Beware the fangs

If he angled his head all the way up against the wall and craned his neck he could just so get a glimpse of the moon. Just a silver silver, almost enough to eat, a slice of cheese, a slice of cake and a cup of tea just to be polite, perhaps even Butterbeer if he was lucky enough.

Someone had given him tea once, someone with red eyes and pale skin, someone cold, as cold as ice. Like the harsh breeze of the salty sea that surrounded them all and ensnared their senses. Funny how he couldn't remember his face anymore. All that was wrapped in hazy, his memories of him wrapped up in smoke, all but for his eyes and fangs.

He could hear the waves crash against the walls, somewhere deeper down, a distant scream of despair, a wailing in the distance that turned into the lullabies that kept him awake.

When they found him all he would say was, " Snake, the snake, the snake"
They believed him to be mad, the potions they gave him made him feel that way, it made edges of his world blur, his days stretched together like wet gum. He wasn't mad. Not really. He knew that.

But it had happened the way he told them, whenever he managed to say more than just Snake. He and his cousin Dudley had left together. There had been cake, lot's of cake and tea, he could still taste it. There had been The Snake. Another man as sweet as honey but his words were laced in poison and one as tough as steel, with hair brighter than anything he'd ever seen before.

Harry and Dudley had went together but two months later it had been only him to leave, with clothes he did not remember owning. Babbling about Tea and Snakes. He was covered in blood, it was dripping down his face and drenched around his hands, he could taste it in the back of his throat. It was running down his legs, with dark marks on his thighs where fingers had been.

His fingers had immediately went up to his forehead and touched the thick scar that had been cut open, just above his brow, an odd shape. A lightning bolt some had said when they had come across him.

By that time the wound had been open for a while now, the blood long since dried and turned a dark shade. The doctors had done their best, at least that's what they told his aunt and uncle. His Aunt had taken one look at him and scrunched up her nose in disgust, a familiar expression on her, he was not too worried.

If it wouldn't have been for her lovely Dudders still missing she wouldn't have even spared him another glance, he was sure of it. Uncle Vernon's face had paled when he had first spotted him and not his boy. His patience had ran out soon later.

His response of tea and snakes did nothing but infuriate his uncle, his thick moustache began to twitch, and his brows were pinched together. He said it was his fault, that he had led their perfect boy into a trap and left him to die. He could not remember. Hadn't since then.

The forrest they had found him in stretched out for miles, they had been warned as children not to enter, dark things lingered in there. The snake was one of them.

Dudley was lost to them, so his aunt and uncle made sure Harry would be lost as well and he was. In the hospital that became his home in the last eleven years.

St. Mungos, he had heard of it when he had been younger and another boy. Back then he did not belong in here but now he wasn't so sure anymore.

His uncle hadn't visited him since they had dropped him off here, there had been no soothing words between them, Harry kept babbling about the snake and the cake, his uncle left curtly without saying another word.

His aunt, to his surprise, had visited him once, just once, when he had still been new here, she had her face screwed up as if she smelled something foul but he knew it couldn't have been him, the attendees had dragged him towards the bath just before she came.

Harry hated the baths, they were icy cold and rough with scrubbing, and he was never permitted to clean himself. If he struggled or cried they would hit him with a brush or pinch him hard enough to leave bruises, never in a place where they would be visible.

His aunt had stared at him, he'd never seen her like this, her face had been clenched, her movements rigid. Her hair was not as polished as it used to be, deep circles framed her eyes and not even her make up was enough to cover them up. She looked old and tired. "It should've been you---" it was all she said before she turned and left, the harsh clicking noise of her heels against the ground the last thing he heard of her.

He could barely remember their faces. He knew his aunt had been tall and mean, cruel at times but never like they were here. The days streched like wet and used gum, barely holding together, there was nothing to do, no books to read, nothing to write or even see. The window to his room was high and the bars thick, allowing only the light of the day or night to stream inside.

Ron told him to exercise for the day they would get out but Harry knew that there was no out for him. He was broken and the world had no use for broken things. He could barely remember the boy he used to be, did not know what happened to him that he turned out this way. The boy seemed like someone he'd known once, a long time ago and far away. Like a dream that felt too real and slowly got forgotten

Hermione talked, a lot, whenever she could and even when she got in trouble for it, she kept talking, all day long, all throughout the night. Her cell was next to Ron's, whose cell was next to his. She talked about all kinds of things, unrelated and related.

