"Sorted Too Young"
Dumbledore tells Snape, "Sometimes, Snape, I think we sort them too young."
A/N: In my story, Remus and Tonks were already married with a son, Teddy, by the time Remus started teaching at Hogwarts. When Voldemort is finally defeated, Teddy is already three turning four years old. Thought I should warn you of the change I have made in the timeline of this. Teddy will show up now and then in the beginning and be a much bigger part of the story later on.
CHAPTER 3 – PRISON OF TORMENT
Draco squirmed under the sheets. It had been days. The external gashes had finally showed evidence of mending, but the bones still took muggle slow. It was only the hope that the internal damage was healing as well as the external damage. Only time would tell.
An ear-splitting scream tore through the house and rattled the windows. It ripped Draco from his dreams. He thought it had been his own scream as he was dreaming of his father's first explorations with a new dark curse, a multi-layered curse Draco would never forget. The scream turned into terrible howling and again more screaming.
"Bill will you please do something?" demanded Molly.
Fleur covered her ears with her hands. Bill shot back, "It's the damned full moon, mum. He's like a wild dragon! If only…"
"Don't you DARE say his name," Molly sniffed tearfully.
Bill struggled with the shrieking and howling child whose eyes were shifting from they dark stormy grey to an iridescent gold. "Charlie might be dead, mum, but I can still wish he were here! I will not pretend he's alive by not speaking his name!"
"Take Teddy outside, Bill. It's too loud in here with him echoing. Are you sure he's…" Arthur spoke warily.
Bill winced as another howl rattled the room. "The hospital swore he was not contagious."
Hermione stomped over and stole the child from Bill's arms. He was grateful. She carried him awkwardly outside, turned him over her knee and spanking him soundly. Molly gasped at the barbaric muggle act. She had never hit any of her children, ever. The shock silenced the toddler, who crumpled into a weeping mess on the ground between Hermione's knees. "Are you done now?" she asked. The child looked up at her, cheeks wet, and lips quivering. "No, don't you dare yowl and scream with me." The fat tears spilled over those round cheeks again. She picked him up and cuddled him in her lap. He cried into her hair for his mum and dad.
Draco listened from his bed. He felt like that child. They had both lost everything, including the only people who loved them. They were both trapped in a prison of their own body, tortured and tormented in ways they did not really understand yet. And once again, Hermione seemed to be the life-line pulling them from the sea of insanity. He rolled over and drifted back to sleep now that it was somewhat quiet, as quiet as it could get in a Weasley household.
He wished the pain would fade as swiftly as it did when the hippogriff had injured his arm. The large animal had terrified him. When Harry made the process of approaching it look so easy, he was insulted. His pride got the better of him and cost him. Draco preferred dogs. They used to breed them on the manor grounds. He had learned to train them and control them. He learned to breed them as a way of understanding the difference between pure blood and mudbloods. The mudblood hounds were not as good at hunting, though the odd one prove the exception, but they were far more friendly and even-tempered. His father used various killing curses on the mudblood hounds when he noted Draco's interest in them. As outwardly as he pretended to be glad the hippogriff would be sentenced to death, he felt bad about it and could only remember the sad and pleading looks in the eyes of the puppies he played with.
He hadn't known he was openly crying till someone wiped his face with a cloth. Draco curled onto his side, curled inwardly. He felt deep down that he should let the Dementors take him for his cruel acts.
Teddy had been taken to yet another institution, the third. They hoped he could be fostered there as none of the Weasleys were in a place to take on the challenging orphan. Draco hoped none of his cast spells had killed Remus or Tonks.
He already felt like Dementors had sucked everything happy from him. He had no happy thoughts he could hold onto strongly enough. He knew he would never be able to cast a patronus charm. Remus had taught that to Harry. He wished he had learned it, too. He felt stripped of all dignity, all pride, any scrap of honour or respect. Sucked empty and left weak and bloodless. This was the legacy of the pure bloods. In the end, they would be so insular, that they will drive themselves into extinction. It all came back to the breading of the hunting hounds. Bellatrix was a perfect example of the mistakes that happen when you inbreed.
