This is an old fic I've been meaning to put up for a while. I'm currently revising the last few chapters, but they should all be up soon. Please review if you can, I would greatly appreciate any feedback or suggestions, and thanks for reading!
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"The defendant will be remanded to Atton Hospital for the duration of the trial."
The hand on his shoulder was heavy, something reminiscent of his own father's, whose eyes were still following him in the silent room, his mother's hysterical sobs even muted to him. The chains, binding his hands and feet, jangled as the hand forced him to shuffle along. That sound, oddly, was the only one that registered in his head—the sound of being bound.
And yet never before had he felt so free.
The giant above him, wild-looking even with a shaved beard and buzzcut, eyed him stoically as he waited for the transport vehicle to pull up. A vague image of a man with wild hair, a long beard, and warm eyes fluttered through Draco's mind, leaving as quickly as it arose. It was just the two of them—the giant man who'd hardly said a word but yet spoke just enough with his actions, and Draco, who was fairly certain he himself hadn't said a word since he was a toddler. In a way they were alike, despite the fact that the two were contrasting in every way—his overseer large and bulky, intimidating, no-nonsense demeanor, and Draco, small and lithe, more like prey to the others at school rather than someone to avoid.
The truck roared, one man jumping out from the right passenger seat to open the doors to the back. The windows were covered with bars, and it was more like a tin can than anything else.
"Best get in, then, 'aven't got all day, Malfoy," his burly counterpart gruffly muttered, pushing him toward the cage.
He shut his eyes.
"How many times, Draco, do I have to tell you to not track mud in the house? Are you deaf as well as dumb, you daft boy?"
Some boys after school had followed him, teamed up on him. Pushed him around. Nothing too rough, really, but it had been wet outside and Draco had slipped, his trousers sopping with mud as the others laughed.
Draco said nothing. Why would it have mattered? His father had arrived in a cross mood, which always happened when a case wasn't going his way.
When he was in a cross mood, he always needed a way to…expel it.
This time Draco had been so buried in his thoughts, in his mind, that he actually heard the crack of contact before he even felt it.
And all that was left was darkness.
"'Ay, boy, wake up. We're here."
Draco's head snapped, and he looked around, mostly curious of his new surroundings.
He saw his father waiting at the door. Draco tried not to meet his eyes.
Cracked ceilings dotted the entryway. The paint was chipping alongside the rusted metal. There were two entries, really—the first, which had a heavier lock and thus required a key, code, and office approval, was more of a hassle to get to than the second. It had a padlock.
He reached the nurse's station. The same ceiling lamp was there, the one that never seemed to stay still, always going to and fro. A moth weakly fluttered around it.
Draco noted that the bars on the windows seemed new. Probably a donation.
The nurse on call today was Pomfrey. Draco preferred her to the other head nurse, a prim woman named Dolores Umbridge who always seemed to have a reason to send someone to solitary.
Pomfrey's face twisted. Her eyes said all that they needed to—she was sad to see him. "Oh, Draco," she sighed, with her telltale headshake. The headshake meant something was going on with the higher ups.
"You'll be in six, dear. I don't think any of the others you knew are here, we'll do introductions in a few hours, okay? Once we get all of this paperwork sorted out." There was a pause as papers were shuffled. "We're at a record low this time. There were only five residents."
Were. Draco was the sixth. In room six. At six supper would start and there would be introductions.
Tomorrow was the sixth.
The slow panic lapped around him, rattling the chains still around his feet and hands, planning full well to strike at the best time.
The guard looked at him suspiciously. Draco tried to ignore the claws wrapped around his chest. He knew this place like the back of his hand but still looked around. Just to be sure it was how he left it.
To his left were two rooms, the place where they had meals on metal tins and each utensil was numbered as to ensure they would return at the end of mealtime. Medicines were also delivered there. There were two rows of four tables, eight seats at each row. The second room, neighbored to the cafeteria, was the room where they had Group and participated in activities.
It was also the room where the one TV existed, something held so precious to the point where there had to be nightly 'turns'. From seven to nine was free time, so everyone shared what shows they would like to watch and a schedule would be drawn up.
Draco thought it a waste of hospital resources, but the nurses thought less squabbles made for a healthier environment.
Right now there were four others in the activity room staring at him curiously. They must have ended Group early due to his arrival. Three girls, one boy. Draco wondered where the fifth resident might be.
On his right was the long corridor, the one with all the residents' rooms, the elevator at the very end of the hallway. One floor up was where solitary was.
His father stared at him, and the tap of his cane clicking against the floor made him flinch. The serpent on the hand rest glaring at him, eyes twinkly malevolently. This was his place, Draco's place. He wasn't supposed to be here. But yet he was, bright hair gleaming in the fluorescent light, eyes glittering with something Draco figured was supposed to represent some shred of emotion. But he had learned long ago that his father didn't feel things, simply played whatever part he needed to in order to preserve his image.
A loud crack split the silence, like the sound of brief rap of a cane on his back. Draco flinched again, but no one else noticed the sound. But they noticed his reaction. It was no matter. His father was gone. He relaxed slightly.
It wasn't the most beautiful place in the world, but it was home to him.
The hum of the furnace filled up the room. Draco's head lulled back, the claw loosening in his chest.
"Oh, undo those chains! He isn't going to hurt anyone." Pomfrey sniped to the guard. The four curious residents had moved closer, two hugging the walls of the entry way to the cafeteria.
For once it was more of an admirable silent curiosity, not the sort he'd encountered before.
"If it looks like a twink, walks like a twink, and doesn't talk, is it still a twink?"
"Does he ever talk? He must be retarded, not bonkers. Why waste my time with him here?"
The chains loosened, and Draco rubbed his wrists, moving to tuck one silvery strand of hair behind his ear. Pomfrey grew slightly less ruffled and put one hand on his shoulder.
