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Chapter 15: Day Seven: Prison of the Mind

In Azkaban, time does not pass as it does elsewhere. There are no windows, only smooth grey walls, and a single wooden door with a barred window from which pours a faint glow of magical firelight. The only measure of time is the biweekly hour of exercise in the prison yard, and the biweekly hose-down in a shower room. The other three hundred and thirty four hours are spent in a sensory-depriving, mind-numbing cell, with food and water coming intermittently, and a gaping shaft for a toilet.

The Dementors had disappeared one day, revolted the voices whispered, but it hardly mattered. Azkaban, the Hole to its inhabitants, has a terrible magic of its own, and Draco Malfoy had lived for so many years within its walls, and at the mercy of the Dementors, that by the time the latter left, the madness of memories had long since taken residence in his mind. He'd been there for just over four years, but he couldn't have told anyone that: it had been a private eternity. Haunting dreams smoothly faded in and out with a hallucinogenic reality, so that there was no rest or respite; and nightmares, memories, and consciousness fused to the point that they were difficult to distinguish.

Father floated in and out of daily life, as did Mother and Lord Voldemort and, sometimes, Harry Potter; and warped public scenes in which he was surrounded by the frightening observation of his peers, the horror of his audience, and the distain of the court.

"Ahhh!" he screamed out spontaneously, meaninglessly and a muffled echo resounded. Such exclamations were normal enough occurrences in the Azkaban corridors, and it drew no attention from the prison guards. Draco simply rolled over and sat up, eyes staring blankly and almost as dead awake as when asleep. He stood, if only to habitually stretch atrophied muscles, and began slowly pacing the cell confines: nothing in prison was hurried, not when it could be prolonged and milked of all potential for passing time. Even horrors had the value of being able holding attention, and just like that Draco made peace with his mind's occupation with its own anguish. There was so much to agonize over. . .

Father haunted him and sickened him, driving him to self-destructive depression and crazed rages. Horrific, sometimes erotic memories played out, causing him to cry and hurt himself.

As a child, Father had come to him sometimes at night; Draco know when it would happen, because he was always instructed to take tea after dinner so that he would be strongly sedated hours later. Then, Father did perverse thing to him, lovingly, at godless hours of the night. His favorite ritual was to cast a spell that suddenly and arousingly developed ripe breasts on his child's figure. It was appalling, no doubt, and Draco had hated it when Father tenderly raped pleasure from his drugged body as though he was a woman.

Ah, but sometimes he fancied that he missed those perfect breasts: they would have been handy in prison anyway, if only to entertain himself. In another life he'd have been amused at his own wit, but humor did not exist in the Hole. There were other diverting activities though.

Draco strolled up to the door and pressed his face up against the small window bars. "Hey!" he cackled loudly and obnoxiously. "Death Eater!"

After a long moment, he inhaled deeply before bellowing, "I SAID, HEY! DEATH EATER SCUM!"

Sound does not travel well through the thick corridors of Azkaban, but Draco could just hear the weak and predictable sound of cursing from the cell next to his. Dolohov had only been on the inside for a year and already he was raving mad, far further along than Draco himself; but then again, he came after the Dementors had left, and who knows what terror the Ministry was inflicting upon new inmates. Or maybe the Aurors had messed him up even before he got to the Hole.

Either way, Draco had no sympathy for Death Eaters.

"Dolohov! I know what you are, everyone does, God knows!" Draco hissed viciously. "Dolohov! You're a Death Eater! You're a monster! Your name will be reviled forever! And you will not go to heaven! You will rot in here for fifty years, then you will go to Hell!"

Draco smirked at hearing a sob escape from the other cell – then came the crazed wail, and more of the inevitable cursing, "You scheming fucking devil! What do you want of me? Just leave me alone! I'll kill you I will!"

Ha, what a ponce. "No, Dolohov, you are mine."

