A/N: GAHHHHH! I thought I was gonna loose my mind writing this chapter! Not because I was uninspired, oh no. You noticed how quick I updated? Compared to my other stories who are practically screaming at me to update? Yeah, no lack of inspiration here. This is the only story that I don't have Writer's Block for, actually. The reason I had a problem here was that I got about 1/4 of the way through and realized I was writing in 3rd person. And then I got 3/4 of the way through...and realized that I was writing in past tense. Because a few paragraphs are supposed to be in that tense messed me up and write practically the whole thing in the wrong tense. *Bangs head repeatedly against table.*

It was soooo much simpler back in 1st grade when I didn't even know that things were written in different tenses. *Sighs nostalgically*

Anyway, to ramble on about my life...it's snowing! FINALLY! I got to go skiing yesterday, which I'm happy about. I'm trying to get a Scholarship for a private K-12 school for next year. The English program in our school is atrocious and I want to be a writer. Not a good combo. Also, I'm writing a screenplay for a movie my friend's making (not a real one, obviously) so that's going well. Except that one of the actresses up and quit because she didn't get the part she wanted. Oh well, we'll find a different one (I hope!) Finally, I've started trying to write my first novel, which I hope goes well. *crosses fingers*

DISCLAIMER: Own nothing!

Chapter Advertisement (putting one up last chapter too): The Muggle Fairy Tales series by Meltha. A hillarious series of Hermione telling the boys Muggle fairy tales during the Horcrux Hunt. Made me laugh so hard my cheeks ached. There are 13 so far, the last four being all in one fic (Muggle Fairy Tales are Mad.)

So here's chapter two: Mazes, Shafts, and Tanks

Harry (for whole chapter)

Pain.

The only thing I've felt for the past two months. That, and fear. Fear of when they would come for me, of what new torture they had concocted.

Max, Fang, Nudge, and Angel, the other human-avians, did not have it half as bad as me. I was new. That meant there was more that the whitecoats could learn from me. And that meant more experiments, more torture.

I lay limply on the floor of the crate, covered in blood from the latest round of experiments, staring out into the hallway.

I suppose you could call me a broken creature, trapped, hopeless, with no way out of this nightmare. I would have long since gone mad if the others hadn't been here. They know what I'm going through, they lived it themselves, back when there was so much new information to learn from them. Though Max had said that she couldn't have imagined 'suddenly waking up and finding yourself in this hell.' They had dealt with it for years, ever since they had been born. I've just had the rug yanked from under his feet.

Talking to them was the only distraction from this constant agony. Not really talking, more like a mental conversation. Angel had figured out to sort of 'connect' us all to her mind at once, so that we could 'talk' without the whitecoats hearing us.

I had told them about my life, leaving no part out. Not magic, not Hogwarts, not the graveyard, nothing. I suppose it's a breach in the Stature of Secrecy, but we're all going to die anyway. Likely from being dissected alive.

Plus, we think that they may be magic too. When they told me that most people my age would just self-destruct if they were given avian DNA, I had explained the magic, thinking that's what saved me.

And then Fang pointed out that the Flock may be magical as well. Odd things had always happened around them, and not just in a 'mutant freak' way. So, Max had come up with a theory that it was not the avian DNA and the young merging age that saved them, it was their magic.

If we ever got out of here we could all go to Hogwarts. And that' a very big 'if.' There was one huge problem that stood in our way, besides all the locked doors, guards and Erasers. I didn't know how to fly. The others had told me that it took awhile to learn, but at the same time was instinctual, sort of like walking.

I could hardly run away from the School. The very idea was absurd. Max and Fang had said that they would try to carry me to a safe spot. They had practiced this on a regular human, Jeb, the traitor. For someone like me, naturally skinny and with hollow bones, it should be easy.

But that was still assuming we got out of here. Which was very unlikely.

Footsteps were coming down the hall. I stare through the bars of the crate in fear, curling up in the back corner, wrapping my hands around my knees and silently praying to every deity I'd ever heard of that they weren't here for me.

The footsteps stop in front of my crate. The door clangs open.

Hands reached in and grabbed me, hauling me to my feet. I struggle, half-heartedly, but not wanting them to think I'd been broken. I'm too stubborn for that.

The erasers and whitecoats headed down the hall. Two of the huge wolf-men held tightly to my arms. The door to a huge, gym-like room swung open.

The maze.

Of all the experiments, this was the most humiliating. It really drove home the point that I was no more then a lab rat. Electric shocks and red-hot wires made it ten times worse. And the events of the third task made the whole thing unbearable.

Today was the worst. The whitecoats had decided to have the wires constantly turned on. I must have ran over them for at least four hours. By the end of it, I could barely walk and I was exhausted.

But they weren't finished with me yet.

They take me into a very room that looks almost like a shaft, very small, very enclosed, but at least ten feet high. My wrists are handcuffed together and the chain is draped over a huge hook. I'm raised up to the ceiling of the room, a survivable fall, but I would probably break something if the whitecoats decided to drop me.

And I didn't put it past them.

But what they did was worse. They leave the room. Oh, I knew they were still watching me via camera. But still, being left on your own, hanging from your wrists ten feet in the air isn't very pleasant. Especially when you know that you're likely going to be left there for hours, days even.