"Protocol, ma'am, in cases like this." The guard muttered, looking at her like she was the crazy one.
"Regardless, I have him now. You may leave. I'll have our doctor fax you the paperwork we need."
"But, ma'am, the paperwork clearly states he needs to be held in a high-security setting and this does not—"
"For goodness sake! Are you questioning my ability to decide whether or not I can handle a patient? After thirteen years as head nurse? Look, with budget cuts, this is what you get. Hand him to me or deal with disciplinary action."
Truthfully, it was probably more to do with the fact that placing Draco anywhere else would have had more of a public shitstorm, which would have smeared the family reputation more. The Atton Center (they didn't like calling it a hospital, though that's what it was) had a history of…losing case files for the right sum of money.
"W-well, no, ma'am, not at all—"
"And stop calling me ma'am! Do I look like an old lady to you?"
The guard opened his mouth, gaped for a moment, and then closed it. "Thank you for your services ma'am. Have a good night." He turned and left, the chains in his hands.
"Wise man," Pomfrey muttered to Draco, out of earshot to the audience near them. She waited for him to turn to the corridor. Unlike the others, Pomfrey never pushed him along. She let him take his time.
The bold six painted on the front of the door winked at him, hissing like the snakes that haunted him when he lived in the attic.
"Right now your roommate is at his session, so you have the place to yourself for a bit. Here's the bed—" The stout woman stopped herself with a sad sort of laugh. "Of course you know where everything is. You know where I am if you need anything, dear."
His things had been waiting for him before he arrived. Opening the suitcase, he found that his mother had folded his best clothes, including the emerald wool vest his father had gotten him the day he announced a promotion and needed new family portraits.
He hated that vest.
The rest of the clothing was the standard—grey trousers, white button-up dress shirt, and dress jacket. All useless in a place like this.
Draco had packed his suitcase before he went to trial. These things hadn't been in it. The only thing that was truly his was hidden, anyway, in a secret compartment at the base of the suitcase. He checked, sighing audibly when his hands wrapped around a familiar pocketwatch. It was the only thing of his father's he found useful.
He knew, as clear as day and remembered as vividly as possible, that six months ago he was packing his books and getting ready to go back to school again. Hogwarts was where he was supposed to be. To be in Slytherin and lead Crabbe and Goyle along like dogs.
"Draco, do you now understand that…this school, these people—they aren't the ones you know them to be? Pomfrey is a nurse here. Crabbe is the janitor. Harry Potter is not here, and this…Slytherin, as you call it—it's not a house.
Hogwarts does not exist, Draco. I need to hear you say that to me."
Even if I saw and felt the stunning spells, the time I got my first wand? Draco thought.
"Draco? Will you be able to say that?"
Draco looked up, his eyes matching the dark, serious gaze of his psychiatrist.
"Hogwarts isn't real, Dr. Snape. I know that now."He lied, the words spilling out roughly, like his throat found the very act of speaking a painful action. It was always odd to hear his own voice, and so very rare.
It hadn't lasted this long before. Being…in this place. Draco remembered snippets of things in the past from this life, but what was worse was that somehow being stuck here had begun to ebb away at his memories of wizardry, of the life he led there, of the impending war.
All he remembered now was how it felt to fly on a broom. What he wouldn't give to feel that again, just once. And Harry Potter. He remembered Harry Potter. His vitriol was less severe toward him now. But there was a reason to hate him. Draco was certain.
Even though…
"You went away to Hogwarts again. I missed you. But now you're back, right? Can I sign your cast?"
"Wanna know a secret? You're my little cousin and that makes you blood, and I'll protect you with all I've got, Dragon. Dudley doesn't count. You're my favourite."
"I lied, Draco, your dad asked and I lied for you like you wanted me too but he found out, Draco, I think they're after me again. I think Voldemort is Tom Riddle and I think he's after both of us."
A voice brought him out of his thoughts. "You're Draco, huh?"
Familiar voices started whipping around in his head.
"…the heir of Slytherin…"
It was a tall, lanky redheaded boy, at least two years older than him. He looked pale and tired and spoke in a rough tone, like he'd just woken up. When he reached out to shake his hand, the boy said, "I'm Fred."
It was in the moment that Draco actually looked at him, looked at the person in front of him, that he realized something was off. His expression must have given something away because the boy half-smiled and shrugged.
"I, uh, tried to shoot myself. It didn't exactly…go as planned."
One side of his skull had caved in slightly, giving him the appearance of looking off-kilter. When he turned to take a seat on his bed, his left leg dragged slightly, and that was when the pieces fell into place.
"Blind in one eye too, but hey, they have me locked up in this place. Can't do much 'til I get out and set it right." The boy froze, looked over. Draco shook his head; it wasn't his place to say anything, not in a place that wasn't real, anyway.
"Seven days, this time, Draco. I think that's enough time to reflect on what you've done." Draco's silent tears seemed to amuse the man he referred to as Father.
The cellar door creaked as it swung shut. He shut his eyes, for what seemed like an eternity, because he couldn't stand looking at the cellar. At the grimy window, boarded up. At the small cot at one corner, and the small bathroom with only a sink and toilet. Father had spent a pretty penny on Draco's prison.
When he opened his eyes again, his cheeks were dry, and his hand was on a wooden door. His father was there, muttering, "Stop playing with the cupboard, Draco. It's not a toy."
He never ceased to find Borgin and Burke's interesting. Draco never did know where those cupboards could take him, though. He sometimes had the feeling he didn't want to know, but his curiosity got the better of him, until Lucius put one firm hand on his shoulder and pushed him along.
Pomfrey appeared in the doorway. "Dinner time boys, let's go."
Draco closed his eyes as he passed the door.
He still heard the hissing.