Asylum

A special thanks to my beta, Saeadame.

Asylum

Chapter 3

A select group of the Order of the Phoenix stood in front of Laraul-Creak Institute for the Insane and stared in shock at the name. Well, everyone except Albus Dumbledore, Remus Lupin, and Hermione Granger.

"I thought you said he was in a hospital!" Sirius bit out at the old headmaster.

"He is, just not the kind of hospital you assumed it would be." For once there was no twinkle in the old man's eyes, just a deep sadness.

Sirius then turned to Remus, his best friend. "You were the one in charge of finding him, why didn't you tell me?" Sirius looked both furious and slightly hurt that his best friend didn't warn him.

Remus gave Sirius a sympathetic look. "I didn't know how to tell you." He whispered.

"How touching." Severus sneered. "Now I don't know about you, but I would like to get out of the presence of muggles as fast as possible." He then turned his dark onyx eyes on the headmaster. "Can we go in now before the doctors get confused a think Black here needs to be admitted."

Sirius scrunched up his face. "What's a doctor?"

Severus sneered as Remus rolled his eyes.

Since no one else seemed inclined to inform Sirius of what a doctor was Hermione took it upon herself to educate the wizard. "A doctor is a muggle healer."

"Then why don't they just call them healers? It makes more sense than a doctor." Sirius said.

"I knew you should have taken muggle studies Sirius, and now that you haven't you seem like an idiot. Now save your questions until we are out of the muggle world unless the doctors do think you are crazy like Severus said." Remus said, in a moment of exasperation at his friend.

Sirius held up his hands in mock surrender. "Fine, fine. I know when to shut up."

He lasted a whole 30 seconds.

"So Snapey…when you planning on washing your hair. It looks greaser than ever!"

Severus was about to retort when he was interrupted.

"Gentlemen, we are at the doors to the hospital, would you please quite yourselves. Remember that this is a place of healing." The headmasters voice rang out and both men kept quite.

The group of people entered to a very comfortable looking waiting room with an entrance desk to sign in and out visitors.

"Can I help you?" a friendly looking girl who looked no older than 20 asked from the desk.

Albus Dumbledore smiled; looking like a normal everyday muggle except for his long beard, which he put under an illusion to look much shorter. In fact, everyone looked rather normal for a pack of wizards, half of which had no idea of what muggles wear. Those who have at least some muggle background or took muggle studies obviously helped them all.

"Yes, my dear. We were told you have a patient here. Harry Potter, he's 17."

They all noticed the girls eyes widen in surprise before she nodded. "Yes, of course. Um, let me just call his doctor and see if Harry is allowed visitors." The girl picked up the telephone and paged the doctor to the waiting room.

Arthur had a huge grin on his face and whispered conspiratorially to the person standing next to him, who just happened to be Hermione. "Wow, they really do use those felly- tones."

Hermione just rolled her eyes in response, not even bothering to correct the man.

"He'll be here momentarily. If you could all sign your names in this book before the doctor comes in." She handed them the book and a pen, though her smile turned to a frown as a few people tried to write with the pen upside down or merely stared at it like it would bite them. Some of these people were just as cracked as the patients she sees everyday.

Then a man in a short white jacket entered the room. "You paged me, Sophie."

The girl, Sophie, sat up straighter and fluttered her eyelashes in an obvious attempted to look seductive.

"Yes, Dr. Trevoli. These people are here to see Harry Potter." Just like the girl his eyes widened in surprise.

What was so surprising about wanting to see Harry?

"Ah, how do you know Harry?" Dr. Trevoli asked, a little confused why these people would want to see him, after all, no one has come to see the boy before.

"He's my godson." Sirius spoke up. Surprising everyone with his--well serious voice.

The doctor raised an eyebrow. "If you are Harry Potter's godfather then I'll need to see some paperwork as proof. We can't just let anyone come see him."

Once again he surprised everyone by pulling out a few files, stating he is who he says he is. Who just walks around with evidence that they are someone's godfather?

The man's other eyebrow raised to join the first in surprise before an angered expression appeared on his face. "And why did you choose to show up now to show up? Where have you been for the past 8 years, hell where have you been for the last 16 when the boy was left with his relatives instead of his godfather?"

Here Sirius looked nervous. "Prison."

Severus snorted at the look on the doctor's face.

The man handed Sirius his paperwork back before turning to leave through the door he came from. "We don't allow convicts to see our patients, none this less grant custody to them."

"WAIT." Sirius shouted before running to the man by the door and thrusting another small stack of papers into his hand. "I was in prison, but it was a mistake. They pardoned me, they found proof that I didn't do it."

All the man had to do was read the man's name on the papers to know that he was telling the truth. He remembered the scandal that happened 4 years ago. The man was said to have murdered two people, only to have them find the real killer. He had spent so many years in prison for a crime he didn't even commit.

The doctor's face softened as he looked at the man and then at the rest of the group. "And who are you all?" He asked in a calmer tone.

Albus's eyes twinkled. "Oh, just friends of the family."

The doctor heard a soft snort from the tall, pale man all dressed in black. If Dr. Trevoli believed in such things, he would think the man was some sort of vampire.

"I see, well come along and stick close. Can't have you wondering around scaring my patients, or perhaps they'll scare you. Either way, I don't need you getting lost. Follow me." And then the doctor was out the door.

They all followed the doctor and noticed the patients suffered from slightly different conditions than the wizarding world. They walked past a man being restrained by two bulkier men with another doctor in a white jacket trying to calm him down.

"Mr. Leonard, you need to take your medicine so you can calm down and act like an adult."

