when they became villains [draco malfoy] {book 2}

Year 7 - 205

Five blank walls enclosed her at all times. Cement on the ground, cement on the ceiling, cement all around. Only the front of her cell held bars, though even that might've been just as bland and boring of a barrier. Nobody was in the cell in front of her. Or at least she couldn't see them. People rarely came by. If they did, it was only to feed her the even blander food or tell her that she wasn't worth shit.

Astrid had been told she was to be held on trial to determine whether she goes to Azkaban for life or not. She assumed all that her scrambled mind remembered had been true after all, or else they wouldn't hate her so. Poor and penniless, Astrid had been assigned a legal lawyer, but that man had no intention of helping her or keeping her out of prison. He was just there for the legal procedures. She had hoped maybe Draco would come and help, to get her a proper lawyer, help her get out, but she had not heard from him. Not the smallest of notes in nearly a week.

They were all getting rid of her and again, for the hundredth time while captive, Astrid hoped she had never woken up.

The pain had been excruciating when they first shook her awake in that same cell. A Mediwitch had taken care of her outer bruises, but internal pain was much worse. Worst of all it was unhealable. An agonizing migraine had tortured her for the first 3 days awake. After it followed an incredible mush of her brain. The room had been floating and spinning. Time from time, she recalled a memory and then it was as if she was standing there and seeing it unfold in real-time. Another time she would see somebody standing in the corner of her room, she would talk to them and they would talk back until a guard would come around and tell her to shut up and quit talking to herself. 

Astrid would've pierced her brain if there had been anything what with to do so.

When her lawyer came around to discuss the details of her trial, he never made it easier. He accused her, he prodded her for confessions, but she could give nothing but shrugs or unsure shakes of her head. She could barely tell apart what was happening right in front of her, let alone figure out what part of her scrambled memories were real or not.

One day, the man just gave up on showing up at all.

They all hated her. All of them.

On the morning 8 days after she had been taken there, her mind quit spinning. Astrid was still dizzy, she still felt like she was floating, but at least the hallucinations had not come for a few days. By the time her dinner came, she could even manage her timing right to ask the guard if anyone had asked to see her. She was faintly certain she had a right to a phone call. Or had that been something she had seen in muggle movies? Whatever was the answer, the guard told her no.

She hadn't been expecting it, but she supposed it made sense. After all that she had done in the past months, why would anyone have bothered?

* * *

When Draco first saw her walk into the courtroom, he thought he was dreaming. A dream that was soon to become a nightmare. She was there but her eyes seemed distant. It looked like she had cried and nobody had told her to brush her hair the way his mother had told him. The dark, protruding veins looked at points like they would burst, like the finger the mysterious ring had held; in other places, they looked much like tattoos, or some elaborate curly designs, like over the skin of her neck and the bottom of her chin. In the stripy uniform she had been put in, Astrid already looked like a prisoner.

Draco twirled to look at his mother, with his glare demanding why the woman had not told him Astrid was alive, why she had allowed him to shut himself in his room for days and mourn the loss of somebody he hadn't even lost yet. He wanted to ask his mother why they hadn't bailed her out.