Through the Glass

Severity

Dis•claim•er (dîs-klâ'mer) n.
2. Law A renunciation of one's right of claim.
 [American Heritage College Dictionary, 4th Edition]

I, the author of this humble piece of fan fiction, does not own the world or characters that are playing in it. Nope. The whole thing belongs to J.K. Rowling. The only thing I could possibly lay claims to is Raven Banks (and other various OC) but since they're still in Rowling's world, it's not relevant. I don't make money off one word, sentence, paragraph, page, chapter, or the entire story. Please be nice- don't sue (that should be on a bumper sticker).

Chapter I

Break on Through

The wards were always silent at night. Dreamless Sleep potions usually kept all the patients out for eight hours of blissful peace for both nurse and patient. The eighth floor corridor was for the most severe cases. Before the terror of You Know Who, it had housed those with severe magical gifts. Those with abilities so extreme it made life among normal witches and wizards impossible. Usually, they could not control the flow of magic within them. One man had blown the loo up a total of forty eight times. He simply had to look at it when he had to go badly enough, and it just exploded.

After He Who Must Not Be Named had surfaced, the ward also took in victims of prolonged curses. Usually, it was Crucio. There were two states those patients were in, either extremely deranged or simply catatonic. Those with catatonia were the simpler patients to care for. Those who's minds had snapped were screamers, biters, and all together uncontrollable.

It was for that reason that Dreamless Sleep potion was distributed at night checks. Every patient was required a dosage. This did cause addiction, as well as a few nasty side effects from denying REM, but since they were committed for life- none of the faculty worried about the long-term effects. In the head doctor's opinion, any shortening of their life spans could count as a blessing.

There were two nurses on duty at all times. Eileen LaCross, who had worked on the eighth floor for nearly six years, was currently seated inside the heavily warded office. A steaming mug of coffee sat between herself and the small window where medicine and files were distributed. Her stocking clad legs were propped onto the desk, and her eyes were glued to the Advanced Arithmancy text that had been removed from room two o five.

She struggled to understand some of the more basic principals outlined in the book, but to no avail. A clever witch herself, it left her feeling somewhat frustrated that a lifer (as was the term tossed around for patients on the eighth floor) could be so far beyond her. Of course, if all she did was sit in a single room all day, she'd probably fill the time with reading as well.

She sighed and turned the page to a new set of abstract theories when a set of footsteps sounded down the corridor. Eileen didn't bother to look up. After all, the patients were all out like a light and the only other person on the ward was Don Lentz, the other night shifter. The footsteps slowly grew closer to the office, signaling the end of Don's rounds.

"All quiet then?" She asked as her quill traced one of the diagrams in the book.

There was no answer, but she felt the hum of magic cease around her. The door opened, admitting him into the station, before the door closed again. The footsteps grew closer, until stopping just behind her. Eileen frowned as his tall frame cast a shadow over the book, making it impossible to read. "You're in my light."

It was then that a second set of footfalls echoed down the hall.

"Petrificus Totalus."

The spell hit her just as she was began moving her head to look over her shoulder. Her entire body went rigid, only the most vital of organs allowed to function normally. Her eyelids had been opened, and so she could not look away.

Whoever had hit her with that spell was walking back out the office, and she saw a flash of a black cloak before he disappeared out the door. Her heart raced, and she would have been sweating if her glands were working. The only thing she could think to attribute a black cloak to and a hit from behind was a Death Eater. The Ministry had assured in the Daily Prophet the claims of You Know whose return was complete rubbish, that only a few rogue Death Eaters remained- leaderless. But the influx of Crucio victims had caused anyone working on floor eight to wonder.

So, when the man walked in plain view by the window, she was surprised to see he wasn't donning a silver mask. She could not distinguish any features, since there was obvious a glamour charm on his face. It all looked like a blur of white skin and black hair.

