Should have been dead
On a Sunday morning
Banging my head
No time for mourning
Ain't got no time

My Own Prison, by Creed

Chapter I

Harry let out a shuddering breath and sighed softly in his sleep. Jet-black hair was matted down over his scar by cold sweat. He was shivering slightly, his skin cool and clammy. If anyone were to look at him, they would say he was having a nightmare, laying on the bed and looking like a fallen angel. And yet, he wasn't having a nightmare at all. No, what he was seeing in his mind was a thousand times worse. He was having a vision, courtesy of Voldemort.

"Crucio!"

Harry let out a shocked yell as his body teemed with pain. At the same time, Draco Malfoy screamed with a mix of terror and pain as he fell to the ground, writhing in a very un-Malfoy-ish way. Almost as soon as it started, the pain stopped, and Harry stopped biting his lip, which was now bleeding profusely. He let out a breath he didn't know he held, and looked around to see how the young Malfoy was faring.

Malfoy was covered in sticky sweat, his face raw red and slimy with a mixture of tears, sweat, and snot. His white-blond hair fell to the floor weakly, as if it had been just as damaged by the Unforgivable Curse as Malfoy himself was. Icy gray eyes looked up, terrified to Voldemort's pale, snake-like face. As soon as gray eyes met red, Malfoy flinched and swiftly sat up, shifting so that all of his weight was resting on his knees. Harry winced slightly at the sight of him groveling to the monster that murdered his parents.

"Draco Malfoy..." If velvet could have a voice, Lord Voldemort would be its mouth. The name rolled from his thin, white lips like waterfall flowing into a river. It sounded smooth and dangerous, if not a little high-pitched.

Malfoy's wince was the only response he got, and it didn't seem to be enough for Voldemort.

"Crucio!"

This time, Harry only managed to bite his lip for five seconds before exploding and screaming right along with his school nemesis. His scar pulsed with white-hot pain and he could swear that his bones were literally inflamed, licking away at his insides and consuming all of his energy. More sweat trickled down his face and into his eyes, and he could no longer care about anything else in the world. Pain overwhelmed his senses: it was everywhere; a part of everything and everyone, consuming, destroying, and torturing. It was in his mind, his heart, and his soul. It was like an eternal flame, flickering and burning until the end of time.

Harry could no longer care about what Malfoy was doing. He didn't care about the prophecy, his friends, or the wizarding world. They could go and fuck themselves for all he cared. All he saw now was pain, and hunger. He felt a strange hunger for the pain to increase several notches to force him to go insane with pain. He wanted the curse to stop, but another part of him wanted this pain, needed this pain. It made him feel human, like he was whole again, but he never was before. It assured him that, no matter what others may think, he was only human, not an angel that would swoop down from the heavens and save them from Voldemort. The hunger grew stronger and more terrifying as time wore on, the curse continuing. Harry would never be able to tell if this was a dream, nightmare, vision, or reality. In his world of pain, nothing else seemed to exist. There was no room for anger, or love; no room for any such emotion. Five seconds could have gone by, but it seemed like hours. And yet, at the same time, five hours could have gone by but seem like seconds. There was no space for the rules of time and space to apply, let alone be obliged. Harry couldn't see any color, either; one moment everything would be black, then white, and then gray. The dull consistencies were always different, and yet changed at a rapid speed that seemed created for the specific purpose of putting a Firebolt to shame.

And then, all too soon for Harry and yet to the relief of his body, it all stopped. His throat was raw and dry from screaming itself hoarse, and he was trembling all over. Everything felt very cold all of a sudden – freezing, even. Harry looked around shakily, but didn't see any dementors or anything else to indicate the reason why it was so cold. Malfoy was trembling just as badly as Harry, and was making small whimpering noises, that, in his right state of mind, would have reminded Harry of an abandoned, kicked small puppy. Malfoy was in too much pain for any form of terror to show through his silvery orbs, but Voldemort seemed more than satisfied. Voldemort also seemed to have not noticed Harry in room with him.

"Draco, Draco, Draco... hasn't your father ever taught you how to treat your superiors?" Voldemort asked softly, a trademark of his ruthlessness.

"Y-y-yes, M-my L-l-lord." Malfoy stammered through trembling lips, his words barely distinguishable. Harry had to grudgingly respect the boy for being able to say as much as he did. Harry himself felt like a 2-ton weight had suddenly decided to make a nest on his jaw, and they seemed to be as tightly glued together as they would be if he dared to take a bite out of Hagrid's cooking. But then Harry felt more respect when suddenly Malfoy gathered up what little courage he had to spit in Voldemort's face, "But you're not one of them!"

With that, Harry world exploded ina world ofpain as Voldemort's cry of rage could be heard around the world.

"BOY!"

A loud, booming voice is what Harry woke up to. He couldn't bring himself to do anything about his uncle right now. In fact, he felt as petrified as he had when Malfoy actually cast Petrificus Totalus on him last year and left him lying in a compartment of the Hogwarts Express last year. Therefore, he didn't react when Uncle Vernon burst through the door in all puce and green glory, clearly refraining from tearing the door right off its hinges there and then. Harry just lay there, staring at the ceiling, cold sweat clinging to every inch of his skin. His emerald green eyes were half-closed, almost wistfully, and his lips were parched and dry. A small trickle of blood leaked out of the of Harry's mouth gradually making its way down to the ratty pillowcase on which Harry's head lay. Uncle Vernon paid this no heed.