"Damn you, you fiend, leave me be! Stop haunting me! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. . . You don't even exist. You are nothing, just air. . ." An eyebrow arched up on Draco's face: Dolohov never exhausted himself this quickly, he could usually rant for whole minutes. And minutes are a long time in the Hole. . .

A second wind, "I'll hunt you down and kill you! I've done it before! I'll kill your family! You bastard son of an ungodly whore! Your mother is-"

"YOU better not say anything more about my mother, or I will make sure that your time here is a special kind of hell, you worthless piece of shit!" Draco spat, suddenly not in the mood for this game with Dolohov. He had no family for Dolohov to hunt down and kill, for he had murdered his own father.

After a long pause, he said his farewell to Dolohov. "Avada Kadavra."

It was satisfying to hear the scum whimper.

! BREAK !

As for Mother: well, there is not much to say.

Mother had outwardly demonstrated her affections for her husband and son and life in general, but she had rarely been present in Draco's life. She was in and out of the Manor more than even Father, for she always had some place else to be, and someone else to be with. Draco barely noticed; after all, it was hard to miss what he had never had, and besides, there was Nanny and Teacher and sometimes Father around to fill the adult rolls.

Still, her constant absence made his few memories of her all the more unforgettable, and one sequence haunted him frequently. . .

Malfoy Manner employed several wizarding individuals and families. Butlers, caretakers, stablesmen, nannies, and cooks were all necessary supplements to the small strike force of house-elves. When Draco was eight, his nanny was a smart, thirty-something cutie married to the Games Keeper, and mother to one Jeziah Clockwork.

Young Draco had only ever met a few other children in his entire life, chiefly during play dates with the Malfoy family allies; but in Jeziah Clockwork there was someone his age with whom he could have some recurring contact, given that they lived within the same walls. For even then, there had always been walls. . .

He talked to her sometimes in the kitchen when they happened to meet – it was her haunt, and he 'stopped by' just to encounter her. Once, they ran into each other out in the lawns and chased after one another; for Jeziah it was natural, but for Draco it was new and exciting and fun. Over the years, he arranged for a few Quidditch one-on-ones, and they were the highlights of his short lifespan. Then, one day, sitting again in the kitchen, Draco leaned over and kissed her one the cheek.

She jumped away and looked at him with fear and disgust. "I can't kiss you!" she exclaimed.

There was a stunned silence before she grew embarassed and soothed. "Mama says that snakes can't kiss people, silly. Snakes don't kiss like that."

Draco was hurt and confused. A snake? Yeah, there were a lot of emblems and figures of serpents around the Manner, but that didn't make him a snake, did it? It didn't make sense, but he was well aware that he was in the dark about a great deal of the world. His parents made it blatantly obvious that he knew nothing.

That night, after a customary dinner, he dared approach his mother as he brushed her hair in the dressing room. He peaked through her cracked door to see her sitting calmly before her mirror. "Mother."

She turned, elegant and pale and beautiful as always, and she smiled at him. "Draco, baby, come in."

Draco entered quietly and took up a stand Mother's shoulder; she returned to the task of her long hair. "Is something bothering you, my son?"

There were so many things bothering him, eating away at this soul and childhood, but there was nothing he thought his mother could help him with – except one thing; this one thing that seemed to fall right into Mother's narrow territory. "Yes, Mother. There is something I want to ask you."

"If I know, I will answer you," Mother replied without missing a beat.

After a conspicuous silence, Draco bashfully forced himself to ask, "Mother. how do snakes kiss?"

Mother's graceful eyebrows rose slightly in surprise, and she put down her brush, maternally sensing the background to the question. She turned, placing her hands on his shoulders, and searched his eyes.

"Is this about that Clockwork girl?" she finally inquired; no one could ever accuse Narcissa Malfoy of not being perceptive.

"No!" her young son denied pathetically. "I just want to know. Why won't you ever tell me anything?"

Mother moved her hands to gently caress a few of his soft locks of hair. "Like this, sweetie," she whispered, leaning her face close so that their cheeks almost touched. Then she kissed the air near his ear and withdrew in an instant to return to her image in the mirror. "That is how we snakes kiss, Draco. It's safer this ways."

