Taciturnitas

AN: This is a one shot. Title is Latin for keeping silence.

The young man had not spoken a word since his return to the Wizarding World. Stone cold face, empty green eyes. Fudge, the great idiot that he was, resorted to threats after the first day. The Ministry tried everything. Bribing, coercion, and physical force. Nothing worked. He did not cooperate. The only proof anyone had that Harry Potter had all his faculties were the second hand accounts of his reaction to the Aurors who found him.

A dirty, scrawny, half frozen child caught picking the pockets of a wizard. The wizard snatched the hand that tried to take his coin purse and instantly recognized the combined faces of James and Lily Potter. He was dragged to the Ministry. They cast identity charms and tested his blood and hair to be sure. Harry Potter had been found.

The young man was taken into custody and endlessly questioned. He demanded to be released if they weren't going to charge him with theft. They didn't charge him but didn't release him either. He shouted at their treatment of him in colorful language that made even seasoned Aurors blush. He refused to recognize the authority of the Ministry for Magic. His response did not change when they brought in Amelia Bones or Minister Fudge. He did not care about them, their magic, their world, their praise. He wanted to be left alone.

He stopped talking after they magically bound him to a chair after he tried to escape for the tenth time. They tried to get him to cooperate by showing him photos of his parents. They told him the details of that fateful Halloween all those years ago. About the discovery of his disappearance after his Hogwarts letter went unanswered. He sat silent, blank faced, staring at the wall.

The Minister decided that since he was sixteen years old, a minor still, and an orphan that the government would decide what to do with him. The child was after all a national icon, he could not be allowed to disappear again. Bribes passed hands and the young man was stunned and taken to Malfoy Manor. As a respectable Wizarding family, the Minister decided that they would be the best family to take care of him. The papers merely celebrated the return of the young hero to the Wizarding World at last. It was called a Christmas miracle.

Draco later revealed that when he first laid eyes on Harry Potter he was rather disappointed. The small unkempt teen simply laid on the plush stain sheets covering the bed he was assigned staring at the ceiling. He gave a cursory glance at the room and the tall, regal, blond trio standing at the foot of the bed when he was woken up but didn't spare them or anything else another look after.

The Malfoys talked to him, asking questions, demanding attention, until they too lost their patience and left him alone. Though not before he was warned about escaping as a runic bracelet had been placed on his ankle while he had been stunned. It would stop him from leaving and also track his every move until he was trusted, or was of age, whichever came first.

The same reaction occurred the following day and the following. Nothing. As to not be accused of letting the saviour of the Wizarding World die from neglect or starvation under their watch, the Malfoys ordered their house elf to wash, change and feed him. He never moved. The Malfoys resorted to nutrient potions spelled into his body. He was treated like a coma patient by the healers that were brought in to assess him. Days passed with no change.

Word of his imprisonment was announced to all the students and staff at Hogwarts suddenly one evening. It was the first evening back after the winter holidays, right before the food appeared when every single person in the room suddenly had a note appear beside their goblet. It read: Harry Potter is being kept prisoner at Malfoy Manor as sanctioned by Minister Fudge. Of course news of that spread like wildfire across the country. The youngest Malfoy even received threats for whatever part he had in the events from schoolmates and strangers via letters.

As any weak politician would do, Fudge relented. The young man was handed over to Dumbledore who had convinced the Wizengamot to transfer custody of Harry Potter to himself. He convinced them that the teen would love to live in a magical castle. What better place for him to learn about their world and his place in it? They agreed. The ankle bracelet was not removed.

The young man was once again ferried from place to place. Without his cooperation they used portkeys and house elves. He was first brought to the Headmasters office, where in the presence of the four Heads of House, the sorting hat was placed on his head. The hat didn't even twitch. After twenty minutes of waiting without a response, Dumbledore decided Gryffindor was the best choice for the saviour of the Wizarding World.

Harry Potter was then moved to the Gryffindor sixth year boys dormitory. Once again he did nothing but lay in bed. Sometimes awake and other times asleep. The rise and fall of his chest was the only indication that he was in fact alive.

His roommates starred. He did not acknowledge them. He didn't acknowledge anyone. After missing two meals and all his classes that first day in the castle, Dumbledore asked the house elves to assist. Once again, he was bathed, clothed and fed. After another day of getting no response, a roster of wizards and witches were called upon to sit by his bed and keep him company. They read children's books, school texts, newspapers. Joyful and tearful tales about his parents, their days in school, their happy short young lives, how they loved him, sacrificed themselves for him. Nothing. Not even a change of heart rate according to all the monitors placed.

After a week of this very strange activity, or lack thereof, he was moved to private rooms as the other sixth year boys were not receptive to their personal space being taken over by endless helpers. Nothing changed. The newspapers printed inflammatory remarks. He was labelled crazy, a lunatic, deranged, or simply too damaged by whatever magic he performed to vanquish the Dark Lord. Nobody wanted a broken hero.

The house elves were once again recruited in attempting to raise a reaction out of him. They took him to classes, which he didn't pay attention to. They took him to meals in the Great Hall, which he didn't partake in. They took him to different places in the castle and the grounds and still no reaction. Not by the lake, the courtyard, the forest or the Quidditch pitch. The students and staff found his behaviour unsettling.

Endless healers checked him over. All methods tried, legal and not. No amount of legilimency, imperios, or draughts helped. His lack of response was impressive and equally disturbing.

Weeks turned into months with no progress. Dumbledore was left with no choice but to move him to Grimmauld Place for the summer hoping that living with his godfather would stir him from his self-imposed isolation. Once again, Harry Potter did nothing.

Endless weeks of staring into space with no response passed by. Then, on the morning of his seventeenth birthday, his bed was found empty. Only the broken runic ankle bracelet left behind. He left, as he had arrived, in silence.

_THE END_