{Summary}: SLASH The world is suspended by a web of chains, it keeps everything in order and restrained. People are connected by chains too, my boy; they control who we meet, how we think and what we do. They are the very order of life, but you, my boy...Your different. You have no chains. AU
{Disclaimer}: I own nothing in the Harry Potter world; I do however own this plot. Any similarities to people and/or other fanfic's are purely coincidental. Please do not flame, I appreciate constructive criticism but I am the first to admit that my ego and self-esteem are not particularly large and easily bruised.
~{Chains}~
While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die. ~Leonardo Da Vinci
~{Chains}~
Chapter One -
It was at midnight that the once majestic clock tower was finally engulfed by the water, it's delicate ruins and secrets forever hidden from the outside world, with it's only memorial being a large, daunting shadow that was quickly disappearing in to the great depths of the ocean.
The boat that rested nearby, rested uneasily as it's lone passenger looked on at the now open waters, staring unseeingly where a now gaping hole in history had once resided. Under his branded arm, was a book.
"...And with the might of his power, the Gods bound the retched city, with fire in their eyes and ice on their lips, and dragged her down in to the pits of the abyss..."
Ink leaked across the page as the quill slid along in slow, paced lines, reflective in the full moon's gaze.
"...Age is irrelevant..."
"...Power is...power is..."
He licked his lips hesitantly, before he drew a thick line across his previous words, uncaring of the shadow befalling him.
"The mind is the key, and the body the vessel..."
His fingers were numb from the cold.
"...And the Chains control it all."
~{Chains}~
Jennifer Hart held her folder tightly to her chest as she followed the women in front of her. Her heels clicked distinctively through out the corridor, a black sheep in a sea of plain flats. The flawless paint on the wooden walls was a persian blue sort of colour, only just several shades darker from the royal blue coloured carpet. Despite the rich colouring, she noticed there was little to no furniture other then the odd chair and settee as well as the occasional vase.
She shifted nervously as she walked, God, this place might as well house the Queen of England or something.
The women in front of her - Hilda, Jennifer reminded herself - stopped abruptly, turning to face Jennifer. Hilda was rather plain looking, Jennifer noted absently. Her brown hair was pulled in to a tight pony-tail and her eyes where a dark hazel-ly colour; her lips where drawn in to a tight lipped frown.
"I'm going to warn you now," Hilda started, reaching in to her pocket, "This ones an odd one, a real piece of work in my opinion, don't be too freaked out if he starts sprouting utter nonsense at you. Why just the other day he started ranting at one of the new interns about how her boyfriend was cheating on her, poor thing burst in to tears on the spot." As she continued to speak, Hilda twisted a small bronze key in to the door knob, unlocking the door.
The room behind the door was barely lit, with only the sparse beams of light creeping through the blinds across the window perforating the objects in the room.
"Boy! What are you doing sitting in the dark!" Hilda barked, reaching up the wall searchingly.
Out of the corner of her eye, Jennifer noticed a small figure twitch in recognition at the nickname - she was certain it was not one borne from affection.
"Aren't you a sight for sore eyes." The voice was young, Jennifer thought to herself, young and sweet sounding. It had a certain hum to it that was practically musical; it was also rather high.
"Hush up." Hilda snarled in return, her hands still occupied with searching the wall. "And get up boy, you have company."
"What a loving reply to my heart felt welcome, Hilda." The child replied, complying with Hilda's blunt commands. He stood up from his forward crouch in the corner of the room furthest from the door - a fact Jennifer absently took note of to mention later in her report - and moved towards the centre of the room before stopping just in front of them.
Finally, a click was heard from behind Jennifer, and light flooded the room, lighting it up like a mid-summer bonfire. With the sudden change of visibility, Jennifer got her first look at her patient.
He's small, was the first thing she thought as she looked at him, shorter then she had expected him to be by several inches, especially seeing as he was nearly eleven, an age where most boys were beginning to shoot up like sprouts, but he had such a petit frame that it looked fully proportional. Angles were predominant in both the boy's face and on his body, with a surprisingly sparse amount of baby fat still lingering on his cheeks, and next to none else where on his body. The boy's hair was longer then usual, curling around the base of his neck loosely, and was jet black. Jennifer found her self blinking stupidly as she caught sight of pure emerald eyes set in a face with skin paler then any one's she had ever seen.
Even when Hilda turned to speak with her, Jennifer found her self hard pressed to look away from the admittedly beautiful boy in front of her.
