Captured
Harry sat curled up in the dungeon thinking up every foul name he could come up with for getting himself into the situation. He was an idiot for getting himself captured, and he could only hope as he sat in complete darkness that Hermione and Ron had gotten away. He didn’t know if he could ever forgive himself if those two were killed because of him, not that he was going to live long enough to regret it.
He was going to die. It wouldn’t be long now, Lucius Malfoy had probably already informed Voldemort and was on his way now. It was only a matter of time before he was killed. It was up to his two friends now to finish their mission, he refused to let himself think they were dead. They made it.
So he sat there in the darkness that was so black he couldn’t tell the difference between when his eyes were open or closed, so eventually he just closed his eyes.
He jerked awake from a nightmare then, he had no idea how many hours it had been as he panted heavily in the darkness. He decided to get up to avoid falling asleep again, but as he started to move when his hand brushed up against something. He automatically retracted his hand, not knowing what it was. It hadn’t been there before, he had searched the entirety of the cell before, searching anyway out. So he knew that whatever it was it had been brought in when he was asleep.
Curiosity got the better of him so slowly he moved his hand forward to get a feel of it. He almost laughed when he figured out what it was. It was a roll of bread. It was on what felt like a small steel plate, but that was it. He lifted the bread to his nose to smell it, it smelled like bread, not particularly good bread and very stale by the feel of.
He wondered for a moment whether or not he should eat it. He knew that he would start to get hungry very soon, and though he knew he could go long amounts of time with no food it didn’t mean he should. There really was no reason not to eat it. If they had wanted to poison him or give him a potion, they could have easily forced him to take it, so it didn’t make sense to put it in his food. So with that, he started to eat.
It went on like that for what Harry assumed to be days. The food was always the same thing, one roll of bread, it seemed like he only got one once a day, and it would only come when he was asleep. So he tried to fake sleep so he could catch whoever it was that came in and maybe try to steal their wand.
That didn’t work, so he assumed that there was something magical that signaled when he went to sleep. He tried breaking the plate, and he had been able to bend it but right after it had repaired itself magically. He also tried yelling and hitting the door in a bout of frustration, but it had been a futile effort.
There were a few days that he just spent leaning his ear against the door, but he never once heard anything, so deduced that they must have cast some silencing charm on the room. He wondered if he should be thankful for that, he was obviously in some sort of dungeon that most likely had more than one cell. He didn’t know if he would have been able to handle it if was listening to screams at all hours of the day.
He got the idea to fall asleep leaning against the door so that whoever it was that gave him food would wake him up when they opened the door. That never worked, and on those days he woke up without food.
He measured the days with his meals, since he had no other way to measure it. Trying to do so when he slept was not reliable, he sometimes spent days laying there, just falling back to sleep right after he woke or ate just because there was nothing else to do.
He knew that the amount of sleep he was getting was affecting him. After spending days with little movement his body became sluggish, he seemed to be in a permanent state of drowsiness. He also knew that this wasn’t because of something they were giving him besides the amount of food being given to him was only enough to survive. No, he knew that the reason why he was like this was just because of lack of movement, he had gone through the same thing after his first year at Hogwarts when he had been locked in his room. It hadn’t been as bad as it was now, but it was similar.
There were days when he wondered if he was really blind it was so dark in his cell. It eventually became pointless to even keep his eyes open, so it just became a habit to keep his eyes closed when he was awake.
The first few days he had been constantly on edge, waiting for someone to come and get him to bring him to his death, or for Voldemort himself to step into the room. His dreams had been constantly filled with terrors, and he seemed even in his sleep to be on edge, waiting for an attack, because he would always jerk suddenly awake and then listen to his surroundings to make sure he was alone.
After what he assumed to be his first week there and nothing happening he started to suspect that Voldemort was playing some sort of mind game with him. If he was, it was working. Harry had no indication of when he would be leaving, and he started imagining them leaving him here for years.