She said nothing more after that, and Draco knew the conversation was over. He had asked for the adult's truth, and he had got it, so he withdrew to his spacious bedroom and his own claustrophobic thoughts.

The Clockwork family was dismissed; and then, in a couple more years, Father would show him yet another way in which snakes kiss – fast strikes with sharp fangs, and Draco would pretend that those fangs belonged to someone else. . .

Draco gasped and his eyes suddenly focused: had he been asleep or merely thinking? Either way, his attention had been alerted by the scrape of a plate being slid through a narrow, flapped slit at the bottom of the door. It was odorless, as always, and almost certainly as stone-cold.

He sluggishly approached the thin plate to recognize the standard gruel, no utensil. Unfailingly, he slurped up the meal, victim of an inexplicable reluctance to die. Sometimes, the ghosts didn't seem to be that bad of company – for all their pain, they came without consequence, and that was a saving relief.

Even Voldemort meant nothing within the mad incarcerating walls of Azkaban, in spite of the hours He spent plaguing Malfoy, Dolohov, and numerous other convicts. He tortured and destroyed minds every night, but it wasn't anything that hadn't been immeasurably worse when these prisoners had actually lived through it.

He sat on the floor in front of the door, and began a practiced scooping of the gruel out from the plate and then holding it high so that any drippage fell into his mouth instead of the stone slabs. Dim light fell from the barred door window, landing on his forearms and framing the contrast between the flawless white skin of one are and the abhorrent black mark on the other.

The hideous skull hypnotized him, as though coming to life, and the dark power that pulsed just below the surface shot a tremor through his slight body – an unnecessary reminder of the Dark Lord's constant presence.

"Draco," hissed the voice, and Draco's head jerked up to stare into the light. . .

Voldemort glared at him in all of his malevolence, as Draco stood tall within a ring of masked Death Eaters. Father was in prison, and now he was to get the Mark. He did it even though he knew the Dark Lord held him ill will because of Lucius' failures; but he feared for his life, and for Mother's, and for his friends. He had no choice.

He kneeled before the Dark Lord and held out his bare forearm. "My life and loyalty are yours, my Lord."

Voldemort glowered menacingly down at him, wand proffered. "I accept you into my service," he said inhumanly. "You should hope to prove more competent than your father."

Fear, anger, and humiliation stung at him, but still he groveled. "Yes, my Lord."

The gnarly wand was lowered to his wrist, and magic spoken – the burning pain!

He bit his lip hard and struggled not to cry out though he could not feel his arm or hand through the seering agony! It was almost a good thing, as his arm was paralyzed while the Dark Mark was being tattooed on. And even through the consuming pain, he could see the hideousness of the branding.

Then it was abruptly over and he was allowed a moment on his hands and knees before briskly standing and composing himself under t he cruel gazes of the hooded masses. This was it, he was a Death Eater now, and he would make the best of it. . .

But Draco the prisoner did not respond so calmly; he was too filled with hatred and rage! "Cursed be fucking Voldemort!" he cried suddenly, struggling to his feet. "How dare you brand ME!"

Seeing double, he ran at the door, only to inevitably slam painfully to the floor; but he did not stop, he beat at the oak wood with his fists and screamed incomprehensible obscenities. Sweaty tears stole down his face, and blood swelled on his fists, but he couldn't stop – he was hysterical, completely possessed by an adrenaline rage.

There was no other word for it than the most primal HATE. He hated Voldemort, and Father, and Jetziah Clockwork, and Death Eaters, and bloody Harry Potter, and himself, and his whole sad sorry fucking life; and if breaking himself against their walls was the only way to show it, then so be it.

! BREAK !

Except that he didn't have a Dark Mark, and he wasn't a Death Eater. Father wasn't in prison, he was dead, and Draco was in the Hole. It would seem that his imagination was proving provocatively perverse today, he thought as he lay on his bare bunk, body achingly sore from its earlier attack of his cell's walls. What had gotten into him? Since the Dementors had left, his madness had grown more peaceful, but then recently the waters had begun to rock again. How had his vision possessed him so? It had felt so achingly real. . .

