Darkness Inside by Into The Depths

He hated the darkness and how it reminded him of his cupboard, how hunger always took over his instincts and sent him scratching at the cupboard door. How he cried after the first time he wet his cot because they forgot to let him out and Aunt Petunia scowled and told him to wash himself and his clothes. He was relieved that his Aunt didn’t make a fuss about it, especially since Dudley seemed to send his PJs in the washer every week. But as the day past on his uncle came home, things changed and he remembered getting yelled at, screamed at because of something they did, not him. It took him a while after that to stop crying after he went into that small room and huddled within himself. They gave him a yellow tub, just in case.

And as he sat on the hospital wing bed, feeling the cool metal bars holding it up, he would remember those bad things, terrible things.

Things unrelated would remind him. The sound of Draco’s cool collected voice would send him back to when Lucius had been taunting him while those needles went in his eyes. The bars told of when Death Eaters sat around and watched at he started to burn to death at Voldemort’s hands and that nothing would help him anymore. Loneliness sometimes overtook him so strongly that the boy that he had always thought to have been a Death Eater grew accustomed to the look on his face and always droned on about things until Severus came. Severus, it always seemed, knew exactly what to do. Sometimes he barely touched Harry, brushing his fingers against the teen’s hand and talking about inane things, the weather and such. Those times were the times that he relived abuse and flinched when someone got to close and hated people being too close.

He would be transported back to the cupboard with no light or the endless nights in his room things about Cedric or Sirius. Other times he would be developed into a big hug and he would talk endlessly about Samhain and the pain that he felt all the time. That darkness was safe and warm, the feel of wool and his guardian’s arms wrapped around him for what could have been hours.

Soon darkness didn’t seem so dark and the eye elixir started to work. Black soon turned into talks with Draco about racing brooms and girls at night when they couldn’t sleep. It was of his father’s robes and how his eyes no longer held coldness but the feeling that he was safe and home. The thought of going back to the cupboard and of needles hurt, but held distant memories. Nightmares remained but they weren’t foreboding and didn’t keep him up at night, dreading their arrival.

Darkness stayed inside him with barely lit hallways and locked doors of his mind. Deep, dark, forbidding magic swirled around him and as much as he tried to fight it, it still wrapped around him like mother’s hug. His father said it wasn’t bad, keeping this magic, and it wasn’t like killing someone. Draco said it was like the scars he received from the Dursley’s, keeping him from being innocent but from twisting into something evil as well. Some things, like memories and magic, were best left unsaid.