His footsteps receded off farther down the ward, and the second pair of footfalls paused completely. A voice shot through the darkness, a low timber. Which of the two it was, she couldn't tell. It was obvious that wherever Don was, he wouldn't be any help.

"Which door?"

The second voice, also a man, replied, "205. According to the file."

Eileen would have blinked in surprise had she been able to. Everyone knew of the patient in 205, and everyone was weary of going in there. The question the stunned nursed focused on, was why would two men break into St Mungo's, stun herself (her mind was too terrified to ponder what had happened to Don), just to see the patient?

"You never checked?"

"There wasn't time."

One gave an exasperated snort, followed by more footfalls. A small blue glow was lit up from further down the hall. They must have cast lumos on their wands. As they paused once again, there was a click of a lock falling. The crystal display on the wall to the side of the window indicated, just in her peripheral sight, that the wards were down on a patient's doors. She didn't have to see the number to know which one.

There was silence, so much more oppressive than before. She couldn't hear the men anymore, probably because they had entered the room. It didn't answer the question of how they intended to get past the unbreakable glass. Nor why they wanted to.

Eileen wondered what they would do to her. She hoped they would un-stun her before leaving assuming they would let her live at all. She was terrified, and was certain even the two men could hear the quick hammering of her heart. Even considering how far away they were. It certainly sounded like a war drum in to own ears.

If she got through this, she was going to apply for a transfer to another floor. This was the last straw. She could take screams, and howls from madmen, but being assaulted?!

After an eternity wrapped within eleven minutes, the pair of footsteps began again. This time, much slower and with a bit of grumbling between the two. As they grew closer, Eileen found herself wishing she could just twitch a finger. She would do anything to get to her wand. Her chest felt like it would explode by the time they passed in front of her window.

They never turned to look at her.

And she saw why.

A large bundle of black cloth was carried between them. A few black clumps of tangled hair dangled from the side.

Once they were past the window, and the extent of her sight, she let out a long sigh of relief. Apparently, they weren't going to kill her. Eileen was too grateful and happy to even ponder why they had just abducted Raven Banks.

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Apparating from the back of St. Mungo's to the gates of Hogwarts was a bit of a challenge. Both men were well trained in subterfuge, and had needed their skills to melt into the shadows as they made their way from the eighth floor back to the alleyway. It was a larger testament to luck that no one had caught them with a small human bundle wrapped in a black cloak. Snape didn't even want to think how he and Lupin would have explained their way out of that one.

The plan had gone off without a hitch. Lupin had been waiting by the back door to let him in. The guard normally standing watch was quite out of it thanks to a little potion in his tea. The pair made their way up the stairwell to the floor, where the male nurse on staff let them in. After stunning him and the second nurse in the office, they had both made their way to the room that Lupin's chart- donated by Dumbledore- had told him the girl was kept.

Besides leaving the building unseen, the hardest part of their mission was getting past the glass barrier that surrounded the girl within a large cube. Only a small window, for food and other necessities, was without the unbreakable seal. And even that was heavily warded. No windows on the walls. Only the books and drawings strewn about the floor indicated anyone lived within. It nearly cracked Snape's heart as a wayward thought of what her life must have been for fifteen years caused him to pause. Of course, Snape's heart was little more than a small black lump of ice, so he quickly dispersed such thoughts and worked with Lupin to get through.

It hadn't been easy, but they'd manage to widen the window enough for Lupin to slip inside. Between the two thin men, he was far more underfed. Once within the cell, for Snape refused to think of it as anything but a prison, Lupin had wrapped the girl within his black cloak. Pushing her out of the window into Snape's arms before crawling back out himself.

They had both decided to carry her out incase she struggled. Although, Snape could have carried her himself, but they refused to take chances. She didn't weigh more than a few stones, and the bony frame within his arms told him that hospital food was certainly less nutritious then they made it out to be. Of course, given that it looked like she never had an opportunity to exercise, they probably figured she wouldn't need much to sustain herself. And one of the many side effects of Dreamless Sleep was loss of appetite.

