Title: Maggot Fingers.
Rating: 14A
Pairing: Draco Malfoy/ Kingsley Shacklebolt
Summary: Young Mr. Malfoy was found in a Muggle asylum for the Mental Health patients. Auror Shacklebolt is sent to put this young Death Eater under his charge until he is considered fit to stand trial.
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There is a little boy no more than 9…
Remember this, he's nine years old when it first happens.
He had platinum blonde hair and sly grey eyes. He doesn't smile or do anything really. He just stands there holding onto the hand of his mother, who seems like a very cold and hard woman.
It happens in the flash of an eye.
The little boy just crouches with his mouth hanging open; the sounds of his screams are loud and ring in the ears.
Everyone in the street would stop and watch as the cold hard woman tried to calm down her son.
But the little boy is scraping the skin off his neck and the screams become louder.
There is panic and people are trying to help the woman try to calm down her son. A man with a very powerful presence and a sliver headed cane comes and soon the couple and their son are gone…
Now, it was three months that this little boy had to spend in a private room in St. Mungo's before he was to go home to his mother and father.
He turned ten in the month of June he spent in St. Mungo's… though on the exact day he was incarcerated with potions that were made to calm him down.
A year later he would meet the infamous Harry Potter, and go to Hogwarts…
It's obvious who this is.
Isn't it?
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There is a strange thing when people find out about the young man's infliction. It is a strange mixture of hate and pity.
They feel sorry for a boy whom many believe is insane. But they hate the name Malfoy and everything that derives from it.
Ah, and yes. He did become a Death Eater and no one likes those people, now do they?
"He grew up like that, you know. Never had a chance." The old crony says to her younger girl companion.
"I knew him at school. He was a bit of an arse, but not the type to be goin' around killin' people." She's a sandy haired girl who would be only a year or so younger than Draco Malfoy.
There has been much discussion about Young Mr. Malfoy.
Possibly because he was a Death Eater found in a Muggle asylum for the insane, to put it quite frankly.
Therein the fact that he also was the instigator in the death of perhaps the most powerful wizard of the age, Albus Dumbledore.
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The Ministry set up a transport so that they could move the young Malfoy. There was a lot of sweet talk with the Prime Minister to allow such a thing to happen. Of course the man was reluctant to allow anyone magical into his hospital, despite the fact that it was a hospital for the mentally sick.
However, he did take quite a liking to one of the wizards who work in his office.
So the deal was that this man takes care of the young Malfoy and the Prime Minister would find no reason to be concerned.
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There were several people who were responsible to take young Mr. Malfoy and bring him to the house where he would be interrogated under the surveillance of Auror Shacklebolt.
When they were directed to the room they found themselves being quite honestly shocked by the proceedings around them.
There was a man of Arabian descent huddled into a corner whispering words that no one could understand. There was a young was who was biting into the skin of her arm.
There was another man who was nearly covered in sweat walking by giving them dirty looks and muttering 'You Stink, Stinker.'
Now when they came to where young Mr. Malfoy's room there was a patient of a scrawny build and small eyes already in there. Talking adamantly about the weather and other things to the unresponsive blonde lying on the bed beside him.
The scrawny man would raise his hands and jerk them around in movement. Either repeating what he just said or stuttering profoundly over some words.
It takes the people who were sent by the Ministry by shock to see this odd man talking to Mr. Malfoy.
But the shock does not last long as the people remember to there jobs.
The nurse who comes in behind them tell 'Bertie' that Draco must go with these nice people…
What shocks and disturbs the Ministry for Magic people is that 'Bertie' suddenly bursts into tears.
The people figure they should do their job fast.
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There is something quite outstanding about Auror Shacklebolt.
He's an enigma of a human. Big, strong, black man who definitely can get a job done.
No question about it.
He drinks a person in with his big barrelling laugh. He can smile his huge flashing white smile and everyone adores him.
As they should.
He's quite the man.