Tears were running down the restrained man's face. They all almost felt sorry for him. "I DON'T WANNA!!!" He screamed in a childish voice, despite the fact the man had graying hair and wrinkles.

They passed by another woman this time not in a white jacket, who seemed to be looking for someone. "Oh, Dr. Trevoli." She said in a relieved voice. "Have you seen Henry, I can't seem to find him anywhere." The woman said in a desperate voice.

"No, Eva I have not seen Henry. Where was the last place you saw him?" He asked in his professional voice.

She pointed. "Over by the co-ouch." She paused slightly when she looked over at the couch to see a brown teddy bear on it. "Henry. There you are! You had me so worried." The woman walked over the teddy bear and cuddled it to her chest before holding it at arms length. She waggled one finger at the bear. "You know better than to run off on me. I've taught you better than that." She paused as if expecting an answer. "I don't care if you don't want to eat your vegetables. They are good for you and you will eat them anyway."

After seeing this Remus cleared his throat. "Is it…safe to be letting all these patients walk around freely."

The doctor waved his hand. "Most of them aren't dangerous. The ones that are more disturbed are usually locked in their rooms or have constant supervision at all times."
It was time for Sirius to find out about his godson. "What about Harry? What exactly happened to him? Why is he here? Is he okay? How long has he been here? Why-"

He was cut off by the doctor. "One question at a time, Mr. Black." He said in a commanding voice. The doctor sighed. "I'm assuming the reason you are here is to seek Harry's custody as is your right as his godfather?"

Sirius nodded.

"The courts in Harry's case decided that he was to stay here until the his doctor, that's me, decided he would no longer be a threat to society. That he could function properly with everyone else."

"He's been here for eight years now. No visitors. No cards. No nothing. He really is a good boy…most of the time." The doctor said rather sadly. The others looked at each other. Eight years? Was that why they couldn't find him? Because he was in this place?

This asylum?

"But why would the courts want him locked up? If he's been here for eight years that means he was only nine when he came here. What could a boy that age do to end up being sent here?" McGonagall asked, still confused about the situation.

The doctor sighed. "You must understand. When he was brought in he was in really bad shape. He had 4 cracked ribs, a broken jaw, nose, and hand. He was covered in cuts and bruises. The word 'freak' was burned into his lower back. I guess the abuse had been going on for quite some time and he finally just snapped. One day while his relatives were sleeping, he snuck into their bedroom and grabbed his uncle's shotgun from the closet. I heard it was a really gruesome scene by the time the police got there."

Sirius could swear he heard crickets, that at that moment not one person in the entire world made a sound. At least, until he heard the drawling voice behind him.

"A Potter gone mental, why is that not surprising." Severus Snape drawled.

"Shut up, Snape." Sirius gritted out, unable to think of anything to retort to Snape in his anger.

"Nice come back there, Black. Your wit astounds me." Severus smirked. He so loved riling Black up.

"Boys, enough." They both looked away at Dumbledore's admonishment. They were acting like kids after all.

Suddenly a thought struck Sirius. "Um, Dr. Trevoli?"

"Yes, Mr. Black.?"

"Was he…I mean, you said he was abused…" Sirius hesitated.

"Great deduction there, Black. The man only said it in plain English." Severus snapped, sometimes Black could be a bigger dunderhead than his first year students.

Sirius didn't even retort, his question was too important.

"What I mean is…well did he do…um…other things to him too?" He didn't want to outright say it.

Dr. Trevoli's eyes lit up in recognition. "No, no. He was never sexually abused in that house."

Sirius let out a breath of relief, tension draining from his body. "Thank, Merlin."

"From what Harry has told me, the Dursley's considered him as some type of freak. Vernon Dursley would never want himself to be tainted by something he considered abnormal. The thought of touching "the freak" that way would have probably have caused the man a heart attack.

"Though, Harry did have a bit of a relapse when he was 14. He seemed to become crazed, like when he first came here when he was 9. He began to lash out for what we thought was no reason at all." His eyes flared with anger at the memory.

"This went on for a month until we found out why. We had a new psychologist in and Harry was one of his new patients. We often let new psychologist have some one on one sessions with the patients to see if any will open up to them. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. We always tape Harry's sessions since he is so hard to figure out, and one day I decided to look at his sessions with the new psychologist." Here Dr. Trivoli's jaw tightened.

"Apparently Harry's irrational anger wasn't so irrational at all. The psychologist apparently had a thing for young boys, and Harry was the youngest person here at that time."

"He didn't." Sirius practically growled. Even Snape looked livid. The man had been put in a position to help people, to help a young boy, and he had abused that position in the worst way possible.

Trevoli sighed. "He tried." Here he smirked. "Harry's too strong a person to let someone take advantage of him in such a way. Harry often swung at the man until he backed off. I believe he only really got to him once. He made the mistake of sticking his tongue in Harry's mouth. He didn't like that so he bit it as hard as he could." The doctor gave a sadistic smile.

"I had wondered what had happened when the man had to take a week off and came back with his mouth and tongue swollen and had a hard time speaking. It was shortly after that incident that I watched the tapes."

"So he didn't…" Sirius trailed off.

"No, Harry never gave him a chance. That 'kiss' was as far as he ever got." He then looked up at a sliding door in a comfortable looking common room. "Ah, we're here. I believe Harry is outside in the courtyard."


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A/N: *coughsnifflecough* I feel like crap. I couldn’t even get out of bed without getting dizzy or getting sick yesterday. I’m slightly better today, but I still feel like crap. Had to call off work and everything.

Next chapter has Harry.

Thanks to all my reviewers!!! They are all appreciated.

Andrea: You never got an update email because you never left your e-mail address for me to send you the update.

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