters."

"I'm not sure who you are," he pointed at Neville, "But judging by your company - a Potter and a Weasley - I can only assume that you're also a blood-traitor.

Father told me to go around the train and assess every first-year. And I have to say, this is the sorriest excuse for a compartment I've ever seen. I mean blood-traitors is one thing, but consorting with a Mudblood? I'm not sure you guys will even last a week at Hogwarts.

Anyways, I have more important people to meet. Hopefully I won't have to see you later."

He and his two cronies left, slamming the door behind them again. None of us could voice what we were thinking, but Ron, Neville, and I were definitely thinking about what a prick Malfoy was. I was also a bit mad at Ron and Neville; though Malfoy was clearly an arsehole, he was a well-connected, powerful arsehole, and it wouldn't be a bad idea to kiss up to him a bit.

The rest of the ride continued smoothly. We talked about subjects we were interested in - Herbology for Neville, Dark Arts for me. Ron had almost no interest in learning magic, and 85 was so terrified of saying the wrong thing that she gave a bullshit answer about how all forms of magic that Hogwarts teach are important to learn. Before long, we arrived in Hogsmeade. We followed the other students into the carriages; blood-traitors and Mudblood first-years didn't get to take the boats to the castle.

We formed a line leading up to the Great Hall in alphabetical order. Our houses had been pre-determined and were printed on cards that the professor in charge, Professor Regulus Black, held.

"Abbott, Hannah," he called out. "Ravenclaw"

There was light applause at the sorting from the Ravenclaw table and a few professors, but no one else clapped. The Slytherins looked utterly bored.

"Bones, Susan - Hufflepuff"

Again, light applause came, this time from the Hufflepuff table. A couple more Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs were sorted before Millicent Bulstrode, one of the most unpleasant looking girls, was sorted into Slytherin. The entire hall burst into applause as though it was a major accomplishment on her part.

A couple more Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs later, and Neville became the first Gryffindor. No one clapped, not even the professors who lightly applauded for everyone thus far. The Slytherins took the opportunity to jeer insults at him, while the other three tables were mostly silent.

Anyways, the rest of the sorting continued predictably. I was sorted into Gryffindor, along with Ron. Soon, only the Mudbloods were left.

"Number 85 - Gryffindor"

Even some of the professors started jeering at this point, as 85 walked to the Gryffindor table. At least she got sorted; I had a bad feeling that she would be houseless and forced to live in the house-elves quarters or something. I guess that being a Gryffindor was a worse punishment.

"Number 86 - Gryffindor"

"Number 87 - Gryffindor"

"Number 90" Black paused for a moment and gave a hard look at our table. The message was clear: two were already gone.

"Gryffindor" he finished.

Once we were all sorted, Lucius Malfoy, the headmaster, stood to say a few words.

"Three years. It has been three years since the triumph of the Dark Lord, and during these three years we have fundamentally changed the order of wizarding society. And Hogwarts has been instrumental to this change, from the underlying structure of the Hogwarts houses to the empowering of students with knowledge of the Dark Arts. Some of you come from strong bloodlines, and will be expected to live up to the legacies of your families. Others belong to weaker, or even non-existent bloodlines.

But the Dark Lord is not stupid. He understands that, on occasion, there are powerful bloodlines hidden within Mudbloods and blood-traitors. If you can rise up to the challenge, you will find no reason why you cannot be a proud member of our new society. If not, however, we have no use for weak wizards and witches. Now, with that said, I wish you good luck in a new year at Hogwarts."

The food that appeared at our table didn't seem to be of lower quality than any of the other tables, which was surprising. I had expected some good-old Gryffindor discrimination right off the bat, but it seemed as though even Gryffindors got to enjoy house-elf cooking. I looked over at some of the familiar faces that lived at the orphanage. Percy Weasley was reading a textbook and barely concentrating on his meal, while Fred and George were eating calmly and civilly, a far cry from their usual behavior at the Burrow. A lot of the older kids were having dull, unanimated conversations with sentences praising the Dark Lord interspersed within.

