Chapter 9
Safe and Sound
It seemed like years before Parvati had finally shown enough signs of recovering to be discharged from the hospital entirely.
Months of psychiatric treatment and physiotherapy for her to be mostly back to normal. She still wasn't quite right though. Dean was the only one that could see it. She lacked the spark that she had had before this whole ordeal had occurred. Dean could hardly blame her after all she had been through, who wouldn't be slightly off? But he couldn't help but miss that old Parvati.
"Are you sure she's alright to go?" Dean asked one of the healers who was checking over Parvati's paperwork at the front desk.
"Positive," the healer nodded, "The psychiatrist has given her the all clear to leave the hospital and she's demonstrated perfectly that she has recovered from all physical injuries."
Dean nodded, still feeling slightly unsure about what would happen when they left the hospital. What would he do if her nightmares came back and he wasn't able to wake her? What would he do if something went wrong with one of her healed injuries and Dean accidentally landed her back in the hospital? He wasn't even sure that he was allowed to take her home with him, despite the fact that both Padma and Parvati's parents had given their express permission for that to happen.
The healer seemed to see some of his reservations and smiled at him reassuringly.
"You know, she won't be the same for a while now," the healer remarked, "We can't keep her here until she's fully better so we send everyone home around half way to recover. Nothing will go wrong if you stick to this," she handed him a piece of paper with different types of potions on it and what they did, "You'll be fine Mr. Thomas, she's lucky to have you."
Dean accepted the list and signed the paper on the desk to say that she had officially signed out but despite the healer's reassurance that nothing would go wrong and it was natural for her to be slightly different after all that she had suffered, Dean couldn't help thinking as they walked out of St. Mungo's onto the busy street outside that there was something wrong.
He dismissed it quickly as paranoia and, keeping a tight hold of Parvati's hand, turned on the spot and disapparated, focussing on the apparition site in the alleyway of his street. He knew that Parvati wouldn't like the alleyway, not after what he had seen of her memories at Theodore's trial, but there was no other way to get home other than that. The Knight bus didn't operate on Sundays.
The squeezing sensation of apparition stopped abruptly and Dean opened his eyes. He looked sideways at Parvati who still had her eyes squeezed shut.
"Parvati," Dean said slowly.
"Yeah," she whispered, her eyes still shut.
"Keep your eyes shut for me," Dean said, "You can open them in about thirty seconds, don't worry. I'll guide you."
He was both surprised and relieved when he saw her nod her head slowly and clung to his hand a little more tightly. Despite what she'd been through she was glad that she still could trust him although he felt like she shouldn't. He knew that once people had gone through a traumatic experience that learning to trust again would be hard, but Parvati seemed to trust him with her life.
"Alright," he said as they reached the end of the alley, "you can open your eyes now."
He looked at her as she slowly opened her eyes and blinked at the bright light of the morning.
"It's really bright out here," Parvati said. Dean laughed, of everything she could've said she remarked on how bright it was.
"Come on," Dean said with a smile, "Let's go home."
"Home?" Parvati questioned.
"Oh, you don't have to call it home if you don't want to, but you're staying with me until Padma and Terry get back from Wales, then you'll go and live with them for a while, if you want to that is?"
Parvati shrugged, "I don't know what I want."
"That's fine too," Dean said, taking her hand in his and leading her towards his house
"It's not going to be the most comfortable few weeks of your life," Dean said as they reached the top of the staircase, "I don't actually own beds as you may remember."
Parvati nodded with a slight smile as Dean flicked his wand at the door and it swung open, "After you good lady," Dean said in mock poshness and bowed her through the door.
The flat smelled musty after weeks of no use and he remembered from seeing Parvati's memories at the trial, that musty smells could trigger her. Dean quickly waved his wands at the curtains and windows which flew apart and opened politely, letting the fresh smells of outside waft in. The bed on the couch was still made up from the last time that Parvati had been here, although Dean had changed the sheets, the first ones had a little blood on them.
"How are you feeling?" he asked as she sat down on her 'bed' if you could call it that.
"Tired," she muttered,
"Do you want to go to sleep?" Dean asked and Parvati nodded, her eyelids drooping considerably.
"I'll get you the sleeping potion," Dean said, walking over to his kitchen and starting to look for the sleeping potions that he had there.
"It's okay," Parvati mumbled, "I can fall asleep by myself now Dean."
Dean chuckled, "it's not just to make you fall asleep, it's to stop you from having bad dreams as well."
"I'm not three," Parvati said, putting her head to the pillow, "I can deal with nightmares."
And with that she slipped off to sleep. Dean immediately started to panic, what if she had a nightmare and he couldn't wake her up again? He had only experienced that twice and it had been terrifying both times. He sat down on the couch opposite her because the only thing to do now was to wait for her either to have nightmares or to wake up again.
Dean found himself drifting back to the trial. The atmosphere had been so tense that you could've sliced it with a knife. Dean had been able to see Theodore for the whole duration and with every second that passed he just wanted to kill him more and more, it was only the fact that Padma had her hand firmly on his leg that he didn't jump up and try to curse the piece of shit right then and there.