He only got glimpses of her when they took him out to get a bath, bushy hair and big teeth, he sometimes saw other patients, with dead eyes and drool on their chins, people who were alive and yet didn't live. Those were the ones that were 'harder to deal with'. They were the ones that got the injections.

Harry only ever got potions and powders with his breakfast, they allowed him to still be Harry at some part.

" Harry" A voice said through the mouse hole.

For only a mouse could've created this hole between their cells, it must've eaten through the wall a long time ago. Harry didn't know what happened to the mouse, perhaps it drowned in the sea or some of the others caught it, Goyle, as Harry heard had an affinity to crush things with his fists.

But the mouse had led him to Ron. At first, he had thought that he'd finally lost his mind or that it had been a trick of the doctors who were just waiting to see him do something, anything out of the norm to give him the injections.

He had been hesitant, not willing to give up his sanity just yet. " Down here you nit" the voice had said and Harry had wavered. He could see the hole, big enough for a mouse and perhaps even a snake. He was expecting the snake to jump out there at any moment but one moment passed and then another. He heard a great sigh.

"I'm real---"

" How do you know what I think if you're real"

"Because" The voice answered, "I'd be thinking the same, we're in a loony bin after all. Can never be too sure, now get here"

Harry shuffled closer,

"I'm in the room next to you, it's not magic, I can see your feet, just talk to me before I go any madder, I can't listen to her mindless chatter anymore, i need ---"

"Who?"

"Loony mione next to me--- never shuts up--- bloody woman" the boy muttered and Harry's lips quirked upwards slightly." Let me see you---" The voice complained " i can only see your feet, no offence but i'd rather see your face, nothing against your feet though"

Once his cheek was on the ground was he able to peep through the whole and spot him for the first time. A flash of red met him. Harry flinched and was about to scramble away when he noticed that it was the wrong shade. Too bright, too orange to have been the snake, Besides. This was a human. He could see his eyes, (one of his eyes) it was a light shade of blue.

A boy around his age with bright red hair. Harry had never seen his whole face, it was an akward angle that had them lie on the ground and peek through the hole.

"I'm Ron by the way--- Ron Weasley--" Harry could see Ron shift into a more comfortable position, his lips were stretched into a smile. Harry felt himself mimicking it, it felt odd on his lips, foreign even.

"Harry Potter"

And that's how they met. Ron was a year older than him.
He only ever saw part's of Ron's face. His blue eye and a few freckles, a blob of red hair covering the rest of him.

Harry had never shown Ron the side of his face with his scar, he never had to with the way he lay on the ground, only the scarless part of his face would've been visible.

"Why are you here ?" Ron asked him one day. Harry thought about it.

"The beautiful ambience --- how could I ever resist" he replied drily. He heard Ron snorting, he waited for him to grow silent again before he began to formulate an answer, " I don't know--- I don't remember-- I remember before and after but not what happened, I remember the blood, lots's of it-- " He could still feel it on him, like a warm embrace, like ember eyes burning through his entire being and leaving nothing unseen. Harry shudders at that, a cold breeze of air sweeps through his room, and the wool clothes he wears do nothing to keep the cold at bay.

" I can still taste it---"

"So can I --- they found me with a gun and a dozen of bodies scattered all around me, i don't even remember killing them, it's as if someone had put a blindfold over my eyes and led me, telling me when to pull the trigger. it's all a haze---"

His friend was a murderer, a part of him wondered if he should be scared or worried but another couldn't care less about who Ron had been before he came here.

"Why did you do it?"

He could almost imagine Ron shrugging, "Dunno-- dunno-- dunno, just happened ---i remember the heavy weight of the pistol in my hand, the loud sound the shots made, it's still vibrating through my head but I don't know why I did it. Did you kill someone?"

"Maybe---"

"It's alright" Ron told him, "I would understand"

"I really don't know, all I have is flashed here and then, but that's that, nothing to really know what happened"

"About the snake and the monsters"

"Yes" The man that haunted his nightmares ever since, he was the boogeyman every child was warned about, his own personal demon that kept torturing him in his mind. A flash of red, a haze of black and unbearable pain.

"When we get out of here we'll find him and find out what happened and slay the monsters"

That had been eleven years ago, they were still in their cages, side by side with nothing changed, they were just as trapped as they had been before and they had no intentions of ever letting them go.

"Harry?"

"Hmm?"

Ron had just returned from his bath, he knew because he could hear the attendees cursing and muttering under their breaths as they pushed Ron back into his cell. He could imagine Ron sending them a nasty grin as he settled back into his cell.