"So, do you want to interview the boy here, or would you prefer to use one of the common rooms?" Hilda asked her, as if ignoring the boy who in return raised an arched eyebrow, accompanied by a slight upward tilt of his lips. But it wasn't a smile, Jennifer noticed.
"We'll take the common room upstairs." The boy spoke in her place, his voice lilting as he practically danced past Jennifer and Hilda, stepping out in to the corridor.
Hilda followed him out, her arm placed defiantly on her waist as she looked at the smaller boy, a sneer once again plastered firmly on to her face. "I didn't ask you, you little brat."
"But shouldn't I be in my most comfortable setting seeing as I'm the one being interviewed, dear Hilda."
"Listen here you little-"
"The child is correct Miss Hilda," Jennifer cut in, eager to place as much distance between the boy, whose eye's appeared to be dancing with mirth, and Hilda, whose face was quickly blooming a furious shade of rouge and was practically frothing at the mouth, as possible. "plus, seeing as he would already be out, I could easily escort him to the dinning room afterwards and save you fetching him."
Beside her, the boy hummed provokingly.
"Fine," Hilda spat, "but don't let me here anything about you running off else where like last time boy!" The child turned to face Hilda and placed his hand to his forehead, in a mocking army salute. "Wouldn't dream of it Hilda darling."
With a final huff at the boy and a cautious sharp eye at Jennifer, Hilda turned sharply on her heel and swiftly retreated along the corridor, her foot steps heavy and thundering as she went.
With out turning her body to him, Jennifer gazed down at the child beside her, watching silently as his eyes followed Hilda down the corridor from beneath his long eye lashes. When she finally turned around the corner, the boy's piercing gaze snapped to meet Jennifer's, drawing a startled gasp from her. The boy smiled disarmingly, "Let's get moving then, shall we?"
Jennifer found her self nodding, and followed the boy silently as he walked swiftly through the corridors.
The orphanage, Placid Waters Orphanage, was a large building situated several miles from the outskirts London in the rural country side, which had once been a stately manor home to a rich earl and his family. However, since then it had lost much of it aristocratic grace due to lack of funding and general lack of up-keeping. It did however, still possess a daunting presence, that made it breath taking to walk through.
As she followed the youth in front of her, Jennifer could not help but gape at some of the corridors. Where as the floor down stares had been scarcely furnished and barely decorated, these corridors where richly decorated with wall length paintings and delicate vases spanning the entire length of corridor.
When the boy finally stopped, he poked his head through the door and looked around, before his lips once again tilted and he stepped through.
"Have a seat." The boy chimed as he placed his self on one of two opposing settees, both with numerous pillows.
Stepping carefully in to the room, Jennifer followed his example and attempted to sit as delicately as possible on the settee, but eventually found her self falling backwards ungracefully as the settee tried to engulf her whole.
The boy giggled.
Blushing, Jennifer cleared her throat and opened her folder to a clean, unused page and clicked her pen, and poised it to write.
Okay, She thought to her self, ready.
"Hello," She started, "you may or may not know but just in case, my name is Jennifer Hart, and I will be seeing you for the foreseeable future. I'll be like a diary, you could say - you can tell me any thing you want and I won't tell any one. The best part is that unlike a diary, I'll be able to respond and try to help you figure out what ever it is that's bothering you." She finished, mentally assessing the boy's reaction to her well rehearsed speech that her bathroom mirror received just about every day.
The boy tilted his head. "Jennifer..." He rolled the name on his tongue, unsettling Jennifer slightly as he repeated it twice more. "Jenny...There are a couple of Jenny's here."
"Oh? And what do you think of them?" She asked, urging him on in to a conversation.
"Them? They're okay I guess; it's a bit depressing that they all have the same name though."
Jennifer frowned, her lips pursing as she quickly wrote the quote down for later analysis. "Depressing? How so?"
The boy didn't reply. Instead, he breathed deeply and looked around the room. For several minutes, Jennifer studied the boy as he continued to do so, watching as he absent mindedly traced patterns in to his bare thigh. His shorts only reached to his mid-thighs.
"Every thing in this room," He began, startling Jennifer out of her stupor by the suddenness of it, "every thing is undoubtedly unique. Either because they are a single version, or they are simply hand crafted. But people who share the same name," He licked his lips before continuing, "It's kind of sad, because no matter how hard you try, or how different you are, people will always, even if it's just subconsciously, they will always compare you."