He remembered them projecting Parvati's memories onto the stone wall behind Theodore's seat and feeling ill when he saw how Theodore had treated her even before he was aware of the abuse that was going on and by the time they had reached the part just after Parvati had been taken back from Dean and into the cellar by Theodore, he almost threw up. Most members of the Wizenagamot were averting their eyes when it had got to that point, all scribbling "guilty" on their notepads. It was at this point that Dean realised why Parvati had such violent nightmares.
Meanwhile, Theodore had just sat there and smiled his evil predator smile, making Dean want to poke his wand into his eye and jiggle it around in there for a while before performing the killing curse for he was sure that nothing would give him a greater satisfaction. However, he supposed that twenty-five years to life in Azkaban was enough for him, at least the bastard would be rotting for twenty-five years. Dean hoped that the Dementors would go crazy and suck out his soul.
Both Dean and Padma had left the trial room completely traumatised from what they had seen and Padma had immediately gone to oversee the destruction of the memories, neither of them wanted Parvati to ever find out what they had had to do in order to get Theodore prosecuted.
The one thing that kept haunting Dean's dreams, however, was not the viewing of Parvati's memories, not the smile that Theodore had had on his face for the entire time, but what Theodore had said at the end of the trial when he was asked why he had done what he did instead of abiding by the laws of marriage and loving her like he said he would when they had taken their vows. He had just looked up at the Jury and said one simple phrase that had struck Dean dumb, "Because it made me happy."
Dean hadn't forgotten his face, his manic smile and his wide eyes when he had said that. Every time Dean closed his eyes he could see it behind his eyelids and that was the only part that genuinely scared him. If hurting others made him happy, how many others were there out there with husbands or wives that hurt them to make them happy? It was then, in his small flat in the middle of London that Dean decided that he wasn't going to rest until he found out all the cases of domestic abuse in the country and fixed it, because nobody deserved to be treated that way.
Parvati regretted falling asleep every time that she did. She regretted shutting her eyes and letting her mind drift off into her subconscious because all it was met with was Theodore's looming face and manic, crazy eyes. He would always do unspeakable things to her in the dream and she would always either wake up with Dean shaking her shoulders or covered in sweat while Dean yelled at her. She had learned to control how she reacted to the dreams over time until she was able to wake up by herself and not be forced to do so. But that had been on the sleeping potion which dulled her senses and was supposed to give her dreamless sleep, but she supposed that the memories were too strong to be siphoned away when she shut her eyes by a simple potion. What she had learned to control herself over was nothing compared to what she had to control herself over now.
The dream was in full colour, the edges around everything was sharp rather than blurry and she could see Theodore advancing towards her a whip coming out of the end of his wand and threatening her with it. She felt herself press into something hard at the back of her and assumed that it was a wall.
"Please, don't hurt me," she heard herself whimper and Theodore's grin only grew wider as he brought the whip down, slashing it across her face. Parvati cried out in pain as she felt blood start to flow from where it had struck her. He brought it down again, this time over her bare chest and she screamed as the white hot pain coursed through her. He brought the whip down on her again and again until she was flailing uncontrollably with pain. She could hear someone calling her name from the upper floor of the cellar and tried to call back but she couldn't talk. Fortunately, the voice was getting closer but Theodore had started to shake her shoulders violently and Parvati screamed a final scream….
"Parvati!"
Parvati's eyes flew open to see Dean's face staring concernedly down at her, "Are you okay?" he asked. Parvati sat up abruptly, taking in where she was as if she had forgotten. She had been wrong to think that she could take a dream on without the help of the sleeping potion, she doubted that she ever would.
"Parvati," Dean said slowly, "Are you alright?"
Parvati had tried to stay strong, she really had but she couldn't for much longer, everything bubbled over and she began to cry.
"Hey," Dean said, sitting beside her on the sofa and gathering her in his arms, "It's alright, he's not here. He's in Azkaban."
"It doesn't st-stop him fr-fom inhabiting e-every dr-dream that I have though," Parvati sobbed, "I c-can't escape him Dean!"
"He's not real," Dean said firmly, "Just tell yourself that the real Theodore is in Azkaban and he can't hurt you. I promise it will get better."
"I'm just so tired, Dean," Parvati sobbed, "I'm so tired but I can't sleep at all because every time I do he comes back and hurts me!"
Dean got up, strode over to the medicine cabinet and poured a cup of sleeping potion, "Here," he said, handing it to Parvati, "Seamus used to have pretty bad sleeping troubles too, this stuff basically knocks you out for about fifteen hours."
Parvati didn't protest, she accepted the glass and downed it in one. Dean hadn't been lying when he said that it knocks you out as she immediately began feeling drowsy.
She found Dean's arms around her once again, murmuring something into her ear, "just close your eyes, the sun is going down. You'll be alright, nobody can hurt you now. Come morning light, you and I'll be safe and sound."
"Where did you get that from?" Parvati mumbled into his chest.
"It's an old muggle poem, my mum used to sing it to me and my sisters when we had nightmares," Dean said.
"That's nice," Parvati muttered before everything around her went blurry and she slipped into a smooth, dreamless sleep.
AN: Another last minute typing spree so again, apologies for vagueness.
I'm off to see Skyfall now, which should be fun. I hope you all had a good week!
I'd love it if you could spare the time to leave me a review.
Until Next Time
~The Original Horcrux~
