Amnesty

Chapter Title: In the Beginning



Disclaimer: Anything you recognize belongs to JK.



Author's Note: Takes place after Blood and Ink, but before Please.



Warning(s) for this Chapter: None.



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He does not know what day, week, or month it is. Does not know if it is morning or night, afternoon or evening. He has lost track of how long he has been here and that is a good thing in his mind. If he knew how much time he has spent in this Darkness, this Cavern of Solitude, he would lose hope: of being rescued in the most unrealistic of his ideas, and, in the least of them, of being in the Light for any length of time. Losing hope is bad and that he knows. He holds on to the flickering flame with a strength he did not know he had.



He used to be obsessed with the passage of time.



In the beginning—when he did not understand that some things were best forgotten; when he was desperate to hold on to life outside of his Cavern, desperate to keep the little Rectangle of Light because it reminded him that there was more than this Darkness. The Light blazed across his face and made him throw an arm up to block it, his eyes slamming shut, a low moan rolling out. He was thankful for it and counted the minutes, the seconds, that made each one up. As time progressed, as he realised just how pointless it was, he changed his focus to counting the time between the meals Potter gave him. He would wake up and crawl blindly in the Darkness, in the direction he thought he could recall the little Rectangle of Light coming from.



It had been confusing.



In the beginning—when forwards and backwards, left and right, all melded into one another and he crawled around in his little Cavern of Solitude for what seemed like days, searching, searching thoughtlessly, instinctively, for the bowl that held his meal. He had been too cocky, not realising how hard it would be to get to the front of his Cavern from the back where he sulked. A sense of direction was something he lacked, apparently. He had known he was going in circles, of course, but he could not stop because to stop would mean he had given up, forfeited to Potter, and even though they were not at Hogwarts anymore, they were still in competition. This time for his life, he imagined. Imagined correctly, he imagined. Imagined correctly.



Sometimes Potter would come to take his meal away before he had found it. The Rectangle of Light would be behind him, to the right, left, or, even more maddening, a few paces in front of him. In those instances, he would lunge for the bowl, trying to beat Potter. He never could. Desperation and hunger are not faster than an Accio bowl—quick, ruthless, unforgiving. As soon as the bowl flew into the Rectangle of Light, the Darkness would be back—quick, ruthless, unforgiving.



He developed a formula, a routine, to keep him from being lost. Lost in so many ways and he followed it religiously, obsessively, because he hated being lost. Even if a little voice in the Darkness told him that he was lying to himself. He developed it slowly, over time, but he did not like to think about how long it had taken him. He was Draco Malfoy, Voldemort's right-hand man, Healer extraordinaire for the Death Eaters; he had a quick mind, a quicker tongue, and a penchant for getting out of trouble with judicious use of them and his magic. Not that they had helped him Then or now—in this Darkness that caressed and blanketed and whispered, whispered, whispered. He had put his formula, his routine, into action at his first opportunity, when he had found his bowl again. Eat as fast as you can because you never hear Potter coming, never know when he will appear; set the bowl down, three paces back and sit. Sit and wait. Wait and sit. A simple plan for a simple problem that was not so simple in his mind, in the Darkness.



Potter had been good at giving him meals.



In the beginning—when the little Rectangle of Light fell on his face with callous aplomb, reminding him of where he was and why. Reminding him of the person who had carelessly tossed him in this cell, this Cavern of Solitude, after little fanfare or ceremony. Except that of scaring the fuck out of him in the corridor preceding, showing him that he had thrown his bid in with the wrong lot. He shudders and moans and rocks a little, trying to ignore the cruel whispers of the Darkness. The whispers that grew louder every passing day until they are not really whispers at all, but he still likes to think of them as such because he is not getting stir-crazy. He is not. Malfoys never lose their sanity, no matter what happens to them. But he is lost—the Darkness says so and he wonders if it is the same thing. He did not need the little Rectangle of Light to remind him of Potter, thus reminding him of the corridor incident, and thus that he had not followed the most powerful wizard because he knew there was only ever one and he had clearly chosen wrongly.