Neither man needed have worried over her struggles, since she was unlikely to wake up for another four hours. Each one still kept a hold on her as they made their way across the expansive grounds to the front steps of Hogwarts. Lupin hadn't spoken to him, and Snape returned the courtesy.

Both burned with questions. Not for the other, but for Dumbledore. Of course, the Headmaster and Leader of the Order only gave them the barest of facts to work with.

Fact one. Raven Banks was a Muggle born witch.

Fact two. She had been committed at St. Mungo's when she was only eleven. If they had known of her case before hand, she could have been committed from the age of three.

Fact three. The two men were under the strictest of orders not to touch any exposed skin for any reason. even if she was asleep.

Fact four. She would be asleep, because she was on the eighth floor. No, Severus, not from any unforgivable curse. Her case is much more unique than that.

Fact five. She had no family to sign release papers, besides they probably would not let release her if there were, which is why they had to break in and kidnap her.

That was the extent of his knowledge about Raven Banks. Any records on her were sealed tightly shut. Any muggle physician who had treated her before her commitment had their memories wiped clean. Snape could only thank his lucky stars that Potter was not involved, since the mystery surrounding this slip of a woman would have caused him any number of headaches. But since it was the summer, and all the children were gone, Dumbledore felt safe bringing her to Hogwarts.

Filch was already waiting with the door cracked open as the two men slipped inside. The caretaker had a lantern in his hand, and began leading them to the Hospital Wing. The scraggly man looked over his shoulder, eyes focused on the bundle. "That her?"

"Yes." Lupin answered softly. Snape was tempted to point out there was no need for whispering, but kept silent none-the-less. "I'm betting she'll be very grateful to be out of there when she wakes up."

Snape snorted as they rounded the corner. He ignored the portraits that were following them and whispering to one another. "If she even is sane enough to realize she's no longer there."

"Albus said-" Lupin began, but Snape cut him off.

"Absolutely nothing." He adjusted his hold on the bundle. "For all we know, she could be out of her bloody mind."

Lupin sighed wearily while Filch pulled open the hospital door. "Isolation can do that, I suppose.'

"If the cause for her isolation was not that in the first place." Snape pointed out as they carried her across the stone floor.

Madam Pomfrey, the kind-faced nurse, was standing next to a bed. She pulled back the covers and waited as the two men carefully laid the sleeping girl down.

Snape noticed that the witch's hands were completely gloved. From her finger tips to a good few centimeters above the elbow. Carefully, she unwrapped the cloak, and pulled it out from under the mysterious Raven Banks. Dumbledore certainly did have a weakness when it came to charity cases.

In the small stream of moonlight which shined in from the windows, he was able to get his first good look at the woman. She was paler than he, probably from a life lived without the sun. Her face was sunken in, with her cheekbones protruding like a living skull. He supposed with enough food, she might have had a more round face- judging by the bone structure. Her lips were thin and closed, while the tiny nostrils flared as she breathed very shallow. Her entire features made him think of a porcelain doll, petite and somewhat child-like.

The wild black hair he had glimpsed at before was tangled and knotted. As if it hadn't been brushed in a month. It was hard to tell if it was naturally curly or straight, but it was easily down to her waist. Framing the small blue hospital gown that only seemed to show just how thin she was. He could see the outline of her rips and hipbones. Bony elbows stuck out, making him curl his lip in distaste.

Poppy clucked her tongue as she arranged the girl's head on a pillow. "She'll need to have her system purged, I suspect Severus." She pulled the covers back over the small frame, but Snape couldn't get that malnourished body out of his mind. It was grotesque in a fascinating way. "Albus wants her off the Dreamless Sleep. The withdrawals will be terrible for her, poor thing."

Snape rubbed the bridge of his large nose. "Very well." He stated stiffly, itching to be within the solitary confines of the Dungeon. "I'll begin brewing them tomorrow."

