10 Year old Harry Potter is diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. Haunted with visions of magic, and tormented by the cruel voice known to him only as, "Tom", his life is turned upside down when on Christmas night, he meets a boy named Draco, who claims to be a wizard.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. I wonder if these things are necessary, or if we all simply do it because everybody else does?

A/N: Hello everybody, and welcome to my story! This is only my second attempt at writing FanFiction, so please be gentle. This story is a long one, and will follow Harry throughout all 7 years. There may be suggestive scenes if you squint, but this story is NOT slash.

Psychosis

PROLOGUE

Laughter.

High pitched, swirling laughter flittered into the room. The laughs were happy, carefree, and simply everything that, that lone room, and it's sole inhabitant, were not. There was no bed. Patient 403 stood at a heavy risk for falls, after all. The mattress lay on the floor, underneath the brick-sized window. Laura White fought to hold back a shiver.

"Hello. My name is Laura, and I will be your nurse for today."

Patient 403 showed no signs of acknowledgement. Mentally, Laura chastised herself for referring to her patients as mere numbers. It was difficult not to, after all, for the sheer quantity of them. New, washed out faces came and went out of Holy Name Psychiatric Asylum on a daily basis. Some of them were rehabilitated, others transferred. The names, individuals, and faces eventually blurred into one vague identity: the patient. The Patients were not like normal people, and were best when kept at a distance.

"How are you doing this morning, Mr. potter?" she conversed, approaching the huddled figure slowly. He didn't respond. "Can you tell me your name, and date of birth?"

He made no move to answer. As the silence stretched on for nearly a minute, Laura sighed in exasperation. Perhaps he was ignoring her? Indeed, Patient 403 was only a child. A thin, scraggly haired, pathetic little thing. It was unfortunate - such a young life, over before it truly commenced. Laura glanced down at the boy's information on her clipboard. He had been admitted here for just under six years. They never rehabilitated after that long.

"Mr. Potter?" she asked, softly. "I'm here to deliver your morning care. I'm going to help you get washed up, and ready for breakfast."

Jerkily, the boy shook his head in silent refusal. It seemed that he could hear her, after all.

"Come on," Laura reached over. "Let's get you changed."

The shaking of his head intensified. Ignoring this, the young nurse laid her hand on the boy's shoulder. His sharp collarbones could be felt through his hoodie. She glanced around. Had this boy been eating? The small room was barren of any forms of food.

"Go.. go, go away," Harry Potter muttered in a withered voice. The boy's small hands twitched spastically around his neck.

"Mr. Potter? You seem distressed," Laura followed protocol. "What's bothering you?"

The boy merely continued to shake his head; a disturbing, fast motion. Despite the movement, however, his black hair hardly moved at all. The tangled mess remained glued to his head like a helmet. From underneath his bangs, a choked sob reached her ears. The situation was slowly deteriorating out of control, and she got the urge to simply walk away.

"Mr. Potter?"

This time, when she spoke, the boy looked up. Laura felt the saliva pile up in her mouth. Visibly, she swallowed, while subconsciously pulling her hand away. His eyes were a pale, ghostly, and rare shade of green. They stared back at her in such intense misery that Laura felt a tingle of unease crawl down her spine. It was an expression that did not belong on the face of one so young.

She did not know how to respond. Her hand was hanging between them rather stupidly.

The boy's lips were drier than anything she'd ever seen before; chunks of dead, peeled skin, cracked their pale surface. Worse than that, though, was the clawing. What Laura had before believed to be a mere twitch was in fact self mutilation. Methodically, Potter hacked away at the delicate skin of his neck with those overgrown, jagged nails of his.

"Get out," he repeated.

Laura stole glances back at the door. Her first priority was to stop the scratching.

Laura placed her hands around the boy's bony wrists, ignoring his dismissal. His skin was like that of a fish: wet, clammy, and somewhat unpleasant to touch. Patient 403 hardly had the time to react before Laura was firmly pulling the appendages away. Immediately, the smell of copper slapped her in the face. She fought back a grimace.

Jagged, silvery lines crossed over the boy's skin like the scratches a butcher knife might leave on a cutting board. Some of the scars stood thin, while others were thick, red, and angry, all covering his small neck. The blood smeared over it all looked almost grotesque. Letting his hands go, Laura reached for a disinfectant wipe.

"I'm going to clean this-"

Suddenly there was a strong, vice-like grip around the young nurse's neck. The sheer force of it sent her tumbling back; her head hit the tiled ground with a resounding crack. The creepy boy dug his icy, pale little fingers into his neck, and stared down at her through the curtain of his hair.

"I- I told you to leave," he muttered frantically. "You wouldn't just go away. Tom, I'll do it now. I'll make her go away."

Laura tried in vain to get up. An invisible force greater than her, greater than him, seemed to root her to that spot, choking her. Her body could not move an inch. A perverse sort of a dread burst into existence as the young woman gasped for air in agony.

"I'm sorry.. I'm sorry... it's ok now..."

Around her the world faded to black, and soon enough, Laura White was no more.

Under the buzzing white light of that small, cuboidal room, Harry Potter stared down at her mangled body, while cold tears slid down his cheeks.

.

PSYCHOSIS