Of course, he had reached such a conclusion long before he had reached this impasse, this waiting game. He had known the First Time—that mind-boggling, gob-smacking First Time. He moans again, louder, desperately, and a hand finds its way to his lower right arm, covering, gripping, shielding, a mark that has long since disappeared. It burns and flickers and laughs at him still, though; the jaw of the skull dropping, up and down, to and fro, the head of the snake bobbing, up and down, to and fro, tongue flickering, hissing, touching and tasting his fear, forcing him deeper into the Darkness. The equalizing Darkness, the comforting Darkness—his Mother and his Father, his companion and enemy, his light in the dark of its Darkness. In it, he is Draco. Just Draco. He is not the son of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, he is not a Death Eater, he is not a Healer. Just Draco—poor, starved, neglected Draco and that is what he has always wanted to be. Without the poor, starving, and neglected parts. A chuff of laughter escapes him, surprises him into silence and he whimpers, wishing he had not scared himself, wishing for that laughter to come back because he did not know he was still capable of it.



Potter had been good at giving him meals.



In the beginning—when that Rectangle of Light made an appearance thrice daily, upsetting his descent into the arms of the Darkness and drawing him back into reality. Back into the shake of his fingers, hands, arms; back into the pulsing, throbbing, aching pain in his back, his neck, his chest. Potter was always on time and always gave him five minutes to eat because he counted the minutes, the seconds, that made each one up. A week and another went by, although he could not be completely sure of that amount—time had gotten to be rather vague in his mind at that point. He began to notice that Potter was coming late—only by virtue that his stomach would often rumble and grumble for an extended length of time. Until the Darkness grew frustrated with him and demanded he shut it up. Of course, that was the beginning. The Darkness had been the barest of whispers, a mere exhalation against his mind, and had been easy to ignore. The meals came less frequently then. No longer thrice, but twice. Soon only once. Soon back up to thrice—a week.



He likes to imagine he is back at Hogwarts now.



In the beginning—when he was struggling to come to terms with the dramatic downward turn his life had taken—he tried to pigeonhole the reasoning, tried to pin it down, and dissect everything that had and could happen. Now, now, now, he is starting to get sick of his over-analysation. There is nothing it can do to get him out or to turn back the clock, and so now, now, now he likes to indulge in a few ruminations about what he would be doing at Hogwarts if he was back in his seventh year, back in his innocence and cowardice. Cowardice is still here. Yes, it is—lurking in the shadows of his mind, underlining the whispers of the Darkness, giving them an impossible strength that terrifies him. That makes him wonder what is going on in his mind, why he is having thoughts like this, because he does not remember having such thoughts before, but he is not sure, is never sure. And he whines and sobs and wraps his arms around himself tighter, tighter, until he has difficulty breathing and it seems as if his ribs are ripping through his fragile skin, imprinting themselves on his arms and a sobbing giggle escapes him. He will have another Mark—more marks—more marks—everywhere and nowhere and his giggles are becoming hysterical and so he cruelly cuts them off. He does not want to sound insane if Potter should come back. If he should come back!



He likes to imagine he is back at Hogwarts now.



In the beginning—when he first started creating these pictures, these diversions, these escapes, they were not detailed enough to satisfy him. He did not know that at the time. He thought they were sufficient because they did what he thought they were supposed to. He was naïve. They never could—



He yelps and throws his arms up in front of his face. The Light, the Rectangle of Light, is back and the Darkness is hissing and spitting and sneering and he is surprised. It is too early for his next meal, he thinks, thinks, and the sound of metal upon metal makes him wince. Why is the door opening, why is there a shadow, a monstrous black hole that threatens to suck him in? He moans and whimpers as the Rectangle of Light grows and grows until it floods, overwhelms, and suffocates him. His eyes are burning and tearing despite the closed lids, despite the arms trying to block the Light that strikes at his mind like a knife, and he moans again, louder and more unrestrained, and he cannot handle it anymore, cannot stand it. The Darkness has stopped hissing, but now he can feel it withdraw from him, slowly rolling and slinking away from the Light, but he does not want it to leave him. Does not want to suffer alone in this agonizing, torturous Light and surely the Darkness would know how to escape from It? He scrabbles after the Darkness blindly, his eyes still closed and watering and the knife still stabbing, mutilating, destroy—



Abruptly, he cannot move. Is frozen in time. The Darkness is leaving! Doing so without hesitation, a backward glance, and he struggles to follow it, but something is weighing him—his ankle, his ankle is his chain! He growls and snarls, thrashing his legs around, but it is a persistent, unbreakable weight, and so he whirls back around at it and—



Swimming green eyes of the darkest colour, almost lost in the shadow of the Light, familiar in some unplaced, unspecified way, but they are there and they draw him in, deeper and deeper, the weight of his ankle forgotten. His chest is heaving, exerting, he realises, and he can feel his paper-thin skin easily sliding over his ribs, sweat cascading down in rivulets over the hills, the mountains of his bone.