"Good." Poppy answered, taking a quick reading with her wand out. "It's a crime to let them go to waste like this. Drugging them all up and feeding them what they need."

"Wards of the Ministry." Lupin said, having experience with that first hand. He shook his head sadly. "It's not uncommon."

"Well it should be." Poppy snapped back, her eyes livid. She then seemed to remember that both man in the room had anything to do with it, and her face softened. "Sorry. That's what happens when you treat ailing children too long."

Snape rolled his eyes and waved off the apology. "It rather makes me wish they'd all be wards and leave me to a bit of peace." He ignored Poppy and Lupin's glares. "If there's nothing else, I'd like to retire for the night."

"Go ahead, Severus." Snape looked over to Lupin, who was rubbing his chin in thought as he spoke. "I'll report to Albus."

"Excellent." The Potion Master had no interest in what the werewolf was pondering. He turned quickly on his heel and strode for the door. Leaving the Hospital Wing behind in a flurry of black robes. He hoped his questions would be left behind as well, and cease plaguing him.

He found out later that evening, over half a snifter of Brandy, that the questions remained very much on his mind. Hogwarts had a new temporary resident from the eighth floor, and Snape wondered if she posed a threat.

What had the Headmaster brought into the school now?

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It was bright.

That was strange. It was never bright. Her face wasn't warm in the mornings. Her room stayed a constant temperature, a constant lighting level, at all times. Except night- when the candles were put out.

She wearily cracked open an eyelid, only to cry out in pain as the brilliant ray of sunlight hit her iris, forcing her to shut her eyes tightly and bring the blanket up over her head.

The sound of a screen being slid over, cutting off the orange glow on the back of her eyelids, and a creaking of wood next to her. "I apologize for that, my dear, I had not imagined you would be unused to a little sunshine in the morning. I find I can't start my day without it."

It was a papery, ancient voice. A voice that was somehow familiar as it called out like a dull echo from a memory.

Her eyes opened and saw that beyond the blanket there was no bright light to blind her. She pulled the blanket away from her face so slowly, it was like watching a sunset. When her eyes were uncovered, a very old man with a long white beard sat beside her on the chair. Smiling down, but with a sad look in a pair of blue eyes hidden behind spectacles. "Good morning, Miss Banks." He said gently, folding withered and wrinkled hands into his lap. "Do you remember me? We met before. Seems not so long ago, but fifteen years can go by in a blink."

Raven felt that tickle of familiarity. Yes, they had met before. No, she couldn't remember where. "You seem familiar…" She trailed off, licking her lips with uncertainty.

"That's alright. My name is Albus Dumbledore." He leaned back in his seat, and gestured with his hand. "And you are at Hogwarts, Miss Banks."

She blinked. It seemed silly, but he was right. Raven hadn't noticed the different surroundings before he had pointed them out. Which was odd, since she had always wished to leave that tiny little room. And now, as her head and eyes swam around in excitement- taking in the fact there was no glass, she had. The how and when seemed not so very important. It was the fact she was in a new place that captivated her.

There were several other beds to either side of hers, but they were all empty. The floor was stonework, and she imagined the clicks of heels throughout the centuries. Oh, no, that was an impression. Her lips pressed together in disappointment over that. A whole five minutes out of her room, and she was already receiving impressions. Not a good sign.

She looked over at Dumbledore. Yes. She did recall him. Hogwarts- she had read about when she was still a child. She was supposed to have attended, years ago, but couldn't. Her gift was already to extreme to be around people. Especially for her to be within an entire castle full of students.

Her eyes widened. "I can't-"

Dumbledore shook his head and made a soft shushing noise. "You can. It's perfectly safe, as long as certain guidelines remain. I do apologize for the sudden changes, but I'm sure you'll be able to adapt given enough time. It is just the beginning of the summer, and the students won't be back until September 1st." He patted her arm, which was still covered by the blanket. "Plenty of time."