Once Harry had asked him why they did not give him the injections but Ron had only grinned and said that they made him crazier, the doctors made that mistake once with Ron and never again.

"I can't sleep" Ron told him

"Just ignore Hermione" he told him.

"It's not her"

"Then there is no reason not to fall asleep"

"I can't sleep because of the dementors---"

Harry suppressed a heavy sigh, this was nothing new.
"they're not real Ron"

"Are"

Not" Harry retorted.

"They are as real as you and I mate--- you know that"

He didn't but there was no reasoning in arguing with Ron, he just got worked up and let it out on everything around him. A part of him assumed it was because he had so many siblings and never got the last word that he fought on everything he could fight on and went beyond, another just thought he was mad.

"Sure---" but Ron also believed him when he told him about the snake and the monsters, maybe--- maybe there was some truth to Ron's monster.

"What does Hermione say?"

"wants me to shut up" he muttered ashamed before he continued in his rambling, "They are drawing closer, circling us, waiting for us to let down our guards, it's then that they will attack, when we expect it the least--- they're coming--- they're close--- Mum warned us -- she knew--- she always does"

"Then we won't let them surprise us---" Ron talked often about his family, they were too many to track but Harry held them close to his heart. Bill, Charlie, Fred and George and annoying little Ginny. There was a Percy but Ron rarely talked about him, and when he did he sounded enraged.

He sometimes imagined how it would have been to grow up with so many siblings and not his aunt and uncle and duddikins who loved to torment him whenever he could.

Would he have gotten along with Fred and George, would Ginny have followed him around wherever he went, annoying him to no ends, would he have to hide from her as Ron did once.

It was late in the evening when the clashing of the waves got more pronounced and the sounds coming from the hallways were limited, occasionally he could hear footsteps passing in the distance or the faint banging sounds another patient made. Ron was not sleeping yet, Harry would know if he would, his snores were hard to miss.

He watched the light dance on his ceiling, the patterns move and shift as time passed and before he knew it he had fallen into a slumber. He dreamed of blood, he was drenched in it, it was dripping down his body, there was no way in telling in which was his and which wasn't,the walls were covered in them, the ground underneath his feet was slippery, it was quickly oozing into his cell from the hallway. He could see Ron, standing in the hallway, with a pistol in his hand. Someone was screaming.

"Harry--"

He was chocking on the blood, he couldn't breathe.

"Harry"

"There is a fire-- Harry , wake up"

His eyes shot open, as if a spell had been lifted off him, he began to cough, he could barely see his own hand from the smoke that had spread around him, dark and deadly. Harry staggered towards the door, Ron was shouting. The handle burned his hand and Harry took staggering steps backwards.

The sounds filtered in then. The crack of a flame, of heavy objects clashing and horrible, agonizing screams. Close by the repeated slamming of a body into the wall. Ron was trying to break the door to his room.

"Ron--- no"

While the walls might be soft, the door was iron, he would kill himself while trying to escape, he could hear his painful grunts as his body collided with the unyielding door. A horrible crunch made Harry flinch and then there was silence. Ron made no more sounds

The heat of the fire was drawing closer, and he backed up towards the end of his cell until his back was flush against the wall.

The doctors and attendants would not bother to free them, not when most relatives would be relieved to be freed from the burden of their mad relatives. They were going to die, each and every one of them, burn to death, he wanted to scream, but he didn't.

He slid down the wall until he sat on the floor, the heat was agonizing but there was no escape from it. Harry found that he was not distessed about it, he would wait for the flames to come and claim him aswell. To take him away, somewhere far far away.

It might've been last night's potion, or the smoke that filled his lungs and made his body go limb, He shut his eyes and drifted away, far away. The place he always went to, a place he never got to see in real life, a silver lake, going on for miles, wrapped around a green valley and a dark forest that surrounded it all, a brilliant castle that towered over him and stretched up far into the sky. There was no smell of medicine here, no blood, no heartache, no pain, there weren't any noisy doctors or cruel attendees that poked holes at him, no disappointed relatives who sneered at him. It was the place he always went to when things got too much or he needed a place to escape to.

Someone grabbed him by his shoulder and he flinched, his eyes flew open, he was not greeted by the usual sight, an attendee ready to drag him out of the room. No, the touch around him softened, it had been years since someone had touched him without dragging him for a bath.

Ron's brows were furrowed, eyes wide as he pulled him up to his feet.
"We need to leave--- stay close" Ron moved towards the door, the open door. As soon as Harry stepped out he was greeted by a overwhelming amount of heat, it made his body sway.