He does go out for drinks when it's a social call. But he's not the type of man to allow himself to get drunk.
He was trained to be an Auror by Mad- Eye Moody just before he did indeed become Mad- Eye. So perhaps it's paranoia that makes him seem so cautious.
He is after all a man who should be cautious considering the work he does for a living.
Kingsley Shacklebolt is perhaps overqualified for the job that he's been asked to take on. But considering the idea that the other Death Eaters may come to fetch Malfoy is pretty high, he perhaps is the best man for the job.
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Now Mr. Malfoy isn't suffering from the form of mental illness that leads him bubbling at the mouth. Nor is he in a catatonic state of mind.
He just sits there in a chair or lays in a bed not doing anything.
There are some days when Kingsley Shacklebolt has to move the boy's limbs in order to get him to the toilet. There are some days when he tries to feed the boy but he just won't eat.
But other days he doesn't face that problem. Other days when young Mr. Malfoy has taken it upon himself to move on his own accord.
Mind you, that these days are especially hard to watch since it takes the adolescent so long to do perhaps the most easiest task he could do.
Those days are the days when Kingsley Shacklebolt tries to call him 'Draco' rather than calling him 'Mr. Malfoy'. He thinks that this might allow the young man to become more intoned with his surroundings. Rather than this dithering indifference he sees in him.
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One of the days when some of the members of the Order come to see Kingsley, Draco comes out.
He's looking down at his feet. His hair is cut to a respectable length, so that one can still his dull eyes as they stare at the way his feet won't really move.
It's a sort of shuffle that leaves everyone in the room speechless. Kingsley stays put on the chair he occupies. Though he thinks it's bad timing he also thinks that it is indeed a good thing that Draco do this.
Draco looks starved. The hand that goes to brace himself on the wall beside him is bony and somehow tinier than that of a boy his size should be.
His pale skin is near death that it is grey.
His bony hand slips on the wall and his reaction isn't very fast and he falls.
Before he can really fall one of the Order members, a young man with red hair and deep cut wounds on his face catch him.
For the rest of the day Draco cries in the high pitch hysterical way of his.
Kingsley doesn't sleep that night.
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Some days he'll sit Draco outside in the garden in front of the little house they stay in.
It faces a tiny pond that now, in springtime gives life to plants and birds.
Draco can sit out there all day. Without moving or anything else.
When Kingsley comes to get him he'll find the boy has fallen asleep. The paleness of his skin is cold to the touch and often has Kingsley worried that the boy is sick. Though he does take the boy to see the Healer, only to find that there isn't anything physically wrong with the boy.
Kingsley will sit down in the living room holding a hot cup of tea thinking to himself whether or not it would be a good idea to go into the boy's head. Whether it is not risky to find out what is the matter with the boy.
But such things can be deadly and very dangerous. One must heed caution when dealing with such things. There has been documented history when it comes to such things. Where the person trying to heal the other person will become so lost in the mind or sucked into some unspeakable horror that there is no way out…
Kingsley isn't sure what to do. Whether or not he should chance it.
Because he can't stay holed up in this small house while the war is going on. Looking after a Death Eater.
He has a job as an Auror and Order member to do what he can with the war.
But as he sighs and stares at the murky tea he finds that there is nothing that he can really do about his predicament. If the Minister finds that he has abandoned his post then he could face a suspension, which means that he wouldn't be able to do much for the Order…
Kingsley Shacklebolt is a spy on the war efforts of the Ministry. He's perhaps next in line to being Head of the Auror Division and so for the Order he is valuable with the resources and information that the Order needs.
He tires of the boy who doesn't really seem to be improving.
There are days when the boy will get out bed. Try to walk around and do things independently…
However it seems that those days are becoming fewer in number and the vast improvement that the boy is supposed to be going through isn't really happening…
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The boy in the room hears noise.
Coming from all around him.
From the windowpane he can hear the cries of a hurt cat. The keening is loud and hurts his ears.