Swimming green eyes of the darkest colour, almost lost in the shadow of the Light, propel him into his own mind and the Darkness … the Darkness is back and he shudders with relief. He does not realise he is crying until a salty moisture stealthily invades his mouth. The brine is intoxicating and the hunger that is always a dull, cloying ache near his stomach rises like a tidal wave and sweeps him under. He finds himself licking frantically at his lips, the area around them, and he needs more, more, he is so hungry—why, why?—for something, always unattainable. He gathers what he can on his tongue and when he cannot taste the bitterness anymore, he becomes desperate—always desperate—because his hunger has not been satisfied—will never go away. He tries to move his hand up to swipe at the unreachable tracks on his cheeks, or perhaps the rivers running down his no longer heaving ribs, but something prevents this. He whimpers, whines, eyelids fluttering down and more tears welling up behind them, struggling against whatever holds him so still, and is it the chain that was clamped onto his ankle or—?



The sudden expanse of ice across his back makes him gasp, his eyes flying open, and the swimming green eyes of the darkest colour are there, waiting. He arches, away from the coldness, trying to save himself because even now the Darkness is beginning to shrink, but he is met with something impenetrable, something warm and strong and secure. It has been a long time since he has felt any of those, barely remembers what they are like. He is surprised, caught in the middle of fire and ice, and he does not know which to go into, which to give himself up to. The ice has become familiar, always accompanies the Darkness, wraps itself around him until he becomes numb to anything, everything, except the Darkness and his existence in the present. The fire is unfamiliar, new and frightening, and it has come with the Light, once craved but now threatening, burning away the Darkness, burning away the ice, and promising continued strength and security. The Darkness never offered that—the future is uncontrollable, unknown—but yes, yes, the fire and the heat and the swimming green eyes of the darkest colour do, they assure him that it will go on forever, for as long as he lives, and he remembers his hope.



His hope that he had forgotten about—when had he last seen it, held on to it?—and thought was lost, but he is surprised once more because the heated wall is moving in front of him, pushing itself closer and closer until he is forced against the coldness he has been trying to avoid. The ice is dull in his mind however, incomparable to the flickering, towering fire in front of him, overwhelming, drowning, and suffocating him in the most delicious of ways. The ice, the Darkness, is slipping away and he thinks he would mourn their loss, their familiarity and companionship—his Mother and Father, his light in the dark of its Darkness—if he was not lost in the fire. Lost like the Darkness had said he was, but if this was what being lost meant, he would gladly forget himself and bask in this wildfire. This wildfire that has burned away the last trappings of ice and there, there, is his hope, his beacon of light, delicately wavering in the wind and whirl of his mind and oh gods, oh gods—



He crumples into himself, his sobs, his cries, louder and more powerful than they have ever been—even In The Beginning—and they shake his body violently but he is glad because that means he has survived, is alive, and now that the fire illuminates this Darkness, he can see how close he came to dropping over the abyss, walking over the side without realising it, never realising it because he could not see in the darkness—was blind and naïve and alone.



He is not alone anymore. He is not blind or naïve. He is alive and he has his heat, his towering inferno with swimming green eyes of the darkest colour that promise to never let him go, never, never.



He feels the hair around his temple stir, tremble in the warm wind of his wildfire, and then the gentlest caress of silken satin, warm and pulsating, against his forehead. A blanket of security, of heat and inferno and passion, slips down the shivering length of his back, bumping and gliding over the ridges of his bone, over the bony protrudent knobs of his spine. He shakes and he quakes and he whines and whimpers and sobs and another blanket covers the underside of his jaw and morphs into a hand, alive and flowing, and tilting his bowed head up to the heavens.



Swimming green eyes of the darkest colour are his salvation, his sanity, his hope.