Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own any of these characters, not even Snape. Someday, I will, but today is not the day.
A/N: Any references to a ‘Him’ are referring to Lord Voldemort, and some questions you may have at first will be answered later in the story.
It has been seven years now. Two thousand, five hundred, and fifty-five days since my spirit died. I was only seventeen. I lost everything. I lost everything on one fateful day. And now look at what I have become. Now, I don’t even have a name to call myself by, because I cannot seem to remember the name my father bestowed upon me. These days, I am merely Prisoner #70017.
Now, as I lean back against the familiar mossy green wall that encloses me in my tiny cell, the day I lost everything slips quietly into my mind again, as it often does these days.
***
I stood before the smoking ruins of what I had once called home. A skull with a snake curling out of its mouth hung in the sky. The Dark Mark. His symbol. It was his followers who had burned down the manor in which I had lived.
I walked a few steps on the blackened ground, my tattered school robes dragging behind me, catching ash and dust in their tattered seams. It had been days since I had eaten, ages since I had smiled, and a lifetime since I had been free. My jaw hardened at the sight of the family heirlooms lying about in complete disarray, broken and melted. It is strange to think that I do not even remember my family’s name.
A pale, greasy haired man walked up behind me. I turned back, and glared at him. He had killed the man that I was supposed to kill, and he had forced me to run away. He was my father’s old friend, my old teacher and Albus Dumbledore’s murderer. Severus Snape.
I did not look at him. Tears were beginning to fill my eyes, and I dared not to show any weakness; I had shown enough today. The same weakness had prevented me from killing Dumbledore, His greatest enemy. I saw a smoke-covered human foot sticking out of a pile of wreckage. I ran to the spot, and with all the strength that a desperate seventeen year old could muster, pulled away the broken remains of what looked like my mother’s favorite bookcase, full of old family history volumes, with fine glass doors.
When I finally removed the last piece of charred wood away from her once beautiful face, I saw what my weakness had caused. My weakness, and failure to kill Albus Dumbledore, had caused Him to become very angry, and caused him to decide to punish me even further than what my own heart was causing me. I am sure that it was the Death Eaters who killed her, possibly even my own father who commanded them, on His orders.
Narcissa, my mother, lay wrapped in Snape’s cloak, at the base of the small grave that we had dug her. As soon as I had seen the terrible burns that covered her entire body, I knew it was too late. She had been struck with the Avada Kedavra curse, and then left alone in the burning building.
A handful of her favorite flowers, slightly burnt from the fire that had ravaged her garden as well as everything else, were clutched in my hands. I stood above her, looked down at her scarred face and I could feel my throat close up from the effort of restraining tears. I spoke to her, whispering, so that Snape could not hear. “I love you Mother. I will always love you. I will not fail you, and I will always remember you. I am sorry that I could not save you, and I’m sorry that I was too weak to prevent you from dying. I hope that someday you will forgive me.” I crushed the burnt flowers in my hands, then sprinkled the remains into the grave.
I stepped back, turning away from the meagre headstone, wiping silent tears from my eyes. Snape stepped forward. I only heard a few of the words that he said to her, but among them were sorry, forever, always, protect, and Draco. I do not remember who Draco is, or who he was. That memory is lost to me forever. But Snape knew. He looked back at me with as much pity as such an emotionless man could feel reflecting in his dark eyes.
I stared defiantly back at him. I knew that I must be strong, and that I must not give in to the weakness that was slowly eating away at me. He spoke my name, asked me to come with him, to fight against Him, and to join an ‘Order.’ I shook my head, my mouth frozen shut. I wanted to die, I wanted to leave the world that was tearing itself apart, and rest forever in peace.
Snape looked at me for a minute, then turned away and apparated. I do not know where he went, or if he is dead, or alive. All I know is that I collapsed on the dry ground, tears pouring from my eyes, my heart torn apart. Pity and self-hatred filled my soul, and ripped apart everything that I was. When I woke, I was lying on the floor of a well furnished room, with two men sitting in throne-like chairs, watching me intently.
One man was my father, a tall blonde with a regal air hanging about him, and the other was Him, pale and evil. My father spoke to me, angry that I had failed them. He yelled endlessly about family duty, and the sacrifice for failure at the hands of the Dark Lord.He was silent. He watched me, his red eyes glowing with anger, his hands slowly tightening on his chair. I sat up, my heart frozen in my chest. But He waved for my father to be silent, and slowly stood. I was truly afraid now, my eyes wide with fear.
“There is no repentance for failure. Failure to me is failure to what you believe in. Failure to your friends, failure to everybody, your father will now tell you your punishment.” With that, The Dark Lord left the room. I have not seen him since, thank God.