He imagines the door opening and in comes a monster with a sewed up face grabbing at him with maggots for fingers…
He'll wake up screaming and that strange dark man will come.
But over this big man's shoulder, the boy knows the monster with maggot fingers is waiting for him.
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He thinks that when the there are bumps in the night that it's a monster coming to get him, eating him alive while cockroaches come out of his mouth…
He'll whimper and huddle as best he can into the blankets wrapped around him.
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Where there are flowers and the grass is green… that's the only place where the monsters can't get him.
He thinks that the flowers will sprout out little faeries that will keep him safe.
He thinks the black man is a catalyst between him and those faeries that protect him.
He thinks that the big man will one day leave him. Leave him in that uncomfortable dark where the monsters who have maggot hands and sewed up faces will come and get him.
Along with a big snake with blood red eyes.
Blood red eye's that always watch.
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He sometimes feels the bats nesting in his hair. He tries to get them out, but when he looks at his hands he can see only a clump of blonde hair.
He thinks that the bats know how to Apparate without him hearing or feeling them do so.
He wishes the he could scream at them. Scream at them to let him go.
But instead he'll cling to that big chest that sometimes embraces him and wish the faeries come and save him.
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Kingsley is a man who isn't made of stone.
He'll grow to know someone and to care for him or her. Just as he had once done to Severus Snape before the man went off his rocker and killed Albus Dumbledore…
That's what he does for this boy who doesn't seem to get better. Who doesn't remember how to walk, or chooses not to most days. The boy who will cling to him muttering words that are unintelligent…
Or who will just lie there staring that the ceiling above his bed for days and days…
No Kingsley isn't made of stone.
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The boy knows there are eyes on his arm that watch him.
They belong to both the skull and the snake.
They stare.
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The boy waits for when the man is not on high alert with him. He knows that the faeries won't let him hurt himself…
But he also knows that the eyes are watching him.
So as he takes the knife and watches it pierce his pure white skin, he feels nothing. He feels the eyes staring at him willing him to stop it.
But he doesn't.
The knife is tilted as he works sawing it back and forth to get the skin off his arm.
He smiles as he does it. His pale face feverish from the shock his body is going through.
But he doesn't feel it.
All he knows is that they're going to stop staring at him.
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Kingsley had no idea how to deal with it when Draco cut the Dark Mark off his arm.
It was Remus who once he came into the house with Bill, made instant headway to the room that Draco was in.
The found that the boy had taken off most of the Mark.
The thing that most disturbed the very qualified Auror was that the boy was smiling about it.
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Now one must remember is that Draco was always a boy with temper and someone sully personality. He was a boy who felt things keenly and manipulated it all into a way that made it fun for him.
He hasn't changed.
Just that in this stage of his life he'd use those talents in a different way.
After all he did know that the big black man was upset. Whether or not it was because of him was not the point. Because he needed this man for the protection of the faeries. And if he lost this man he would lose his protectors against the monsters with maggot fingers.
So he snuck into the big black man's room.
Where he waited with the intentions of doing an act that he remembered that odd cold woman would use on that man with the silver cane.
He was undressed. For he knew that was what the act implied. That he and the big black man be in the nude.
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Now when Kingsley would go into his room he did only one thing and that was to sleep.
He never really expected to find that young Mr. Malfoy would set up camp on his bed.
Especially in the nude.
"I don't want to see the monsters with maggot fingers…" the sadness in those grey eyes somewhat makes Kingsley ashamed.
So he sits beside that blonde boy. Brings him to lie on Kingsley so that he can just rock back and forth with him…
Kingsley breathes in the shampoo that has orchid fruits.
He snorts softly at the thought of maggot fingers.
For that is a ridiculous thought.
But he still tightens his hold on the naked boy in his arms.
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A/N: another unbeta'd but whatever. I liked the way I made Draco insane… and finally finally didn't turn it into sex.