Jennifer sat still across from the boy, staring at him with a heavily creased forehead, her mind whirling with thoughts and questions as she watched the boy cross his legs on the settee and continue to trace patterns in to his legs.
"Do any of the other boys here share a name with you?" She prodded him further, eager to understand him.
The child looked at her as he spoke. "Not really. There are about four other Harry's in this orphanage, one of them is my age in fact. But I prefer to be called Hadrian, and none of the boy's here are called Hadrian."
Hadrian, she thought to her self. Finally, a name for the face.
"Hadrian," She said aloud, "that's a nice name."
The b- Hadrian looked at her, his eye brows twitching slightly, as did the corner of his mouth. "Didn't you know my name?" He asked her, his voice thick with amusement.
Jennifer smiled at him imploringly, her nose scrunching slightly. "I try to learn what I can from the person first before I look at their file. I think it stop's any previous bias leaking through."
Hadrian smirked at her. "It's a bit unprofessional for a diagnosis, don't you think."
Jennifer Hart stilled, her pen frozen in mid sentence as her mind replayed Hadrian's words.
Diagnosis.
He knew.
"Did you think I didn't know?" Hadrian asked mockingly, his eyes glistening with mirth as he watched Jennifer's mouth open wordlessly. Leaning forward, Hadrian stared her in the eye.
"Is there any thing else you want to talk about?" He asked her, tilting his head, "I mean, I wouldn't want you to hand in an inaccurate report to Madame Thristle, now would I. It could be very troublesome for me." He explained.
"But you really should learn how to hide your secrets better, you know. I mean, it didn't take even a week for your boyfriend to figure out you were sleeping with his dad."
Her folder fell from her lap as Jennifer shot up, her eyes wide.
"Now now Jenny-"
"Jennifer."
"Jenny." Hadrian's voice was suddenly clearer and much, much colder. His face blank, his usual smirk was absent.
He stared at her for several moments, titling his head every so often as if he were examining a puppy.
"It was Madame Thristle though, wasn't it." Hadrian asked, his voice was once again light and mischievous, "She's been on my case day and night ever since I've been here. Especially after that little... incident with Roger last summer."He informed her as he stood up from the settee, moving so he stood right in front of her. His hands were clasped behind his back, showing off his small sailor shorts and short sleeved white shirt combo.
"He fell off a cliff, you know." Hadrian continued, shrugging a shoulder and talking as if he was conversing about some thing as simple as the weather. "Nasty accident. He was alright I guess. Between you and me, I always found him to to be a bit of a bully." He gossiped.
Then he stilled. "Didn't your sister fall off of a cliff."
Jennifer's face grew paler as the words registered in her mind. To Hadrian, it looked as if she had rapidly aged a good twenty, maybe thirty years in the time span of a few seconds. Her wrinkles grew predominant as her eyes widened to unprecedented measures and her jaw trembled. So did her hands.
"She came running towards you, happy and boisterous..."
"Shut up." Jennifer whispered.
"...and you'd just broken up with one of your many boyfriends..."
She shook her head.
"...you actually loved him..."
Shaking her head still, she spoke louder, "Shut up."
"...but he'd fallen in love with her..."
Jennifer felt her body shake uncontrollably whilst she reverently repeated her mantra. Shut up. Shut up.
"...so you pushed her-"
"Shut up!" She screeched, "Shut up you fucking freak!"
For a moment, silence rang. Tear flowing down her face, Jennifer watched as the child before her, Hadrian, darkened with rage. His eyes grew cold and malicious, his smirk - sadistic.
Then chaos.
The windows surrounding them shattered in a synchronised mess, shards flung themselves in every direction, fierce and wild. The vases situated around the room tipped backwards and forwards dangerously. In several places, cracks ran along the wood panelled walls, throwing splinters through out the chaos as they did so. Amidst the terror, Jennifer felt a massive force collide in to her, knocking her off of her feet and head first in to the wall behind her.
In the middle of it all, Hadrian watched, his smirk restored.
~{Chains}~
Hadrian watched as a battered and bruised Jennifer Hart was carefully loaded in to the back an ambulance, her body littered with glass shards, coloured black and blue. She was unconscious, and according to the Paramedic currently conversing with an ashen faced Madame Thristle, would be for several weeks if not months due to a penetrating head injury; a large glass shard the size of a adults fist had in-bedded it's self in to her skull.
It was a pity, Hadrian told him self as he looked on, she had been admittedly rather pretty, even to Hadrian. A tall, willowy blond with stormy eyes and full lips, not to mention a nice pair of legs.