He soon forgot his fear of dying and a new fear emerged. He started to fear that he would live out his life here, never leaving, wasting away until he just died, never seeing the light again. He wondered if this was how Sirius felt when he was azkaban? How was he able to survive 13 years of this without going insane (well... he wasn’t the most sane person Harry knew). It made his respect for his godfather grow, realizing his strength, and gave him strength as well. If he could do it with dementors floating around, Harry sure as hell could do it.
So with that he started to try and fight the tiredness. He started to do stretches as exercises to keep him in shape and alert. He would pretend to duel, practicing different stances. He would practice saying as many spells as he could, and practice wand movements with the words. He came up with spell combinations, ones that worked well together and blended well together as well with both want movements and incantations.
He would sometimes spend hours repeating the same spell over and over again to try and make it second nature. He also started meditation. At first it was just out of complete boredom, when Snape had tried teaching him occlumency it had been something both him and Hermione said he should do to help him control his mind but he had never been able to get it to work, either because he fell asleep, or got distracted by something in his head head or outside it.
But he found that he was finally able to do it. Whether it was because there were no outside distractions, he didn’t have much to think about, or a mixture of both he didn’t know. He found clearing his head refreshing, sometimes it felt like his thoughts were crushing him.
It also helped him to remember things. He would remember spells he just learned once, that he had thought wouldn’t be important, and started to think of different uses for them. He went over events in his life, debating things he could have said or done instead. He made up stories. There were times he was able to fully clear his mind and he swore his body started to feel different like it was sensing something in and outside his body.
Meditation was also a key part of becoming an animagus. He’d read all about the process a few times ever since he’d learned his father was one, but the process was very long and time consuming, plus he hadn’t been able to do one of the main components of it until now.
No matter what he did the isolation and boredom was affecting him in ways he could feel would leave a lasting change on him once he escaped (once not if). He only hoped the change was for the better.
~~~
(Draco scene. He talks about how he is in charge of Potters food, as well as the other prisoners. About how it's summer vacation. How his family isn’t in the dark lord's good graces. how he will be going to his 7th year soon. About the state of things in the real world. The ministry is being taken over by the dark lord followers everyday from the inside. And soon Voldemort will soon have control over the ministry.
About how he is getting more and more followers, not only Slytherin families but other houses as well. He is refused or taken followers till they are at least (17? 18? 19? 20?). About how Dumbledore still has control over Hogwarts and has also taken Hogsmead. Hogsmead is now protected by VERY strong wards, and is a place where the light wizards are fleeing.
About how there are new organizations besides the Order of the Phoenix (not that Draco knows what that is) rising up. A dark group from France is trying to take control (maybe it is also allying itself with other dark groups from other countries), and violent “light” groups.
(I’ll think over other things to put)
About how Voldemort is hardly seen even among his most loyal followers. That no one knows what he’s up to.
Voldemort arrives.
~~~
(This won't happen after the scene above, most likely before.
It won't be clear when I write that it’s Voldemort, but the reader will be able to assume that it is.
It will describe him in an insane fashion, the way he thinks will be chaotic. It will talk about how he feels something following him? Attacking his soul? Some sort of presence? He feels torn?
Anyways Voldemort is crazy but you find out that what he was feeling was the soul shard from the diary. It turns out (we don’t find this out till later) that when he split his soul for the first time when he was 16 he split it in half. It caused him to lose certain feelings, and the more horcruxes he made the more of himself that he lost.
So he decides in this chapter to absorb the soul pieces though you aren't sure what exactly he is talking about)
He plans to use Harry for a spell to help with this..
Then he leaves. end of scene.
~~~
Harry didn’t know what was going on, he was being taken from his cell again. The people dragging him didn’t say anything and he couldn’t see anything -thanks to both his lack of glasses and being unused to the light- so he had no idea who they were. He was able to walk himself but they just seemed to enjoy tugging him along at a ridiculous pace making him trip and stumble.
He could squint his eyes and see some colors but it still made his eyes want to water like when he was younger and wanted to look directly in the sun, when they came to a stop then there was the sound of a door opening. He was then thrown into the room so hard he fell to his knees and had to use his hand to keep himself from smacking his face into the ground.