She was at Hogwarts. apparently to stay for a little while. Had the hospital discharged her at night? Why hadn't they said anything?

Apparently, the questioning must have shown in her eyes, because Dumbledore answered her questions. Although how he knew what she was wondering- was anyone's guess. "Two of my associates brought you here last night, Miss Banks. Now, the hospital did not know of your, eh, exodus. Meaning, for lack of a better term, you have been kidnapped." He looked down at her. "They would not have released you to my custody, and I think you know that as well. It is not my intention to hold anyone against his or her will, Miss Banks. If you wish to leave Hogwarts and return to St Mungo's, you certainly may. Do you want to go back?"

Was he nuts?

"No." She said, surprising herself at how firm the resolve in her soft voice was.

His eyes twinkled behind the spectacles. "I'm very happy to hear that." Dumbledore then paused, and a few moments later- right before she was about to ask what was wrong- the privacy screen was pulled to the side.

The man who stepped within the curtain was frightening. And that was the only term she could rightly apply to him.

His skin was sallow, tinged with fatigue. Onyx colored eyes that held a very cold, calculating, intelligence. He was draped in black robes. His mouth was set into a displeased curl of the lips, and the huge crooked nose made his face look even more startling. Her mind recalled various pictures of vampires. They were the stuff of nightmares, creatures that fed on blood and slid around in shadows at night. Even though it was day, Raven would not be surprised if this man was not accustomed to skulking around under the cover of darkness.

He stepped next to the headmaster and presented a vial filled with a green liquid. His hands were long and curled like claws around the glass. His eyes locked momentarily on hers, and she suppressed a shiver of fear, before they turned back to Dumbledore. "The elixir Poppy requested, Headmaster." His voice was possibly the only comforting thing about this man. Yet, even that seemed like silk over a dagger's edge. He glanced back at her before regarding the ancient wizard. "She should swallow all of it. There are more vials. I'd say one dose every four or five hours."

"Very good, Severus." Dumbledore took the vial. "I'll inform Poppy when she returns."

He nodded sharply, and was about to turn to leave.

Raven could not keep down her curiosity, even with the black draped vampire sneering nastily at her. "What is it?"

The man paused, looking to Dumbledore. The wizard nodded his own head to the other, giving permission to answer. He turned back to regard her, and she felt herself shrinking away from the rigid stance of his body. "Elixir of Purification." He answered shortly. "It's designed to purge-"

"The body of any foreign substances. Used mostly in the seventeen hundreds to cure addicts of opiates." Raven finished. She bit the inside lining of her cheek as he glared at the interruption.

"Correct." He stated tersely.

Dumbledore smiled approvingly. "Miss Banks, this is our Potions Master, Severus Snape. I see you have some knowledge of the art?"

"Only what I've been able to read. I've never actually brewed anything." Raven replied, fumbling with the blanket. Her fingers curled into it nervously. This was the longest conversation she had had with unfamiliar people in, well, ever.

She had found the only way to keep sane all those years was by reading. It was a diversion from the room she stayed in. Fiction, muggle Sciences, Medicine, Transfiguration, Arithmancy, Herbology, Potions, Charms, Runes, and any other subject she could get her hands onto. It was all in theory. None of her knowledge was actually tested. A wand would have given her an opportunity to escape, not that she ever planned to do so before. It seemed rather pointless since she didn't know how to survive outside of the glass.

Her fingers pulled and pushed at the wool blanket, her eyes fixed on the sight. This Snape was a Potions Master. She knew what that meant, and how well educated he must have been. He probably didn't much care for someone like her, a nobody hidden away within glass walls, to give information he already knew.

"Pity." He stated. "I wonder, Miss Banks, why you seem to have so much knowledge on the subject if you've never brewed a Potion. Surely you must have gone to school and-"

"That will be enough, thank you, Severus." Dumbledore interrupted before he could finish that remark. Raven swallowed the nervous lump in her throat, and didn't look back up until the screen was pushed back and Snape exited the Wing. She could hear the anger in his steps.