He wanted to ask how Ron got out, how he wasn't battered and dead yet and how he managed to get him out. He bumped into someone else, and tender hands reached towards his arm, "Keep moving---" Hermione said and pushed him towards Ron. They moved swiftly.

"What about the others---" He could barely see Ron's form as he paved them the way in the hallway.

"We don't have time for that--- they'll only be in our way and even if, we take them with us and then what?, no best to leave them" Hermione muttered and gave him another nudge. It was a cruel thing to do and even suggest but she was right. There was nothing they could do for them.

Ron came to a halt at the end of the hall and Harry could hear him rumbling with keys, his brows furrowed. "Where did you get them?"

"One of the attendees, locked him in my room and stole his keys--- how do you think I got you out ?" Ron was trying all the keys, it was the fourth that opened them the room into the small room. It was only them and the pounding of the other patients, most of the screams had ceased by now.

It was then that he saw Ron's shoulder, his arm was hanging at an odd angle. "What happened ?"

"Popped out while I was trying to break the doorframe" Ron muttered and walked over to the wall, he did not even flinch as he punched his shoulder against the wall, Harry watched horrified as on the second try Ron's shoulder popped back in with the same horrifying crunch he had earlier. Ron flexed his hand and moved his fingers as if he were testing them and once pleased turned back to them.

Hermione had already moved towards the window and pushed it open, she was currently sticking her head out, her feet were dangling slightly in the air. They immediately moved towards her. It was a steep fall down into the raging sea.

Suddenly a pair of feet were dangling right in front of their faces. Harry recognized the attendee by the blue uniform they wore, he was trying to climb towards the ledge of their window.

His feet settled on the ledge and he crouched only to come face to face, with them, the blond attendee was bleeding from a wound on his cheek, it was dripping down his face, for a moment none of them reacted and then Hermione lunged, one harsh push was all that was needed to tip the man over the edge. They watched him fall and vanish in the water.

Hermione nodded satisfied, "He would've never let us leave--- "

As the smoke drew in on them, it was Hermione who climbed onto the ledge first, Harry followed her example and reached for Ron who was just behind him.

The ledge was short, Harry had trouble standing on it, Ron had to curl his toes around the edge, in hopes to get a better grip.

"What now---" Ron asked, his face was pale, making each and every freckle standout.

"We jump" he said.

"And don't drown" Hermione added, their gazes met and now he could see the fear in her eyes, the tremble in her lip. He reached out for her, and did the same to Ron who tightened his grip around him.

He was the one that tipped them over the edge, he could feel Hermione hesitating but unwilling to let go of his grip she followed him and Ron into the abyss. He was falling, falling into the snakes den. The fall was quick and before he foresaw it they submerged in the cold waves. A stark contrast to the smouldering heat that had surrounded them earlier.

The grip around him was iron, even as his own hands loosened, Ron and Hermione held onto him. He caught flashes off them as they breached the water and got pulled back into it again. Managing short desperate gasps of air.

He wanted out, out and away. Another tug, sharper than before, he lost sight of up and down. They were drifting. His lungs were burning, his sight blurring. Hermione was pulling away.

Another wave, bigger than the one before. They were surrounded by darkness and then it was over, they were all coughing and spitting up water as they crawled out of the water and onto land, the soft sand gave away under their touch. Harry desperately gasped for air as he let himself collapse. He turned onto his back and stared into the sky, it was covered in dark smoke, a cloud that grew in size with each passing second.

His chest was rising and falling quickly.
Hermione was still coughing up water as she collapsed next to him.

"They're escaping---" Ron whispered. He was the first to be on his feet, the soft moonlight, at least the parts of it that managed to filter through the cloud of smoke were illuminated him in a soft light. "The dementors Harry--look--- i-- i told you"

Ron pointed in the sky and for the first time, Harry saw them, shadowy creatures, one and a dozen at once. Spreading through the sky, darkening everything they came in contact with, the air around them chilled. He was not just imagining it. He could see his breath in the air. "Ron--- " he looked severe as he turned to him and then there was a sudden change. Like a switch that had been turned over.

"We--are out---" Soft laughter bubbled out of Ron. Now that he was away from the smoke, his mind was clearer and he sat up, " yes" he agreed and for the first time in years, the prospect of freedom tasted like victory. Sweet and short victory.

"Not yet--- we need-- need to leave the island before they find us-- we need to get to the boats and then sail towards land and then-- then we'll be out, until then" Hermione said. Her tangled hair laid flat on her head, her lip was bleeding from where she had bitten them through.