He flinched when the door then closed behind him loudly, he knew the two Deatheaters hadn’t followed him into the room but that didn’t mean he was alone, there could be someone or something in here.
He kept his eyes closed, he could tell through his eyelids that the room was devoid of most light, and observed his surroundings without moving. He could feel that beneath him was soft carpet, it must be high quality not the kind that was decorative and itchy so it was meant to be used for a comfort of some sort.
He had been in the dungeons so long it seems he had actually got used to the mold, piss, and shit smelling room he had been in because his senses were being overwhelmed with the dramatic change of smell. He couldn’t place the scent, but he could actually smell the difference in the air.
The air even felt different. When he had been brought here he had of course been able to feel the air moving against his skin, but now that he was immobile it was strange. His cell had been completely sealed off, there were no places where air got in or out unless the door was opened, it was probably magically filled with air so that he didn’t suffocate. But now it seemed he could actually feel the air moving, and the type of air felt different on his skin. This wasn’t a damp room, or a room that was closed off; it had been used at least recently for some purpose even if it was only to clear it. There were probably even windows to help.
But what he paid the most attention to was the noise. He could hear things outside the door (distant footsteps or voices), and he could hear something through one of the walls he thought, most likely a window with the wind blowing up against it. But most importantly he couldn’t hear anyone's breath or movements beside his own, that didn’t mean he was alone, they could easily have just placed a silencing charm on themselves or on something in the room.
Slowly he opened his eyes, and slowly got used to his sight by staring at his hands but staying on guard, no one had made a move yet to do anything so he was going to get his bearings together as soon as he could. He was right that the room was dark, most people entering wouldn’t be able to see anything, not until their eyes got used to it, and would say that the place was pitch black. But Harry knew pitch black and this wasn’t it.
He slowly looked up before darting to the nearest wall so that he could have cover at his back. He slowly looked around (even checking the ceiling) and moved to examine the room making sure he didn’t leave any sides open to unsuspecting attack.
The rectangular small room was a bedroom with only the basic things. The door to the room was to the far left of the wall, directly opposite of that wall was the wall with the large window that had a basic wood desk. The wall to the left and parallel to the wall with the door had the headboard of a (half?) size bed with what he thought were white sheets (he was having a hard time with colors) that had space to walk on each side of the side and a door at the far side of the wall (on the left side of the bed if you were laying down in it).
On the wall to the right, and opposite of the wall that the bed was resting on, was a fireplace centered in the middle of it with no fire lit. In front of the fireplace were two high back chairs opposite of each other but angled toward the fire with a small low table between them. The only other piece of furniture was the wardrobe which was not far from the door to the room.
He checked that first, but it was empty, then under the bed, then opened the other door which just led to a small simple bathroom which he checked every cabinet, drawer, and the tub, then did the same for the rest of the room even though there weren’t many places one could hide anything. He under the cushions, sheets, in the fireplaces, under the wardrobe, desk, and behind the curtains but he quickly closed them not used to the sunlight.
He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but even if he didn’t he was sure there wasn’t something in here, at least not something that can’t be found the muggle way. So lastly he turned to face the door. He couldn’t hear anything on the other side of it, so he tried for the doorknob, which was of course locked.
He then laid down on his belly to see the thin sliver of light at the bottom of the door, there were no shadows of anyone there so he placed his finger underneath the door it went underneath it but before it could come out the other side it was like it hit a barrier and it shocked his finger. He quickly retracted his finger and checked it, it didn’t even look like it was going to blister, it seemed though there was some kind of barrier around the room.
He went to the window and while closing his eyes tried to open it up, it didn’t budge. Next he checked the fireplace, he couldn’t push his hand past a certain point without hitting the barrier. Okay then, it seemed like there was no way out of this place either, and even if he could get out of the room he knew he would never be able to get far past it.
It was for the same reasons he knew before when he thought about escaping the dungeons. Maybe there would be floors to run through (unless he was on a really high floor), but that didn’t mean there would be less guards or death eaters around (or even house elves). He had no wand, so no way to defend himself unless he somehow made some sort of weapon, and no way to apparate. Even if he had all of his strength and he was sure he wouldn’t collapse after running a mile there would be no way to escape without apparating.