That's when the lights went out. Even with my new vision, which was perfect now, and I could practically see in the dark, I could make nothing out. The whitecoats must have been sure not to let a single pinprick of light into the room.

For hours I hang there, alone. I don't know when the pins and needles started in my arms, nor when they turned into an all out agony. But then it got even worse.

Water started to spray into the room. A lot of it.

At first I thought it was just to get me wet, aggravate me. It brought to mind what had happened last week, the Chinese Water Torture. They had strapped me down and then, at random intervals, dripped water on my forehead. It sounds endurable, but I thought that I was slowly loosing my mind at the time.

But it wasn't just to annoy me, or to soak me and then make the room a freezer, as had happened a few times. No, the water was filling up the room, not draining away as it would have if it were for any of those purposes. I can't hear the gurgling sound of water down a drain, nor the sound of water hitting the metal floor. Only water pouring into water.

I've got to get off this hook!

I curl my hands around the chain, trying to pull it up and over the hook. After several attempts, my energy is exhausted and I hang there for a moment, close to panicking. And then a new idea came. I unfurled my wings (the whitecoats had cut slits in my shirt so that I could easily unfold them when they were required for an experiment) and tried to fly high enough to get off the infernal hook. Sure, I didn't really know how to fly, but I should be able to make it a couple of feet right?

I completely forgot about how utterly huge my wingspan was. I yelp as my wings slam painfully into the wall. I fold my wings shut and grab the chain again. After three desperate attempts, I slump back to my original position.

My feet brush water.

Frantically, I begin doing anything and everything I can think of to get off the hook. But it wasn't working and the water was still rising. Slower now, the whitecoats wanted to prolong my fear and desperation, but still rising.

Soon it had completely covered my feet, and was fast approaching my knees. I give another tug against the chain, my heart racing, my mind screaming. I begin to thrash about wildly, loosing any practical approach at the problem and resorting to all out panic.

It rose over my waist, up my chest, past my neck...

And then it stopped. I was completely submerged from the chin down, hanging suspended in a dark shaft, with no idea what was going to happen next.

But it hadn't stopped as I had thought. It had only slowed to the barest trickle.

Over the course of the next few hours, as the water slowly rose, I do everything I can think of to get off this hook. And then it covers my mouth like a watery gag, leaving only the barest space to breath. As I hear the floodgates opening and a rush of water, I manage to gasp one last breath, and then I was completely submerged.

The hook vanishes, letting me go, but it was useless. The water was pushing me down, down, down, towards the bottom of the shaft. I started kicking desperately, trying to use my legs to propel me to the top in lieu of my hands, which had been flung behind my back and were all but useless.

I had a few minutes before I lost consciousness, thanks to the newly-enlarged lung capacity. The world was, in fact, only just starting to go fuzzy around the edges when I reach the top.

Unfortunately, I reach it by slamming my head into it. The shaft was completely full of water. There was no way out.

The world goes black.

Am I dead? Cause that would suck. If this is dead, being dead is boring...and I think I'll go mad.

If I haven't already that is. Actually, that doesn't sound that bad. Being in a mental hospital would be soooo much better then whatever is actually going on. It'd be better then being stuck in a lab and being an experiment, and I'd be better then being dead.

Although I'd much prefer being at Hogwarts, I like Hogwarts, Hogwarts is a great place to be.

I wonder if I'd be allowed play Quidditch without a broomstick now, hmmm...

I don't want to be here, why am I here? I'm going to move now.

Wait...why can't I move? WHY CAN'T I MOVE?

Am I saying this out loud, oh dear, I think I'm going crazy.

You know, I had a dream once that I was on a flying motorcycle. Or did that actually happen?

I'm a wizard. Or is that just a dream?

My name is Harry Potter. Is it? Really?

Help me, help me.

Someone get me out of here. Someone? Anyone? Angel? Max?

Are those even real people? Or are those just figments of my imagination?

The whitecoats, are they real? Do I have wings? Who am I? An experiment? A wizard? A human?

Or am I just a speck in the darkness?

I know how to fly, and yet, I've never learned. A broomstick? Wings? Are they really that different? Do I really have either? Am I just a fairy-tale?

Oh God, what's happening, that light, it's searing my eyes, please go away, please, please...

Hands grab me and agony consumes me. I slam my eyes shut and scream.

"Harry! HARRY!"

That's right. My name is Harry Potter.

What just happened? What kind of sick, twisted experiment was that?

"HARRY!"

I manage to open one eye a sliver.

Max? Fang? Nudge? Angel?

"Hurry, come on! We're getting out of here!"

The alarms started blaring.

A/N: Ha-ha! Cliffhanger! Okay, so I'm going to post up the next chapter today, or tomorrow, or maybe Monday! *insert evil laugh here* We have a three-day weekend (four-day technically, with the snow day yesterday) so I've got plenty of time. You may have to wait on my other stories though, this one has sucked me in and I'm getting very excited writing it.

Oh, and in the scene with just Harry's thoughts, he was in a sensory-deprivation tank like in School's Out-Forever. The way it was described made me think that someone's train of thoughts would be like this