"BOY! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING? ARE YOU TRYING TO WAKE ALL OF EUROPE UP BECAUSE OF YOUR SCREAMING, FREAK? Trying to gain attention, that's what it is! Those freaks have got it in your mind that you're powerful and worthy of something, BUT YOU LISTEN HERE BOY! YOU ARE NOT FIT TO LICK THE MUD OFF MY SHOES! YOU FIND SOME WAY TO KEEP YOUR FILTHY SCREAMING UNDER CONTROL, OR WE WILL KICK YOU OUT OF THIS HOUSE!"

It was, Vernon knew, a null and void threat. He, himself was terrified of that man with the freaky eye and what he might do to harm himself or his family. But still, there had to be some way to get that brat to shut up! He was probably having hideous nightmares over his godfather's death... again. Stupid boy.

Harry paid him no mind. He stared at the ceiling, looking for all the world as if he was actually fascinating about the thing, lost in thought. Why had he enjoyed the pain? It didn't make any sense. He didn't have a death wish. At least, as far as he knew, he didn't. Having an insane, sadistic Dark Lord after your blood is something that can make one seem as though they do have a death wish. The voice of his uncle didn't even register in his brain except for as a very loud, very annoying noise that he had to shut up somehow. Harry reached over to his bedside table for his glasses, absently thinking that he needed to get his eyes repaired or something. Glasses would probably prove to be a hindrance in battle.

Uncle Vernon continued, "WE HAVE CLOTHED YOU, FED YOU – "

Vernon might as well have been talking to a rubber ball for the effect his rambling had on the boy. Harry slowly looked over at him, his mind still not very coherent, and carefully wiped the small trickle of blood from his face. He heard the words being spoken, butthey didn't seem to be understandable. When he was finally awake enough to understand the words flowing and spitting from his uncle's mouth, he groaned softly and sank back into the mangy pillow. When Uncle Vernon finally finished ranting, Harry seriously thought about going into the living room to call an animal shelter, for the obese man was frothing at the mouth, giving Harry the impression of a pig with rabies. Frankly, it was a little grotesque. Just a little.

Harry stood up and stretched as if waking up from a good, long nap, infuriating Uncle Vernon even farther and causing his puce face to reach what Harry dubbed "Explosion Time." Harry ignored him, choosing clothes over talk and stumbled through the mess of his room to reach his trunk. While he was changing, Uncle Vernon actually seemed to reach a new level of anger, but Harry decided to figure out a name for it later. For now, he would just enjoy the show. And so, the inevitable always happens –

"BOY! DON'T YOU DARE TURN YOUR FREAKY BACK ON ME! TURN AROUND AND FACE ME LIKE A MAN!"

Harry had to bite his tongue to stop from leaping into a bout of hysterical, bitter laughter. He was more of a man than Vernon Dursley ever was and ever will be or wish for. "Freaky" was the word he'd like to use in order to describe the comical on his uncle's face. The seemed to come straight from a cheesy cartoon. Of course, Harry had to admit, Uncle Vernon's anger was a lot more endurable than Voldemort's. Even Severus Sn –

Harry halted that line of thought before it got any farther. He wasn't in the mood to deal with his mentor's death, especially not after listening to his uncle go through a half-hour long tirade about "freaks and their freakish business with Voldiewhatsits, dementoids, fire-travel, and spell-casting riff-raff." Harry wasn't even sure if his uncle realized that he had just said the word "spell" in sense of magic under his own roof. The number one rule in the Dursley household was, and always will be, to never mention anything about "his kind" or "freaks."

When Uncle Vernon was finished this time, he thrust an extremely wrinkled piece of notebook paper at Harry and left the room, slamming the door closed behind him. Harry smirked at his uncle's retreating behind. The obese man had no sense of environment whatsoever. He hadn't even noticed what Harry was wearing, and if he had, Harry was sure the ranting would have gone on for many more hours.

Two weeks into the summer holidays, he had gone on a shopping spree, using what little money he had been able to transfer from Galleons to Muggle pounds from Gringotts. He bought a whole new wardrobe, not wanting to ever feel Dudley's castoffs on his body ever again. Harry looked at his new watch and frowned. It was Sunday morning. Early Sunday morning. He had heard that the Dursleys were planning on trying to go to church, but hadn't really believed it, instead choosing his own tale of how Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon wanted an excuse to dress nicely and spoil their baby whale(Dudley) rotten. Apparently his wonderful releatives decided that it would be fun to make him do chores that didn't even need to be done, all listed on the paper his uncle had thrown at him before leaving.

Harry sighed. This was so not his day. First, endless torture. Second, finding out that he somehow actually enjoyed said torture. Third, having an oh-so wonderful Voldemort-vision (as he called them in his head) about Malfoy being tortured and very possibly killed. Fourth, being awoken from said vision by a voice that, if Harry's own screams hadn't already, would have woken up all of Britain. Fifth, said voice ranting for half an hour straight. And there were chores to be done. Great.


A/N: Big thanx to:

mysticdueler

hunter64

and Sk8ernv

Thank you forreviewing the last chapter! I'm sorry this chapter is so short, and it still hasn't really gotten into the story yet, but I've been really busy lately. I'll try to make it up to you next chapter, but don't expect another update for another week or so. I'll try as hard as I can to update before then!

Yours,

Shadow Demonrage