Disclaimer: Hogwarts etc. belongs to JKR.
How long he's been running for is irrelevant.
How far and where to, likewise.
For an eternity it revolved around what from, but now, now he tells himself he's moved on.
"Sir, you are going to have to tell us what happened to you."
Some days he'd think about a dark tower on an even darker night, a dark deed with darker yet consequences. He'd remember the exact moment when green faded to black, complete and suffocating when all possible light hid from him. (They left him alone.)
"Tell me, Sir," it grates like mockery but she is too genuine to know anything of the truth, "Please, tell us, this Harry Potter, what is he going to do?"
Some days he'd feel the same regret, the same shame and fear that drove him to leave everything he knew, and he'd leave again, buy a new 'house', another muggle hut and transform it into something like home but not close enough to cause pain. On days like those he'd think of them. Not the ones who keep him now. Not the ones who chased him, or even the ones he feared. No. He thought of the only people left who could help him (in all the world, the only people with the will and reason to say no).
"What do you mean? Sir, please tell us, who are these 'Granger' and 'Weasley'? What do you mean by the word 'muggle'? We're not going to hurt you, we're here to help."
"You never run! You stand and fight!" Who said it? Not important. But with this one phrase he likes to think he can overthrow the whole concept of Gryffindor heroism. The real question: What do you do when the ones you run from are not the ones you're fighting? What happens when you're running from your future, from yourself? When you're told you're not a bad person but you have no way of being anything else… What has he left'? But that question hurts more than the others so he casts it aside hoping it will go away with time (because everything has a time and place to die. Even the past).
"Sir, you say you've lost something, what is it you've lost?… No. We didn't steal anything….Sir, don't get aggressive or I'll be forced to call security… Sir, we don't have anything of yours…What wand?"
There is too much guilt. He thinks of before and imagines Granger accusing him of heartlessness, and Weaslette telling him to leave off Potter and go find a newborn puppy to kick. Then he thinks of their faces were they to see him now. (There is too much shame, too.) "You want me to fear you? Is that it? Well, I'm sorry, Malfoy, but I can't. You're nothing but a petty bully chasing after your father's shadow. You say you'll kill me, but even you are human and a coward at that. Killing isn't for cowards, Malfoy, you think you could cast that spell on resentment alone? You don't have the strength to hate that much." ("You don't know me, Granger.") He's beginning to wonder if she knew him better than he knew himself… but that's absurd. They never spoke, she just observed what everyone from his father to Dumbledore already knew. Weakness. He was saturated in it. "It takes a weak man to run." (Oh yeah, Snape? Well, you're not strong enough to stop me.)
Bleep. Bleep. Bleep. He wonders sometimes if it's a muggle brand of torture. The woman, the one that makes him think of Granger with her oblivious drive to help what she does not understand, tells him these machines will help them help him. He doesn't think she's lying anymore, just that she's more ignorant than she's willing to admit.
"Sir, please hold still, it's just a simple sedative, you'll be conscious, just sleepy… I can't connect you to the computer unless I give you this… I'm not going to hurt you." ("Like you could, muggle.")
He lies on his bed now. Staring at the white washed ceiling (it stops him looking at the concrete walls). They're outside with clipboards and they think he can't see them, but he can, even if it's only in his mind he can see them. Dissecting his sleep induced mutterings, analysing every breath he takes. They sedate him and scan him and the tests reveal nothing, but it was long ago he stopped telling them there was nothing wrong, that they were filth and didn't have the right to understand. That he knew magic and if they hadn't stolen his wand he'd be able to show them what it meant to be a wizard, show them what he'd been trained to do all his life. ("Come near me and I'll fucking hurt you, muggle.")
Down the hall two figures face each other. One is tall with greying hair and a sad, sharp expression; the other is young, pretty and pale with dark brown eyes.
"What should we do?" Asks the woman.
"What can we do? His complex is not unique, there are enough cases dating back decades, centuries even, to almost justify the existence of this 'secret world' he thinks he comes from. That many cases of people convinced they've stumbled into the realm of 'muggles' and not a single one has stayed alive long enough to prove a thing. 93.6 percent suicide rate. We could keep him in a padded cell but if he's the same as the others before him he could rupture his brain with thought and meditation alone."
"But what about Harry Potter? This Dark Lord? You saw his tattoo."
"Dr Grey, a tattoo is a tattoo and Harry Potter is a figment of a confused man's mind. You heard what his neighbour said, four years is a very long time to never leave the four walls of your house."
"But this Dark Lord. That's… not consistent with the other records."
"Look, maybe he just had a little too much Lord of the Rings as a child? He's not a wizard, the test prove he doesn't have schizophrenia, multiple personality disorder or, in fact, anything we've ever heard of. He's a medical mystery and as scientists we have a duty to help try and solve it."