“You have failed me. You are no longer a Death Eater. You are no longer worthy to bear our family name. You are going into the prison, with all the other prisoners of war, and people who have failed me and the Dark Lord. You are not going to be coming out. EVER! And, now, to make sure that I never have to live with the fact that I have an unworthy son, I disown you. Obliviate!” Then my world dissolved away from me, first the edges of it, and last my father's face....cruel, and satisfied with what he had done. Finally, everything was black.
When I next woke, my silver blonde hair was shaved from my head, I could not remember my own name, and I was wearing the ugly orange garb of a prisoner. I was sitting on the bed of the very same prison cell that I have lived in for seven very long years.
***
But now, here I am. I am a prisoner in my mind, and in my surroundings. I have given up. Years have passed since I stopped screaming at the guards, some of whom were my old friends, and I have stopped trying to escape whenever they take us out to exercise and eat our pitiful meals.
I am Prisoner #70017.
I do not live, for I am not alive. I do not die, for I am not dead. I simply am. Every day, I stare at the bars in the door that prevents my escape. Every day, I wish that I had gone with Snape, gone to the ‘Order’, and escaped. I regret shaking my head, and letting him leave. Every day, I regret ever joining Him, and every day, I lose more and more of the boy that I was once. The faces of my guards, who I used to be able to recognize and name, have faded into a blur, my eyes clouding over in disregard and fatigue.
I am Prisoner #70017. No more than a number amongst many other numbers.
I do not know how long it has been since I saw the sun, and felt its warmth on my skin. I wonder what I look like now, what my name was, who I am. It is strange to think of how I used to care about what happened to me, and my standing in the world. I used to be a brat. I was the king of my castle, and I never let anyone forget that.
I stare at my hands, scarred from when I used to dig my long fingernails so hard into the palms that they bled. I stroke my finger across my cracked and dry lips, shrunken, because I hardly ever speak anymore. I seem to have lost the will to utter words, or is it simply because I cannot remember how?
I am Prisoner #70017. I have no other name.
Today is a special day. Today is one of the days when we get an extra special meal, instead of stale bread; we get stale bread with weevils. The supplies in His dungeon are apparently beginning to run low again, which happens very frequently. But, it has been time to walk and eat for over an hour now. Even my own thoughts sound sick and inhumane. I have changed much in seven years. It is sad to think that my life now revolves around the allotment of food we receive each day. But it is hard to remember what life was like before.
Confused, I stand up, and look out my tiny window. I can see the faces of other prisoners staring out their own windows, but the only one that looks even vaguely familiar is one with a faint stubble of red hair on his recently shaved head, more freckles than I would ever desire to count, and blue eyes, whose cell is across the tiny corridor from mine. My mind immediately registers him as a ‘Weasley.’
He is a new prisoner; they brought him in a few months ago, his voice is hoarse from screaming for days on end. He would scream bloody murder at the guards, cursing them with every curse that I have ever heard in my life, and some new ones. He would yell out apologies to people who were miles away, like Ginny, Potter, and Granger. But he has stopped. Our cell block finally has found peace again. But today, when there are no guards in sight, he looks directly at me and speaks again.
“So Malfoy, how long have you been in here?” He is addressing me, and the name Malfoy, said with much disdain, catches my attention, and sparks a memory in my mind, but that memory flashes away too fast to catch.
I try to speak, but realize that I truly cannot remember how. I try to say seven years, but all that comes out is a froglike croak. I clear my throat, and make an attempt to speak again. This time, I succeed. “I’ve been here seven years.”
My name is #70017. It may have once been Malfoy, but I can’t remember. I have been here for seven years.
This ‘Weasley’ is surprised. “Holy shit, Malfoy! That’s a hell’ve a long time!” He adds with a wicked grin, "You deserved it though, I mean, look who you were working for." This man has no idea of how many times I have thought of that. And, with bitter realization, I know that even if the Dark Lord hadn't sent me to prison, Dumbledore's old followers would have.
But, when he sees the deep hurt and pain that must be in my eyes, he softens slightly, “But you haven’t been participating in the Death Eater attacks in seven years, so I figured you were either dead…or elsewhere.”
At the sound of his voice, another memory peeps into my mind, with a fleeting glimpse of me, a young pale haired boy, laughing as a redhead throws up slugs, the same redhead that is now a man, staring me in the face. Then it flies away, and I’m brought back to my self-inflicted prison.
I nodded, thinking of how nice it was to talk to someone, even if they were once my enemy. “Yes, I’ve been here for years. I don’t even remember my own name. The Dark Lord sent me here to die. I failed Him.”
Weasley looked at me strangely. “You can’t remember your own name? That’s pretty sad. Do you remember my name?”
#70017. That is my name. I don’t know who Malfoy is. I am #70017.
“Your name is Weasley.” The other man looked at me hard; I saw tears beginning to form in his eyes. “Yes, my name is Weasley. Ron Weasley, one of the few Weasleys left! My parents, my younger sister, and two of my brothers were killed by your father and his muggle haters in a fire last year. They burned my entire house down!”