Draco groaned. Potter helped him to sit up. "The loo is just there," pointed Harry. "The rest of us are in the sitting room down the hall and down the stairs. Someone will bring you something to eat soon, I think." Draco nodded dully to Potter's words. He felt like a shell that had been filled with pain and loss and confusion. He watched Potter leave the bedroom and weighed his strength versus his need. The very thought forced the need to become quite insistent. Gripping the bed frame and a chair, he pulled himself to standing and wavered there a moment. He hobbled painfully forward one slow fumbling step at a time till his bladder screamed as loudly as the little wolf boy had the other day. He made it to the loo without help. It was a small achievement.
Dressing in somewhat more normal clothing and not sleep ware proved to be much more difficult. Ron had noticed the struggle as he passed the room. He still didn't much like Draco. However, getting a howler in the middle of the night again from Hermione was not on the agenda… ever… again. He stepped in and helped. He tried to be conversational, talked about quiddich and the state of the games and teams now. Draco shared a strong interest in the game and allowed the assistance in order to hear something normal and interesting, something different than the thoughts bouncing around his head as he struggled to remember what had happened to his life. Grudgingly, he had to admit that Ron's quiddich knowledge was actually even better than his own. Had he more mental strength, he thought that maybe he could get into some really good debates with Ron on the subject. Such discussions would have been forbidden by his father, especially such a discussion with Ron Weasley. But his father was not there, so he accepted the odd and simple pleasure of listening to this normally clumsy young man. Truly, though, Ron was definitely not clumsy as keeper on the quiddich field. In fact, Ron stood a good chance of making one of the professional teams.
Draco found himself, with Ron at his side, carefully limping into the hall. The splints interfered with movement. Ron's encouragement to show him his quiddich collection encouraged him out. Ron finally found a ground he could like Draco on, someone to talk to about quiddich, as everyone else was fed up. And George wouldn't talk about it at all now that Fred was gone.
The stairs felt daunting. He stumbled on the last to be caught by both Ron and Bill. Molly chastised them all. Draco should be in bed. "Come on, mum!" complained Ron. "If I was in a room as long as he was, I'd start thinking it was a prison. I'd bloody well want out, if only to look at something different. I'm gonna show him my quiddich collection!" Several eyes rolled, but Ron won this argument.
The world blurred a few times and small flashes of pain sparked behind Draco's eyes and through his body. This was the most moving he had done in… how long? Must have been a long while. Ron wandered off to get his quiddich collection.
When have I started thinking of him as Ron? Oh yeah… I am in a house full of Weasleys. I need a way to tell them apart in my head.
Granger was brewing a potion in the kitchen or dining room. It was hard to tell which it was. Apparently the Weasleys don't actually separate those rooms.
The pain finally settles in his lower ribs on the left with twinges in his stomach. The twinges grew till he unconsciously moaned. He swallowed as his body trapped him again in a prison of pain. His clutched his stomach and leaned gulping for air. Draco wasn't sure if he was going to pass out (he would never admit to fainting, but passing out was okay) or be sick. Bill rushed over and knelt to check on him. Draco lurched forward and vomited. Agony stabbed through his stomach and burned upwards and out. He had vomited all over Bill's lap and the floor. Draco started to shake both from the experience and the embarrassment, and soon from the nervous call from Bill who seemed to take this in the most odd way. There was a sense of distress, but not anger.
Then the words registered. "Mum!" called Bill, "We have blood!"
Draco's hands felt numb and tingly. Blood and bile coated them, the floor, Bill's lap. Blood. Always blood. And pain. He felt so cold… so scared. He desperately wanted his mother. He felt like weeping like a small child. Maybe he did. His body was a prison of torment from which there didn't seem to be any escape. Molly hugged him to her and wiped the mess from him. Others rushed to clean up the floor as Bill carefully backed off then left to wash himself up and change clothes. Draco clung to this motherly figure holding him with so much comfort and concern for him. It was the closest he was going to get to his own mother. She rocked him gently and soothed him till Hermione brought over the potion she was working on.
He didn't want to drink another strange potion. He didn't want to vomit again. He just begged and begged for this to be over, for it all to end. He was repeatedly reassured that the potion would help. Hermione met his eyes till he held hers in turn. She was the best and brightest witch this era. If she said her potion would help, it would. He relented and sipped her potion while cradled in Molly's worried arms.