After the feast we were lead back to the Gryffindor Common Room by Percy. He took us first years to a cozy alcove and said a few bullshit words about how we were graciously given a chance to be a part of a new society. I honestly couldn't tell whether or not he believed it; he was either an insanely good actor or a stooge.

The next morning was our first class; it was Dark Arts with Professor Amycus Carrow. He was supposedly the worst of the bunch, and that was saying something considering they were all Death Eaters. Still, we were told it wouldn't be too bad if we didn't say or do anything out of line. At worst, we'd take a Crucio for a couple of seconds, and all of us had certainly had worse. Not to say that it didn't hurt, of course, the Cruciatus is still the most painful curse I've been under that doesn't cause permanent (physical) harm. But having been under so many times, we had all developed techniques to block out the pain.

Once we had all settled into the class, Professor Carrow spoke.

"A few years ago, before the Dark Lord revolutionized our world, a simpler class was taught in place of this one. Defense Against the Dark Arts. Most considered it a joke.

There, they covered defenses to basic hexes or jinxes, against dark creatures, and a select few curses. The truth is, that's not nearly enough, and it showed during the Dark Lord's one-sided victory. Because dark magic is simply more powerful than light magic, and it will always win. We will cover defense in this course, but more likely than not, even the defense techniques will involve dark magic."

He proceeded through a lecture that kissed Voldemort's arse every ten seconds, before setting us up into pairs, each Gryffindor partnered with a Slytherin. Conveniently the two houses were equal in number. Neville got stuck with Crabbe, and Ron was with Goyle. I was forced to partner with Malfoy.

"Now I know that most, if not all, of the Slytherin students have prior experience in dark magic. I wish to gauge how prepared each student is for this class. So, for today, the Slytherins will be casting whatever spells they know, and the Gryffindors will be shielding their attacks." Carrow said.

"But we haven't learned shielding charms yet," Neville said.

"Crucio," he cast, striking Neville directly. He held the curse for a couple of seconds before dropping it. Neville, to his credit, didn't cry out and simply took the pain with a grimace on his face.

"And whose fault is that? They are distinctly covered in your textbook. I'm sure even your blood-traitor brain could handle stringing together a couple of sentences and I'm sure your magic, weak as it may be, is strong enough for a simple Protego. And if your charms fail, and you are hit by any curses, then that will be a lesson to dissuade future lazy behavior." Carrow replied.

"Are you ready, Potter?" Malfoy said. "My tutor has taught me almost all of the first year curriculum. I know a couple of very interesting curses."

Carrow waved his wand and the classroom morphed into a large open room, with broad mats on the floor.

"Each of you should line up and take 10 paces away from each other. We will require standard dueling courtesy."

We each took ten steps, then evened ourselves out to conform to the average step size.

"Now bow to one another; yes, you must even bow to Mudbloods. It is only civilized behavior, after all."

We bowed, but as per tradition, my eyes never left Malfoy, and the same went for him.

"Try not to inflict any permanent harm to your opponent," Carrow said. "It would make me mildly displeased if one of our blood-traitors or Mudbloods were to die. Now, begin."

"Frigius," Malfoy cast. I knew that I couldn't move to dodge it, and I didn't know how to do a shield charm,, so I stood still and took it head on. It struck me in the stomach, and knocked me backwards a bit. It stung, but I had handled much, much worse. I still made the appropriate response of pain, which seemed to please Malfoy. This was all just an exercise to stroke their egos, after all, and resisting would just make things harder.

Malfoy cast a bunch of other spells, and only one other hit. Ron and Neville were luckier, as Crabbe and Goyle couldn't figure out how to hold a wand, much less cast a spell. 85's partner, Pansy Parkinson, knew a couple of spells and just spammed them over and over again. Her spells didn't seem as powerful as Malfoy's, but she had much better aim.

Eventually, Carrow stopped us, saying "There's no use of hitting training dummies anymore."

He sent us off, calling us Gryffindors pathetic. "Learn shielding charms for next class. Or don't; it doesn't matter to me either way."