This story sounds oddly familiar, oh, yes, my house and family was burned too. Now I recognized him. Finally. He was Potter’s best friend. He used to be my enemy. But now, he was the only person I could consider a friend. I remembered that the Weasleys had many children. “Which brothers?”
“Charlie and George,” He took a deep breath, and then continued. “Fred was on a mission, Bill is in France with his wife, and Percy is still refusing to believe that we are his family.” Ron wiped his nose on the orange sleeve of the jacket, and looked back at me. “Have you ever lost someone?”
I thought about the people in my life that I had lost. Only one really mattered to me. “My mother died seven years ago.”
“I’m sorry, Malfoy. I knew a while ago that she was killed, by the Death Eaters. We’ve always wondered why.” He felt sorry for me. He felt sorry for me, when I had teased and insulted him all his life. It’s funny how things work out in the end.
“It is because I failed. I failed to kill Albus Dumbledore, and my mother died because of it. I cannot allow myself to be weak. Not again.” I turned away from the door, and laid down on the wooden cot that was my bed, remembering.
I remembered countless times where I had been insulted by the man in the cell across from me, and countless times when I had teased and insulted him. Words like ‘Weasley is Our King’, and names like ‘Hermione Granger’ skipped around my brain. It had been so unbelievably long since I had remembered things like this. It seems like ages since I had remembered things that had made me even slightly happy.
My name is Malfoy. Malfoy, prisoner #70017
“Malfoy? Talk to me again. I’m sorry I brought up your mother, it’s just…okay, and I’m sorry, all right? I’m sorry for everything I ever did to you when we were kids. Okay?” This was the offering of peace. This was the forgiveness that I thought would never come. I stood up again, and asked him the one question that was bouncing around in my head.
“What is my name?” But Ron didn’t answer, because at that same moment, four people dressed in Death Eater disguises stepped into our cell block. They pulled off their masks, and a flood of memories burst into my mind.
There was Granger, who I’d always considered ugly, but now looked beautiful, she was stronger and older, as if the pain and hardness of war had broken down the know-it-all I remember. Her hair was shorter, and pulled back into a ponytail, with thick bangs hanging over her lovely hazel eyes. It’s been so long since I’ve seen a halfway decent looking girl.
Then there was Ron’s brother: Fred, I think. He looked worn out, dark circles under his eyes. He looked aged, much older than he should be. It must have been hard to lose his twin brother, but I felt no pity. Losing a brother was nothing like what I had been through. Then again, he had lost two brothers, his parents, and his sister. Life is tough for His enemies, as I now know all too well. Fred Weasley had suffered almost as much as I had, it appeared. I too, probably looked aged beyond my twenty-four years, with dark circles under my eyes.
The tall, dark haired man was none other than Potter himself. He stood with bad posture, slouched, with a wan expression on his face. Years of fighting the Dark Lord must have been tiring, and as far as I could remember, Ginny Weasley was his girlfriend now dead...because of my own father. But again, there was no pity in my empty heart. This was the Boy Who Lived. This was the man I had wanted to be like all my life. But looking at him, with his long, shaggy hair, and sad green eyes, I was glad that I didn’t have to live up to a prophecy like he does.
Oh yes, I had heard of the prophecy. It isn’t hard to not hear of it, when your guards whisper it back and forth to each other, and the prisoners yelled it down the cell blocks, glimmers of hope shimmering in the very sound of their little-used voices.
And the fourth person I would have recognized even if he was blonde. Severus Snape, the man who had killed Albus Dumbledore. He looked exactly the same. They walked down the cell block, looking in at the people in the cells. It was Hermione who found Ron first. She began to cry, and stuck her hands through the bars, reaching out her hands to touch his. Was there something there other than friendship? I could see the flicker of non-friendship love flash in Ron’s eyes, but since Granger’s back was turned to me, I could not see if there was a similar flash in her eyes.
Potter stood back, ignoring the wide-eyed prisoner's excited whispers, and my own penetrating stare. Snape watched irritated as Hermione and Ron spoke in hushed voices. It was Fred Weasley who saw me first. At least, I think he saw me. “Good god! Harry, Hermione, I don’t believe it! They put the ferret in a cage after all.” The redhead pointed at me, a faint smirk tickling his lips, and they all turned. All their faces recognized me, and it was Granger who spoke first.
She looked at me, and the pity in her eyes was clear. I was a prisoner, the same as her friend. I saw no hatred for what I had done to her when we were younger, only the sad pity. I wanted to shut it out, I hate pity, it makes me feel small and weak. But pity from someone as lovely as she was now, or any feeling from her at all was a blessing. “Oh. My. Dear. God. Is it? No, it can’t be. Is it “ Draco Malfoy?”
My name isn’t Prisoner #70017. Not anymore. It never was. I was, and am, as always Draco Malfoy.
A/N: Should I write another chapter for this? Or should I just leave it as a one-shot? I need feedback to help me out.