A world not of a solitary room and an empty future, but of intrigue and double dealing; it was not inviting, but anything was better than Azkaban. Besides, he had a comfortable feeling about it. It felt familiar, like what home should feel like. . . and like Harry Potter.

What was wrong with him? Did he purposely invoke Harry Potter because he wanted to think about him!

And, of course, Father tainted everything, even Harry Potter. By the time Draco was ten, Father had progressed from tender seduction to rough sexual attacks; but the latter proved more difficult to reconcile with Draco's cherished conviction that Father did indeed love him. When he started at Hogwarts, he got some respite from visits, and he met and acquired an enemy in the one and only Harry Potter. When he returned to the Manor, it was easier to let his imagination free to pretend he was being raped by someone who hated him and was his enemy, and not by a parent that was everything to him.

For years those had been haunting memories; but in the mean time he had savagely murdered Father, been sent to Azkaban, and grown into a frail young man of sixteen. Nothing might have ever changed, except that everything was upset when the Dementors left, and a shift came over the prison. Things long considered dead began to slowly wake new, and so that, for Draco, the familiar nightmare began to elicit disturbing unfamiliar responses.

He focused less on it being Father and more on pretending that it was Potter – that it was Potter throwing him down on tables and floors and against walls, grabbing and strangling and hurting him, spreading his cheeks and taking him, and pounding so hard until both of them screamed release. . . Except that this time when he remembered it, Harry Potter wasn't the eleven year old of his childhood memories; instead, he was taller, probably Draco's current age. How should he know what Potter looked like these days?

Draco whimpered as arousal prickled though his skin and groin, and he briefly anguished over whether he was willing to touch himself. It disgusted and shamed him, but the prospect of feeling anything good was undeniably tempting after so long in deep despair. So he stilled, body tense, and lowered his hand to his tattered cotton pants. He forced himself to breathe and tried to relax in the tantalizing pressure; when he cautiously started to rub himself, and it became easier. His other hand found chest, where Father had used to grow breasts, and pinched a nipple.

His mind elicited the image of Harry Potter and he shivered, his touch tightening around his hard-on. His body felt heavy, but his soul almost forgot that he wasn't free; his skin tingled and his muscles clenched.

"Oh, gods," he muffled.

. . .Draco.

And then he climaxed; body frozen and any cry he might have made completely silenced. After a moment, he let himself inhale deeply and only tranquility remained.

Draco.

Fuck. The last thing Draco needed was more voices. . . except, it was Harry Potter, and Draco certainly wouldn't be the first to indulge a fantasy of the Boy-Who-Lived. . .

. . . Harry?

Draco, we've got to keep going back, we're not there yet.

Draco's mind twirled over his words, but he couldn't make out what Potter was on about, and confusion began to panic his mind –

I don't understand!

The other timeline, you git, where you're not in prison. How can you not remember?

But that was exactly the problem, Draco remembered all sorts of things, he just had little ability to distinguish memory from madness. He stopped focusing on the stone wall adjacent his bunk and closed his eyes, allowing his experience spin –

Draco, this is real! I'm gonna get you out of this mess! But you have to want to go back home! I know you remember me, Malfoy!

! BREAK !

Draco remembers now: both Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. Typically, he is the villain, and his life is a mess, but anything is better than Azkaban; and well, yesterday when he died. . .

Draco stood from his bunk and rushed to his door; then, peering closing through the bars, he howled in frustration and relief, and a couple tortured kindred cried back. Maybe Dolohov was one of them.

Fine, he thought, twisting around and staring into the darkness of his cell. He would listen to the voices. He hated to, but they were so hopelessly right all the time, And this time the price was so low – only to want to be there instead of here. There's not much skin of anyone's nose, is it?

! END OF CHAPTER !

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