The Boy Who Was Trapped
When Harry woke, it was to a pounding headache and a parched mouth. Sheets deliciously silky and cool against his bare skin. Yet that small comfort seemed somehow wrong to the teenager, no matter how good it might have felt.
Harry was lying curled up in a fetal position, soft sheets beneath him and heavy blankets above him. He was naked - of that he was certain. His arms slowly uncurled from where they had been wrapped around his middle, swallowing the hiss of pain that even that small moment elicited in him.
It was no use giving voice to his pain - nobody was going to come to his aid. He had learned that lesson from a very young age, and his time in Azkaban had simply solidified that idea in his mind.
It had been months since Harry had last felt a kind touch, encountered a kind gesture. Months since he had been looked upon with anything other than hatred and revulsion. To find himself in such comfortable surroundings, then, was a shock to his already battered and bruised psyche.
To also find himself naked, however, brought a thrill of fear that he might not have otherwise known; not before the guards and their sadistic games. Modesty he knew - his aunt had certainly drilled that particular lesson into him enough times. Even Dudley had not been safe from that particular lesson. But this fear - this was new. Another reminder of just how much had changed. Of just how much had been taken from him.
Wrapping the sheet and blanket securely around his thin frame, Harry slipped from the bed warily - or at least he tried to. The minute he attempted to place his weight upon his own two feet, however, a sharp pain travelled up his legs and into his spin, sending him crashing down to the floor with a cry of pain. This wasn't like the earlier pain he had faced at the hands of the guards, and it came with a weakness that left his legs feeling as if they were filled with water.
If was only as Harry realised just how good the cool floor felt against his skin that he realized just how hot he really was. Though Harry had been a relatively healthy child, he had suffered from a childhood illness from time to time, just like any other child. Enough to know the overheated feeling of a fever when he felt it.
The next moments passed in a haze for Harry. He was vaguely aware of somebody helping him back up and into the bed. Though he fought against their hold, he was simply too weak - and too disoriented.
His first glimpse of his companion would not come for some time, as the pain and confusion overcame Harry and he found himself slipping once more into unconsciousness, aided by the magic of his silent companions - though he had no way of knowing this.
By the time Harry regained consciousness, it was to the feel of cool pressure being applied to his forehead. Though at first he struggled to open his eyes, his first glimpse of his companion made them shoot the rest of the way open, as his body reeled back in surprise.
To say that his companion was a person would not be entirely accurate. Runes of every size and description lay one on top of the other, blending together as they formed the likeness of a humanoid body, though it was devoid of any kind of decoration or unique quality. Though humanoid in design, it was clearly not human.
At his sudden movement, the creature stepped back away from him. It's hands were spread now in a placating gesture, before coming to clasp together in front of it's stomach. With a small bow, the creature began to back away from his bed, Harry watching it warily until it had created some distance between them.
There was no mouth from which the creature might speak; creatures such as this had no true minds of their own. They had been infused with the will of their creature, each created for a specific purpose. Those left here had been created for one reason, and one reason only - to care for those within its halls. It's creator had never thought to differentiate himself from another, and so the creature before Harry now treated all who came before it, as it would it's own creatore. They were all one and the same to it.
Harry, of course, had no way of knowing any of these things. All he knew was what he saw - a creature whose skin was comprised of thousands upon thousands of tiny, floating runes. No skin to touch, only light and air and magic.
And after everything that had happened to him in the past couple of months, Harry could be forgiven for reacting the way he did.
Scrambling backward on the bed, Harry cried out in pain as his back arched, his teeth clenching. The Sending made no move to help him, however, instead slipping from the room. Harry was left panting for breath, staring at the door through which the Sending had disappeared, before darkness claimed him once again.
The next several times Harry woke, the Sending was nowhere to be seen, but he couldn't find the energy to pull himself from the bed. The smallest of movements sent sharp pain down his spine, deep gouges on his arms threatening to reopen.
He remembered how he had gotten those wounds, now - as he had run haphazardly through the halls of Azkaban, spells had followed him through the halls. Had they been sent by the guard who had been accosting him at the time, or another who had noticed his attempt at escape?
Even now, his mind shied from the memory of that guard, and what had been done to him. If he thought too long on the man, he could swear he felt those hands on him even now.
But every time he awoke, it lasted only a handful of moments before darkness consumed him once again. It wouldn't be for nearly two days, until Harry could summon the energy - and the force of will to endure the pain - to move from the bed that he had no memory of being placed in.
His memory of the past two days was hazy at best; a haziness lay over his memories of the past two days, as though a great distance lay between him and them. Even now, that haziness had not truly gone away. Nothing seemed real, nor permanent.
Though he had been naked the first time he had woken, he was now fully dressed in a pair of black sleep pants and a black shirt, a series of runes emblazoned around the left cuff of the shirt. As he maneuvered himself into a sitting position on the side of the bed, Harry now peered at those runes with a raised eyebrow, the fingers of his right hand tracing their shape.
It was eerily silent all around him, adding to Harry's sense of etherealness. There was a sense that nothing was permanent in these first moments; as though he were in a waking dream.
But if Harry Potter had learned one thing in his young life, it was that there was power in dreams.
Struggling up into a sitting position, the sharp pain that raced down his spine and through his arms was enough to convince Harry that yes, this was real. No dream had ever been quite this painful.
At least not physically.
The creatures - the Sendings - who had been present before were nowhere to be found, and though Harry shivered as his feet touched down on the cool stone floor, he did so without fear of them. They had helped him, had nursed him back to health, had fed him and clothed him. In his estimation, that made them, at the very least, friendly. Not to be feared.
Beyond the room in which he had awoken, he found chambers branched out, one into another, and filled with all manner of things. Books, certainly - it was like somebody had taken a library, added some bedrooms, and then started filling it with other things, as well.
But he tired easily, and soon found himself dropping down onto a sofa, resplendent with thickly woven blankets and thick pillows.
When he awoke, there was no change to the room around him, save that a Sending was setting down a plate full of food.
Struggling up into a sitting position, Harry reached out a hand to grasp at the creature's sleeve. Instead of finding the cloth of a garment, however, his fingers passed through, his vision swimming with thousands of symbols dancing before his eyes.
As his fingers finally passed all the way through, Harry fell back with a gasp, while the Sending came to stand before him, it's ... hands? Folded within what Harry was still forced to consider it's sleeves, for want of a better word.
Gasping slightly, Harry scrambled back away from the creature on the couch, watching warily as it stepped back. Now that it was standing so close, Harry could see only darkness within the cowls of it's hood, and it suddenly reminded him far too strongly of a Dementor.
The creature continued standing there, however, and after several tense moments Harry returned to his previous position, though still tense and ready to flee at the slightest provocation.
"What are you?" His voice was rough, from long disuse and too much screaming, surprising him. The creature made no indication that it noticed, however, instead moving to one of the book shelves which filled the room, and pointing a single book.
Harry struggled to his feet, approaching and selecting the book.
It never occurred to him to wonder how - and why - the book was seemingly written in English. It never occurred to him that where he was - where he had been taken - was so far removed from English shores, that a book written in his native tongue should have been impossible.