"What on earth were you thinking boy." Hilda spoke slowly, her words sharp and cold.
Hadrian turned around to face her.
Hilda was stood in front of the closed door, her usually tight lipped frown replaced by a fierce scowl, her clothes as pristine as ever. Hadrian smiled at her adoringly.
"You know she got what she deserved." He admonished her, his tone playful despite the nature of his words, and the conversation in general.
"Just because you got pissed at her," She spat, "does not give you the right to turn her in to bloody and battered rag doll."
Though she had finished talking, an icy rage remained in her presence as she shot forward and grabbed the blinds cord and pulled on it harshly, obscuring the view completely.
"You keep this up boy and eventually they will open their eyes, and then they'll take you and lock you away some where then throw away the key."
"I didn't know you cared-"
"For God's sake Harry, will you stop with the smart retorts, you stupid, stupid boy." Grabbing Hadrian by the shoulders she shook him with a passion as she raged, "I am trying to help you."
Hadrian pushed her away from him. "How? By separating us?" He shot at her, his child like façade dissolving beneath his rage, distorting his lovely face in to a furious scowl of his own. "You purposely acted like you did earlier to try and convince her to separate us! Don't you dare think I didn't notice. How is that supposed to help me!"
As he unload his anger at her, he felt his knees weaken and buckle beneath him. As he fell forwards, Hadrian grasped on to the taller women tightly and buried his head in to her bosom, his tears dampening her blouse.
"She'd already made up her mind by the time we got to common room." He sobbed, taking comfort in the hand that rubbed soothing circles in to his back, "she was going to separate us. She was going to have you reported for emotional abuse and neglect."
As he continued to unleash his emotions on to his only friend, Hadrian allowed him self to be moved towards the single bed in the room.
"Child," Hilda spoke softly, "you have got to learn to accept other people. Let them in."
"But I don't want to, I have you."
She chuckled humourlessly. "Your stubborn, I'll give you that boy. I swear that's the one trait I wished you hadn't inherited-"
"Hilda..." Hadrian whispered, lifting his head from her bosom, "don't."
The woman looked at him for a moment before submitting to his feeble demand."Fine."
Searching her features for a moment longer, Hadrian again lowered his head on to her chest, breathing deeply as he did so.
"You have another interview this week Harry." Hilda spoke softly, aware of his emotional weariness; there was no need to drain him furthur.
"Oh?"
"Yes," She confirmed, "Something about a scholarship to some private boarding school. Got a letter this morning asking to arrange a slight introductory with you regarding the nature of your addmittance."
Hadrian said nothing.
Looking down at the boy, Hilda watched as his eyes glazed over unseeingly before the sharpness returned a few moments later.
"What if I don't want to talk to them."
"Well you've got to boy. Promise me you'll behave."
He looked at her, lifting his head so they were almost eye to eye, sat on the bed.
"Only if you promise me something in return."
~{Chains}~
Hadrian blinked.
Then he blinked again.
This women doesn't hold back, He thought as he chuckled, flicking through the pages of the blue note book held carelessly in his hands.
Jennifer Hart really was a women of habit, her neat nature was obvious in the organised structure of her notes and penmanship.
Hadrian shows a knowledge of the emotions shown by the people around him, but appears to lack any empathy for them.
Possible sociopathic tendancies are shown in his lack of empathy, as well as a possible innate sense of possessiveness that is shown via his thought's on sharing a name with others; Hadrian also rarely smiles, preferring instead to raise eyebrows and/or smirk. Very charming.
Possibly has antisocial personality disorder; according to files he commonly displays features of five subtypes of said disorder - covetous,reputation defending, risk taking, nomadic and malevolent.
Has an odd relationship with his primary carer - Hilda Marsh; separating them may prove to be a positive movement.
Harry stared at the words on the page in front of him. Hilda. That women had decided to take her from him. But that wouldn't do; no that most certainly would not do.
~{Chains}~
I just want to say thank you for reading this. This is my first fanfic ever, and I'm just using this chapter as a bit of a pilot chapter. For as long as I can remember I've suffered from spontaneous plot bunnies, but when ever I've tried to sit down and plot them out, they ran off. Then this came to me and let me tell you, it, was, MASSIVE! I'm pretty certain it ate all the others!
I'm leaning towards this being a Slash fic but it you have a particular pairing that you really like, message me and I'll think about it, this applies for both straight pairings and slash pairings. I've not really made up my mind which is why only Harry is 'tagged'. Thanks.