A/N: I don't know how I came up with something so..dark and messed up. I'm a comedy writer, and to be honest, I wasn't planning on writing or posting a new fic this quick. I wasn't planning on another oneshot. I was intending to redo an old fic from years and years ago. But instead..well, THIS happened. Whatever THIS is. And please, don't ask for details or backstory or explanations, because I really don't know. This came on with no warning, no pre-planning, and no idea in mind. Actually, go ahead and ask. But I'm not sure how much I can answer.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own the Harry Potter Series. And I'm not sure what part of me even owns this fic.
The walls, floor, and ceiling were a bright, gleaming white. The couches and chairs and curtains were a slightly pale barely-there blue-tinted white. "Cheerful, and the colour makes people feel cleaner and happier," the doctor had told Harry on his first day, after the screaming had stopped. It was funny, to him, that he should remember that. He had been too drugged to remember much of anything from that time, but he remembered why everything was white. Then again, white was everywhere. How could he NOT remember?
He decided he hated white. Hated the blankness, the emptiness of it all. It stung his eyes and repelled him, filling up even the largest spaces so that he felt trapped. Or maybe that was just the feeling of being trapped there, trapped in the psych ward at St. Mungo's. All the same, Harry hated white now. He thought he may go snow-blind soon, if he didn't see more colour. Hell, even HE was white; trapped indoors for months, not allowed outside where he may find a stick, or sharp rock, or anything harmful, Harry had become even paler than before.
He missed BLACK. The opposite of white, the emptiness that was JUST emptiness; it didn't simultaneously fill and empty a room at once. Black was easy. Black was…was depressing and scary and uncertain and REAL – not like this white, happy, fake little world. Even at night, it was never black here. The lights had to stay on, however dim, so that the patients could be monitored. Harry thought that if he ever saw black again, or any colour, he may die of shock. Even his hair was kept short (rules of the ward). And, of course, there were no mirrors. Mirrors could be broken. And broken glass could be used to…
The door to his room creaked open. There was no lock, and it didn't close all the way, and it was mostly see-though: unbreakable plastic re-enforced with magic. The doctor, with blonde hair like a movie star, and a bald spot that he obviously thought was hidden well by his comb over. The one who Harry hated, and distrusted. The one who always sedated him. Harry didn't know the mans name; he had never cared to learn it. But suddenly, Harry realized the man WASN'T a doctor. The witches and wizards…had a different name for those here. Not "doctor" – that was a muggle thing…but Harry couldn't remember the word.
The clock down the hall chimed out the tune to a Weird Sisters song. 8 o' clock, time to take your medicine, Harry.
"It's eight," the doctor announced cheerfully. "Time to take your medicine, Harry!"
And it was then that Harry realized why he hated this man so much. White-blonde hair, pale blue eyes as light as ice, perfect white teeth, and white coat…The man blended into the place perfectly. White…all around, white. No escape.
"When can I go home?" Harry demanded angrily. It was just about the only thing he said to anyone here.
And he knew the answer before it came. "You can go home when you're better, Harry."
But Harry knew he would never be better. Not after the wars, and the nightmares, and watching his loved ones die one by one. Not after the look of loathing on Ginny's face when he killed her. Not after-
'No,' Harry told himself. 'No more. Not now. If I think about that, then I'll…'
The doctor had been saying something to him, but Harry wasn't listening. He never listened, because THEY never did. They weren't here to help him, just to make it worse. He didn't need the shock therapy, or the counselling, or the medication. He needed home. He needed friends, and revenge, and…
And he needed the pain.
"Any luck with him today, Healer Malfoy?" the bleached-blonde, bubbly secretary said as Draco went to clock out.
"None, as usual," he replied. "He won't say much at all, but from what we can tell, he's still stuck in the past. Stuck back in our… in HIS school days. Like it wasn't over 15 years ago. Like no time has passed…"
The girl looked a bit startled, as the Healer had never revealed so much about himself to her ('or anyone else,'she thought to herself) before; she seemed more sombre upon hearing it, and her childish, naïve innocence dimmed a little. "I'd forgotten… Margie mentioned that you went to school with him… How can he not remember…? I mean, did you two even know each other? I'd think seeing you all the time would…"
"We hated each other." Draco exhaled, sounding as if it pained him. "We were enemies, and we were cruel… Hate is a strong emotion, more so than love. He doesn't remember me…and he'll never recognize his loved ones. The ones that are left, I mean."
There was a silence in which both of them realized that they didn't know each other and never really would. There was too much of a generation gap; she came from a time when the war was ending, and he came from the middle of it. She had been raised in the time of celebration and luxury that came after the war, and he had helped fight and cause it. Work was all they had in common.
"Does he still hurt himself?" she ventured cautiously.
"We find new cuts every day. Someday…someday he'll take it too far. I just hope to Merlin that he's sane again in the afterlife, and spends eternity with the ones he lost. I hope people who go mad don't stay mad all the way through…" he trailed off, staring into the distant white.
"There's no way to stop him, to restrain–"
"The medication should have made him so out of it that he can't do anything. But he seems to have built up an immunity. And raising the dosage... Well, that would just end up killing him. Sooner, I mean."
"There's no other way?"
"None."
With that, he left.
Harry smiled grimly; the doctor was gone, and they all believed he had taken the medicine. Who could possibly know that he held the nasty tasting thing under his tongue, and then Banished it? He had extraordinary willpower – he never even gagged.
Knives, sticks, anything sharp…it was all taken. No paper. No pens or pencils. No toothbrush. Nothing. And yet, to the consternation of the Healers, the cuts still appeared like clockwork. It took them awhile to realize how he'd done it: for a few days, they'd even tried a straitjacket.
No matter, because a little wandless goes a long way.
He whispered it softly to himself, so that it was like a secret only he would hear.
"Diffindo!"
The bleeding started immediately, and the pain was intense, and real, and amazing. A burning feeling. A WHITE-hot burning. Blinding.
And Harry suddenly thought that maybe white wasn't all that bad after all.
A/N: I'm really not sure where this came from... For the record, I'm a happy, normal person. Who was not upset, sad, angry, or depressed when writing this. It just sort of...came out this way. And it was one of the rare times when I DIDN'T sit at my laptop, locked in an argument with my writer's block, muse, fingers, and imagination. So, I just went with it. I'd love to get reviews with comments, thoughts, ideas, concrit, and help. But I'd prefer not to deal with any flames.