Title: Celtic Stars and Crooked Scars
Characters: Harry Potter, Dean, Sam
Rating: M (for language only)
Warnings: Language, non-descriptive torture, and blood
Spoilers: None, though this happens in Season 3, so knowing up until then might be helpful.
Word Count: 2,081(~11,000 total)
Disclaimer: I don't own the Harry Potter series or Supernatural
Summary: Dean finds himself captured by a real psychopath, and meets Harry, a boy who has been chained up for years. It's a desperate attempt at survival and time is ticking away. Tick tock, Dean, tick tock.
Author's Note: Here's the next part. I plan to post Chapter 3 by next Friday or Saturday depending on my schedule. Please note that if there are mistakes, I am betaless. So I might not catch everything despite picking over each chapter before I post. Thanks.
The first thing Dean feels when he comes to is the intense burn in his upper arms which were raised above his head and fastened to...something. He doesn't want to open his eyes to look. No matter how damn Winchester he is, it doesn't mean he looks forward to the obvious pain he has coming his way. His positioning, hanging upright by his frickin' wrists(which hurt like Hell right now; thanks for asking) is a clear sign that a bizarre ritual is taking place, or someone wants intel.
The chances of him getting out of the situation scotch-free are beginning to look unlikely.
Someone throws water over his head, sending rivers of the ice-cold liquid flowing down his face. His body jerks slightly at the sudden temperature drop; a small spasm is his immediate reaction to the surprise. His eyes crack open slightly—just enough to get a glimpse of where he was at, possible even scope out an escape route.
No such luck. The layout of the entire room is relatively easy to guess just from the small portion he is able to see from his awkward position. Dry, gray walls and identical floors—utterly empty of anything else. It's clearly a basement, and not the sort that's safe in case of a fire. Once down here, someone isn't meant to escape.
Damn. That makes this whole situation ten times worse.
No doubt by now Sam's out looking for him and there's no possible way for Dean to contact his Sasquatch of a brother to tell him that the killers are human, there's about thirty of them milling around everywhere, and they have guns.
They were very, very painful guns if the bruise on the back of his head has anything to say about it.
"Wake up, Winchester," A very gruff, hoarse voice came from his right—probably the idiot who decided it would be funny to throw ice-cold water on him. "Time to answer some questions for us."
Okay, so information it is. Not a ritual.
Torture, but no necessary time limit to worry about. He can work with this.
"We're not being fair here, now are we?" His own voice, practically a whisper in the room, shocks him for a few moments. If his throat is as dry as it sounds, then he's been out longer than a few hours. Huh. Patient maniacs. What a nice change. "Not giving me much chance of pulling a Shawshank here."
"Shut up," A second voice, this one coming from somewhere to his left behind him, is much higher pitched, but clearly still male. Someone go picked on a lot by the other kiddies, I bet. "One of these days, that smart mouth might just kill you."
"Yeah? You're not the first ones to say so." And he isn't aren't. Dean can recall a few teachers, and his father, right off the top of his head who said those exact same words to him over the years.
Of course, the teachers hadn't tied him up and dumped water over his head.
One of the people in the room—who knows how many are really there, because all of them are standing behind where he's suspended—comes into his line of sight and he takes a moment to blink the droplets of water out of his eyes so he can properly see one of the idiots who decided it would be a good idea to hunt down Dean Winchester of all people.
The man is hardly a man at all. He can't be any older than nineteen, but he has something in his eyes that sends chills down Dean's spine—something completely evil hovered around him. Not a possession...not even close to a possession. This is all human. The boy's sandy-colored hair falls into his blue eyes, but the boy just grins and pushes it away. The kid walks—no, he saunters—up to Dean, leaning in close.
The kid is pretty tall, he decides as the eyes burrow into his soul. Dean gasps as he feels something within him twist in agonizing pain. The kid's grin just widens.
"Dean Winchester," The kid's voice is like honey—sickening just below the initial sweetness. "Comfortable? I hope not."
" 'Fraid I can't say the same." The pain came again and he jerks in the chains, eyes rolling back. What the hell was the kid doing? It almost seems like the kid is manipulating him via brainwaves. Maybe he is, Dean thinks through his eyes which were beginning to fog up from the pain.
The kid steps away and the pain stops within seconds. There isn't a bit of residual discomfort. If not for how intense the feelings were only seconds before, he may have believed he imagined the entire thing. "Well, Dean, since you're going to be staying here for awhile, we should really speak on a first name basis. It's only polite after all." The kid pulls out a knife—sickeningly already covered in dry, crusty blood—and holds it to Dean throat, mere millimeters away from the pale skin. "Calem." He says simply before cutting a thin line across Dean throat. Not deep enough to kill him, but just enough to send a thin line of blood dripping to the ground, a quiet drip drip drip echoing in the small room.
It turns his stomach a little to know that it's his blood that's being spilled.
The kid—Calem—licks his lips, eyes alight. "You have something I need, Dean." The Calem's eyes only seem to shine brighter. "I need it a lot. And you will tell me it's location."
Like he's going to listen to some sick kid high on something he really shouldn't be on—say, demonic power? Maybe, but there's no trace of possession. Manipulation, however, seems to be very likely. Who knows what the kid is dealing with.
Dean shakes his head. The cut on his throat makes it hurt to swallow let alone manage to speak a full sentence when he doesn't have to—doesn't want to.