"But we can't sell him out!"
"Dr Grey, we don't have the funds to keep him here…"
"They'll use him in experimentation! He's a human being, not a lab rat!"
"He'll help their research! Scientific progress! A breakthrough could save lives. He's a sacrifice necessary to our work."
"He's not a sacrifice we're eligible to make. That man is not insane, his un-acclimatised. The tests have proven nothing. Your 'surgery' has proven nothing! The fact that he calls us 'muggles' and demands to be called 'sir' does not merit an international research expedition into the inner workings of his mind!"
"He thinks he's a wizard."
"He's been alone long enough to think a lot of things. I think the only thing we can do is keep trying. If we unravel enough of his past we may be able to find the cause. All we need is what he's running from."
"You've got a month, Isabelle. But I can't give you any longer than that."
"I know," the woman replies quietly. "Thank you."
He asked where he was once and knew from the moment the words left his mouth it was a mistake. ("Don't ask when you're not ready for the answer, boy." ("But I am ready.") His father was right.) The muggle girl, the one like Granger with the sad smile and who tried to act regretful enough for the both of them, had told him that they'd had him handed over by the police, that he'd killed a man without leaving a mark on him, that he was wanted for murder and it had been her job to prove his insanity or he'd be imprisoned… But then she hung her head, as he watched in horror, desperately trying to work out which death they'd caught him for and how they managed to disarm him of his wand. She whispered almost to his feet as she stood the other side of the glass wall:
"I can't prove a thing. You're not insane but we suspect you have dangerous abilities… My colleague has contacts in a research team specialising in advanced neuro-gateways… I have to the end of the month to prove you're nothing special or dangerous or you'll be handed either to the court or the scientists… I'm trying… But you won't even tell me your name."
Don't ask if you're not ready for the answer. He watched her tears in a black bubble of numbness.
"I hate to say this, it goes against everything I've ever learnt, but I've spent more time with you over the past month than anyone else…and I think I'm beginning to believe what you say about 'magic'… You… you didn't shatter the window in your last room by force, you'd be cut to ribbons. The tests we got back, the ones focusing on one part of your brain showed nothing at all and yet, there was activity in a section that's never been recorded before… I could be possible. The existence of magic." She's talking almost to herself now. " It could just be another aspect of the human mind we're yet to come close to revealing." She looks up now, eyes brimming and a hint of fear shining through. "That's what got Dr Thompson so intrigued.
"No discoveries I make will get you out of here anymore. The test results we have are enough to have every neuro-scientist on the planet circling like vultures.
"Is there no one I can contact? Anyone, just a name and I'll do everything I can. This world you speak of, is there no one who will help you? Family, friends, schoolmates from this Hogwarts? Please. I don't want to watch them take you away, I've seen the products of their experiments… you may have killed but no one deserves that. It's a fate worse than death… I'll do whatever I can but I'll need your help."
Pleading eyes. "Please."
He shudders and shakes his head. There is no one. "Not a soul would listen…" he rasps,"you'd be dead before they heard you out…" He doesn't know why he says this, but something in him is relishing the chance to talk to someone (she looks so like Granger it's almost possible to consider her a witch… dirty blooded but human). "Anyone with any interest in me is on the loosing side of a war. They hate your kind and everything you represent."
Eyes light up, bright and eager. "A war. Is that what you run from? And Harry Potter? Is he the enemy?"
"He's the saviour, and I hate him more than you can imagine."
"Would he help you?"
A disgusted face and he sneers, "You know… I think he probably would. I wouldn't deserve it but he believes in second chances."
"Could I contact him?" She's trying so hard to find a hope.
"The Prophet said he rarely visits the muggle world anymore. That would be near impossible."
"I could try."
"Don't."
"But-"
He feels anger building in his hopelessness and in the rage that clouds his vision he sees her face warped. In the glare of the strip lighting on glass he sees the reflections of ghosts. Tears and he spins to face the shadow of Hermione Granger… "Get out of my face, Mudblood! I don't need your pity."
He falls to his knees and from outside the pale woman watches in numb pity. He's said it so many times she thinks the mudblood is Hermione Granger… he often accuses her of being a 'filthy muggle half-breed' in his sleep. Dark eyes hardening, Dr Grey steps back. She will find this Hermione Granger; from what she's heard in the blond man's drugged hallucinations this girl, or woman as she will be now, is a 'witch' who bridges the gap between the real world and the one within the prisoner-patient's head.
"Find Hermione Granger and I find the cause…" She mutters to herself. A final glance at the huddled from through the glass and she pages a nurse to give him another tranquilliser dosage. "Find the cause and we might just save him." She turns her back and readies herself to leave.
AN: Thoughts? I'm unsure whether it would be best to continue or abandon, and I'm not sure if I was too vague here… Please give any feedback possible.