So he sat against the wall opposite of the door staring at the door. Hours passed, and he could tell that it was night by the way the shadows and the light changed from where it slid out from the corners of the curtains. So finally he decided that no one was coming or anything was going to happen, at least not yet so he went to the bed laid on the bed facing the door not bringing up the sheet over him so that he could move easier if something did happen when he awoke.
He eventually fell asleep, it was the most comfortable he could ever remember being it had been so long since he had last had comfort but he slept uneasily and light, seemingly waking up every hour or so and checking over his surroundings.
. . .
It was disturbing how used he had become to his routine when he woke up and there was no bread waiting for him. He sat on the bed for quite a while trying to just get used to feeling the clean sheets against his skin, before he decided to open the curtains. He ended up only opening one half way and standing out of its path of light and just getting used to looking at where the light came to rest on the floor.
Taking a breath he readied himself for looking outside, he couldn’t stop himself from becoming paranoid that maybe it was a trick. It was a fake window that just let in fake light, or he would see something horrible on the other side, but he couldn’t let that stop him.
Slowly he got up and willed himself to look out the window, to see the outside for the first time in (). His eyes watered but they had gotten used to the light (much better than before)so it only took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the light and see what was outside.
What he saw was worse than what he imagined.
There was a beautiful garden filled with color and life. He could tell that it wasn’t a fake image, there were ways to tell if it was a fake image, and that made it all worse. It was so gorgeous and it had been so long since he had seen anything so beautiful or calming that he soon felt so overwhelmed that he started crying.
He quickly got up and closed the curtain and headed into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. In the darkness again he felt around for some kind of switch to turn on the light. He found it and it turned on a sort of glass orb that was floating in the middle of the ceiling kind of like muggle lights.
He decided he might as well make the best of what he had at the moment and took advantage. He took a shower scrubbing himself diligently until he was pink and raw, making sure to get under all of his nails, but didn’t leave after that, just stood under the water relaxing. The water never went cold (must be magical heating) so after probably an hour he stepped out drying himself off with a soft towel only to become startled when he saw that his clothes were gone, the clothes he had been wearing since he was captured were replaced with new pants and shirt.
Both were black, smelled clean, and were soft (they may have just felt like normal clothes but it had been so long to him). The T-shirt was loose but not baggy, and the pants were, he guessed, the wizarding equivalent of sweatpants, very loose with a stretchy waist that hugged his hips, but the rest of the fabric was light and thin. It didn’t matter all that much to him, he was just happy to have new clothes.
He rubbed the towel through his hair, and then looked over at himself in the mirror. He didn’t recognize himself, maybe it was because he hadn’t seen himself in so long but he was sure it had something to do with the way he looked. He was ghostly pale, more gray, maybe a little green, his eyes had dark bags underneath them so dark it looked like he spread make up under them making his eyes have a sunken look. He had always been skinny, and it was not surprise that he looked so skinny now but his face never had looked this way, it looked like any baby fat he may have had at the end of sixth year was well and truly gone leaving his face looking shallow with his cheeks sunken and cheek bones jutting out.
He quickly looked away, not wanting to see himself anymore, and brushed his fingers through his now shoulder length hair before walking out of the bathroom only to have the door to the room open and the light flick on a second later.
He automatically ducked behind the bed for cover but when he heard the (shriek) he popped his head over the top of the bed.
“Malfoy?” He asked incredulously, when he saw the blonde standing there stiff and trying (and failing) to look (impassive/superior/impressive/?).
“Potter.” He said snidely, Harry couldn’t find it in himself to be insulted, angry, or whatever it was he used to feel by Malfoys attitude, he couldn’t figure out if it was because of everything he he’s been through or because Harry could clearly see that Malfoy was putting on an act.
Harry looked him over, looking for weapons. He didn’t look like he had his wand and was only wearing a plain button up and slack so nothing to hide in big billowy robes. But he did have