"Being stubborn's only gonna hurt you, Dean. You might just want to think about that while you're hanging around."
Calem turns on his heels and walks out of sight. The telltale sound of a door closing and locks clicking shut are the only sign towards a departure. He relaxes, not caring whether there is a guard there to see it. Between the late night hours, the high-speed chase, several bruises in places he really doesn't want to think about, and a long run through the woods, he's exhausted.
Drained.
His eyes flutter shut despite the danger and his body slumps as sleep—real sleep—overcomes him. Unconsciousness is nothing like genuine, too-damn-tired-to-care sleep.
(~) (~) (~) (~) (~)
The next time he wakes up, he isn't alone.
A scrawny little boy somewhere around eleven years of age is sitting Indian-style in one of the visible corner, his small head rolled back against the and cement wall. His eyes are open, staring unblinking at the ceiling. Dean cranes his head upwards at a painful angle, trying to see what's so appealing about the smooth cement. There isn't much—it's surprising a blank ceiling can hold a child's attention for so long. The soft clinking of the chains shifting distract the kid, though, and he looks towards Dean, his green eyes dull.
The little kid has long, unkept hair and feminine features—it takes Dean a minute to be certain that the kid is even a boy. Beneath the scruffiness, Dean can clearly see a child, afraid to show his fear.
"Hey, kid." He winces at his own voice. It's even hoarser now.
The boy looks away, his body coiling and he unfolds his legs before drawing them close to his chest and burying his head in them. Dean frowns, but doesn't say another word. He got the hint. The kid is scared and clearly for a good reason.
Dean notices something he hadn't before—the little boy has his foot chained to the wall, restricting his movements while still allowing his a five foot radius to walk. Like a dog on a leash.
Damnit, Sam. Get here soon.
He isn't looking forward to his next meeting with Calem who, strangely enough, seems to be the mastermind behind this whole situation despite his youth.
Speak of the devil and he shall appear.
Dean tenses automatically when he hears the door grind against the floor, slowly opening. Quick footsteps come right afterward, but there's no sound of the door closing, shutting them off once more.
Calem walks into view, smug smile still present on his face. He turns to look at Dean for a few moments, eyes swiveling between him and the little boy. "Ahh, you're awake. Pity. I need the boy right now, so you'll just have to wait your turn." Calem pats Dean on the cheek, who reels away from the touch.
The psychopath just shrugs in a suit yourself manner before walking the short distance to the boy—who doesn't seem to register Calem's presence— as he pulls a key discretely from his pocket and unlatches the cuff from around the boy's swollen ankle. "Follow me, dearest. Time to go topside."
The boy stares blankly ahead as Calem grasps him by the forearm and drags him up the stairs. The sound of the door closing comes a few seconds later. Dean sighs, his focus now on the kid. What the hell did this group of idiots want with a defenseless kid who's lifeless—useless?
The thought worries him; they could do anything to the kid and he would probably never so much as lift a finger to defend himself.
Dean knows what being broken looks like and the kid seems to emit waves of complete, desolate emptiness.
If the kid dies while he's hanging here, dangling uselessly by his wrists, he knows the death will be on him. There are always choices in this world; he just has to make the right ones. Somehow, he has to get out of these binds.
After struggling for five minutes Dean knows it's pointless. Chains are chains, opened only by key. Using brute force against them is only weakening his own low reserve of energy.
Time in the...basement is not comprehensible. He can't tell when a minute or an hour has gone by; time stretches on forever, continuing even as the pain in his upper arms grows bit by bit until there's a constant burning sensation making anything above his elbow numb.
Sam hasn't shown up yet, which is worrisome enough.
Or maybe not. He has not idea how long it's been since he was captured. Sam may not even realize he's gone yet...
Eventually, the boy is thrown back into the room. Literally. The crunching sound of the door opening wrenches Dean out of his stasis and he sees the boy crumble to the ground out of the corner of his eye. The door closes again, but the boy isn't chained this time. Huh. Obviously the room must be extremely secure if they would risk letting a prisoner—even if it is a kid—run lose without any sort of binding to hold him down.
The kid manages to get to his feet after a few tries and he pulls himself into the same corner as before.
Dean notices a few differences in the kid right away. He's much paler than before, his skin is a stark contrast to the raven-black hair. His eyes are red and swollen, as if he's been crying for a long time without stopping.
Whatever these monsters are doing to the kid is going to get them killed nice and slowly by Dean's hands. No kid deserves being manhandled and locked up like this.
The kid sniffles and look towards Dean again, uncertainty filling his eyes for a few moments. "Who're you?"
Dean blinks at the soft voice, identifying a faint British accent well on it's way to being eradicated in favor of the traditional American speech patterns. "Dean Winchester, kid. How about you?"
The kid nods, but Dean can see the name means nothing to him. " Harry." The boy ducks his head and curls up into a ball, signaling the discussion being over. Dean leave the kid be. He has a name now. Harry who, apparently, is English.
I'm gonna get you out of here, Harry, if it's the last thing I do.
Dean really hopes he doesn't have to break that internal promise, because he can see the desperation in Harry's young eyes, the need to escape.
Harry's been here longer than Dean has. He's sure of that.
When Dean refers to pulling a Shawshank, he is referencing to a novella called "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption", which was written by Stephen King. In the novella, a man escapes from prison after a few decades by digging a hole through his wall and covering the hole with posters until he finally escaped. Thus, Dean is referring to an escape, or lack thereof.
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