"they won't be looking for us"

"One more reason to get away as soon as possible, the boats are down there---" Hermione stood up and started walking without waiting for any of them.

"How do you know that?"

"Read the emergency manual for the attendees---all 35 pamphlets, law requires them to have fully prepared boats ready at all time--- under section seven "

Ron gave him a look as they trotted after Hermione who lead them down the island. Away from the burning hospital and further into the small forest that surrounded them. Harry had never been in this part of the island, hadn't even seen it when he arrived here first, they had given him powders before his arrival to calm him down, he'd been sleeping through the whole ride up until he had reached his cell. It was there that he had woken up, dazed and confused.

:_:

They reached the docks without any disturbance, once they spotted a pair of doctors carrying buckets of water further away from them and managed to pass by without any hindrances.

It was just as Hermione had said, the boats were on the docks, small wooden ones that they had to row themselves, all packed up and ready to leave. Ron made sure no one was around while he and Hermione pushed the boat into the water, he was freezing, there was not a part of him that had not been drenched, he felt the ice in his bones.

He helped Hermione into the boat while he pushed it deeper into the water, once it reached his chest he climbed in himself. Ron was the last one to reach them, he swam towards them and reached for them to pull him in. He was the strongest under them, the only one that was able to row the boat for a substantial amount of time.

Harry tired out too quickly, even now, all that he wanted to do was sink into himself and fall asleep. He should've listened to Ron when he had told him to exercise, he wouldn't have been this weak if he had.

Ron's brows furrowed deeper as the distance between the island and them grew and the spot of land in the distance grew larger. The fresh salty air was like the first taste of freedom they had in a long time. His heart skipped a beat and he dared to hope, not even the cold that had seeped into his bones was enough to diminish his joy.

Laughter bubbled out of his chest, Hermione gave him a questioning look but he just shook his head. He couldn't explain it.

He had escaped out of the snake's den and now this hellhole, he was out.
They all were giddy to set foot on land again, once he was he would make sure to run as far and fast away as he could, to put as much distance between him and the hospital, to never return there ever again.

:_:

Life had continued, the world changed while Harry felt like he had stayed the same, frozen in time in that tiny cell of his. Hermione and Ron looked just as disconnected as he felt. He had been sixteen when they had admitted him to the hospital, now, eleven years later, he was out and it did not feel real. Like a strange fever dream, he was dreading waking up from.

They had set on land in the early morning hours and paved their way towards a city, the skyline of it had been hard to miss. They had exchanged their patient garments for stolen bits of garment they had found in a garden.

The garment was itchy and too long but it was better than what they had before. It would help them mix into the crowd and keep them for now, warm at night. They were exhausted and Ron was barely keeping awake, dragging his feet behind him.

They rested in an old shack, laying on stacks of hay, it was the best night of sleep he had in a long while. He awoke to Ron's elbow digging into his stomach and Hermione staring into the distance, she was already awake, her knees pulled onto her chest and arms wrapped around herself.

"You're awake--- good"

"Did you sleep at all?" It did not look like it, he slowly sat up and untangled himself from Ron, who turned his back towards him.

"I slept enough--- there is a market close by, we don't have any money, we could try begging or just steal, it's a small town, we'll stick out like sore toes, are your toes sore as well?"

Harry wiggled his toes, he didn't have any shoes, just like Hermione, Ron was the only one with still his socks on. " A bit--- I feel like I was run over by a horde of hippogriffs"

"How did you get that scar?"

Harry immediately reached out to it and covered it with his hair, Hermione's eyes lingered on him. "I don't remember"

"Nothing at all?"

He shook his head and something akin to disappointment fleeted across Hermione's face.

Soon, they would've gotten their breakfast and the powders, and the attendees would've started waking them up, knocking rather harshly and starling them out of their sleep.

"Does this place seem familiar to you?" Hermione asked suddenly.

Harry shrugged, "I don't remember much of yesterday" After they had set foot on land, everything had turned into a blur until they had collapsed for the night. "Does it seem familiar to you?"

"It does but i don't know why-- "

"Should we wake him up?" Harry glanced at Ron who finally turned on his back with a long sigh, his eyes were open as he stared up onto the ceiling.

"Bit too late for that mate" Ron sat up and stretched until his bones popped and he sagged into himself with a relieved sigh.
Harry stared at him, it was hard to get used to the fact that he could finally, after all these years see his whole face, not just glimpses. It was strange.