She finally drew her eyes away from her lap and back onto Dumbledore. He placed the vial and a box onto the bedside table. "Gloves." He explained at her curious look.

She nodded wordlessly as she reached for the small box and opened it up. Setting aside the tissue to reveal a new, pristine, pair of black satin gloves. Long enough to go past her elbows. She wondered, as she put the first one on, why it was that Snape did not know of her past. If Dumbledore meant to keep her a secret from the rest of the staff. Had she traded one isolated place for another? Could she even function outside solitary confinement?

The thought frightened her, and she bit her cheek again nervously as she pulled on the second glove. She had not been exposed to a new place for nearly fifteen years. She had dealt with the same people for three. Day in, day out. She knew no other way.

"Now, the vial, please." Dumbledore instructed kindly.

Raven nodded and reached for the vial with shaky fingers. It took a few moments to unstop it, and then she finally managed to swallow the contents. Which tasted wretched. The grimace on her face must have been very amusing, given Dumbledore's soft chuckle.

She sat the vial back onto the table, along with the box, and laid back against the soft pillows. She slowly became aware of whispers within the walls. Moans of pain, and wails of agony sang like a choir as children suffered. They were faint, and she was already used to such things from her room. The eighth floor was a very noisy place during the day. Filled with people who were tormented by the things in their mind. She had learned to not focus on them, to tune it out. As long as these memories of what was and what will be were relatively quiet, she could rest.

To explain a vision, would be like explaining a rip in reality. Sometimes they were very clear, and sometimes they were echoes. People became indistinguishable shapes and colors that were blurred to her eyes. At times, they could layer over each other, if it was just by sight or sound that she identified them. It was the visions of touch that sent her completely within the past or future. Time, to Raven, was a very muddled thing. The last instance someone had touched her, she had remained convinced, for two weeks, she was ten years into the future. It was only gradually her mind had come back to this plane of existence known as the present.

She was, what Wizards this day and age referred to as, a true Seer. In ancient Greece, they were Oracles. In Roman times, priests and priestesses. In Egypt, they were sorcerers. Divination was one of the oldest forms of magic, and usually very unreliable.

In Raven's case, however, her gift was so potent that her visions were always a hundred percent accurate. The difficulty, however, was that unless something within the vision gave her a clue as to the date- she could never be certain how far into the future she was seeing. In some cases, into the past. As she had read in many books speculating on the theories of time, if something was altered by her visions (such as she herself having that vision) it could change the future. Or, perhaps, the future she saw was that which resulted from her seeing the future in the first place.

Visions were a very confusing thing. Even to her.

She realized that Dumbledore had been speaking, and tried to focus on him instead of the boy next to her with the broken wrist. "…when you'll be well enough to be up and about again."

Raven blinked. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch all of that."

Instead of being annoyed, as most were with her, he simply popped another lemon drop into his mouth and began again. "You are a bit malnourished, a likely side effect of the potions you've been taking. Poppy thought it would be perhaps a week before you are well enough to be up and about again."

Raven didn't mention she had never really been up and about, feeling that was probably a moot point. "Alright." She replied, listening to the same phantom boy who was asking a pleasant nurse where his toad Trevor was. "Did he ever find Trevor?"

Dumbledore blinked in surprise, before patting her gloved hand. "Yes. And Mr. Longbottom still loses his familiar on occasion."

"Oh." She settled back into the blankets and closed her eyes. She gradually fell asleep around the time the Headmaster left her side, listening to the conversation between two different boys nearby. Discussing something about one of them being parseltongue and a discovery concerning pipes.

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AN: Well, that was lotsa fun *sweat drop*. Anyhoo- I think this establishes a lot of stuff rather nicely (stuff is the technical term, btw). If you like what is written- click on that little button *points* and submit a shiny review to the author. We authors like that sorta thing.