The rest of the classes that week weren't as bad; the next Dark Arts lecture was theory, so we only got verbally abused, and other classes were fine as well. Transfiguration was taught by Regulus Black, Sirius's brother, who seemed to be avoiding me. That suited me fine; the less personal attention I had from the Death Eaters, the better. The only other class of interest was Muggle Studies, which was basically a continuation of our lessons at the orphanage. We learned about Muggle history through a twisted viewpoint which highlighted all of the flaws and portrayed Muggles as savage, unintelligent, weak creatures.

At the very end of the week was our first mental session. All of the Gryffindors and a few of the troublesome Hufflepuffs were called into a small hall, with about four or five adjoining rooms, each with its own Death Eater. As first years, we all went last, so we sat together watching the doors, wanting to get it over with.

"Fred told me that he was given seven seconds after his first mental session at Hogwarts." Ron said. "George only had five."

"And this is after they'd been tamed. I guess that doesn't bode well for us," Neville added.

"I'm sure that we'll receive whatever punishment we deserve," 85 said. The other Mudbloods agreed emphatically.

There was a steady rift forming between Neville, Ron, and I, and the four Mudbloods we shared our house with. It wasn't that we were prejudiced or that we wanted to alienate Mudbloods in order to seem closer to the higher houses - it was just the fact that the Mudbloods were so damn fanatical toward Death Eaters, the Dark Lord, the professors, and even the Slytherins. Don't get me wrong; I made sure to always say positive things about those above me, but doing so didn't dominate my personality the way that it did for Mudbloods. I suppose it was in poor taste to avoid them given what the Mudbloods went through, and what they were still going through. But, to be fair, we were eleven.

"You took a couple seconds on Tuesday," I said to Neville. "How does Professor Carrow's Crucio compare to Madam Alexia's?"

"It's not as bad as I thought it would be. Definitely worse than Alexia's, but not unbearably worse." Neville replied.

"Anyways, I think the last of the second years are done," Ron said, glancing at the front of the room, watching two tall boys limp out of their respective rooms. "We should be up any minute."

Right on cue, our names were called out - Ron, Neville, and I first, as usual. I walked into the dimly lit room, meeting the eyes of a young woman. She seemed barely a couple years out of Hogwarts.

"Hello, Mr. Potter," she said. "My name is Olivia Rockwood, and I have been assigned to you for at least the rest of the year. Please take a seat and relax a bit. Then look directly at me when you're ready."

She certainly didn't seem as mean as the other Death Eaters. Appearances were frequently deceiving though, and I didn't want to be caught off guard.

I immediately stared into her eyes and felt the telltale signs of a Legilimency attack. I took deep breaths to combat my innate desire to look away, and instead allowed my mind to be opened. After a few seconds she broke the connection and the quill beside her jotted down a few notes.

"Alright, let's go sequentially through the week. Start with your visit to Azkaban. Think vividly about the sounds you heard, and the people you passed by, and the things you saw."

Only extremely skilled Legilimancers could pick up detailed memories with almost nothing to go off of. The rest could get a brief overview and pick out the moments of significance over a time period, but to pick up details, emotions, and raw thoughts, they needed the participant to be actively thinking of a seed to navigate them to the memory. I complied, through necessity of course, focusing on my trip. Rockwood seemed satisfied with this, and asked me to continue on. She went in detail through my week, focusing on the conversations I had with others when not under active supervision and my thoughts during classes.

The sessions usually ended with feedback and punishment. There was no way to avoid punishment; even if you were on your best behavior all week, you'd still receive some sort of punishment. At best, it was usually a second under the Cruciatus. Occasionally after some sessions we'd lose memories, either as punishment or because we had heard something we weren't supposed to hear.

Rockwood didn't seem very thrilled to be doing so, but she followed the usual format. She bullshitted a bit about how I should be more respectful to my superiors - I could tell she didn't believe it - and then she held me under an extremely weak Cruciatus for a few seconds. She then dismissed me.

It was one of the first times a Death Eater had treated me like a human being. But I wasn't thinking about that; I was just thanking my lucky stars that I didn't get one of the worse Death Eaters.

Ron and Neville though, they were severely shaken after their session. And I don't even know about the Mudbloods; they hardly seemed any different. I guess that they had grown used to much worse.

The next day, Ron and Neville had gone down to the Quidditch Pitch to watch some of the older kids play. The teams were no longer associated with houses; that was thrown away in the first year of Voldemort's reign, when none of the players were willing to even attempt to score against the Slytherins. Instead, the four teams were named after magical creatures; there were the Basilisks, the Phoenixes, the Hippogriffs, and the Thestrals. Despite being the only creature that couldn't fly, the Basilisks were the most prominent team, and it was Ron's dream to join them. Quidditch was one of the few things that transcended politics, class, or blood-status. It didn't matter if you were a blood-traitor, or a Slytherin; if you were the best player, you could join the team.

Well, unless you were a Mudblood. Then you were shit out of luck, for Mudbloods weren't allowed to play Quidditch.

Unlike Ron, I had almost no interest in Quidditch, and unlike Neville, I had no interest in watching sweaty Quidditch players bounce on their brooms - his words, not mine. So I decided to spend that morning exploring the castle. I had overheard some older Ravenclaws talk about finding an empty classroom to practice magic, and I figured that would be much better than practicing in the middle of the Gryffindor common room.

Most of the seventh floor was blocked off for some reason; only the entrance to the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw towers and a few odd corridors were available. There wasn't really any point to considering the few areas that were accessible, so I wandered over to a staircase pathed to the sixth floor.

As I was walking down, the staircase extended and lowered down to connect to the fourth floor. This had never happened to me before; sometimes the staircases moved around between the same floor, but they had never shifted to another floor entirely before. Still, I figured that I might as well explore the fourth floor rather than waste time trying to find a staircase that would take me back up.

The area of the fourth floor I was walking through had a few odd rooms, but was mostly filled with greenhouses, and seemed to lead toward a dead end. I was about to turn back when I came upon a large set of stone doors, easily out of place from the glass of the greenhouses and the wood of other doors. Curious, I pushed the doors open and walked in ...

… and I walked out at around noon. I turned back and the door was gone. Frowning, I tried to think back as to what happened in that room, but I couldn't. Realizing the time, I made my way down to the Great Hall, where Ron and Neville were discussing their newest man-crush.

"It was wicked," Ron was explaining to one of the second years. "He did a double roll to dodge the Bludgers, then dove through the other team and caught the Snitch!"

"Well, you don't get to be Seeker for the Basilisks for nothing. But I didn't think Diggory could be that good." Neville said.

"Hey Harry," Ron said as I grabbed a seat on the table. "Where were you this morning, you missed out."

"Just practicing my Shield charm, and a few other curses for Dark Arts," I lied. I didn't want them to know the truth, that I had no idea what happened for the last four hours. I knew the signs; I knew that I was probably Obliviated. But the last time this happened, Neville and Ron insisted to walk everywhere with me for a week before I had finally had enough. And I really wanted to go back to that room, and I wanted to go alone.

"Hmm, well you should join us next time," Neville said. "I don't even like Quidditch that much, and even I thought it was really cool."

"Yeah," I mumbled as I wolfed down my sandwich. I was oddly hungry; considering I had breakfast at seven that morning, I shouldn't have been that hungry. "There's a lot of work we need to work on, especially for Transfiguration. Don't we have twelve inches due on Wednesday?" I said.

"Ugh, don't remind me," Ron replied. "I still haven't started the Charms assignment due on Monday."

I finished lunch quickly, and got back up. That room - it seemed extremely important for some reason. I knew full well that it may have been the result of a Compulsion Charm, but I had to find it again. I made my way back through the fourth floor, passed the Greenhouses, and found myself staring at an empty wall, where just before I was sure there had been a large door. I wandered a bit around the area, but I couldn't find the door that I had gone inside earlier. Just when I was turning back and I passed the initial spot I had come to, it shimmered into existence.

And suddenly, looking at the door, I remembered.

It was midnight when I left. I wasn't sure what had happened during that time, but I knew that I had to come back.