Patient - Harry Potter

000 - Prologue

Triggers: Death, blood, grief, mentions of self-harm (not related to mental health)
Disclaimer: Some of this chapter is from the books just slightly rewritten.

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July 9 1994

It's not an easy thing, knowing everything that is happening but not being involved in any way shape or form. Spending your whole life, or for as long as you can remember, in a hospital isn't the way anyone would dream of growing up. Yet it is all she knows. Constantly being prodded and poked by curious healers and doctors, forced to drink revolting potions, and restrained when having an "episode", isn't exactly ideal for a fourteen-year-old girl.

Astrea has known no different. This is normal for her. She knows that it isn't what everyone else would think is "normal" but who was she to complain? Nobody, not even herself, knows who her family is - or was - and is strictly known as Astrea. Although the staff don't speak to, or refer to her as anything other than "the patient". It's rather bittersweet. To Astrea, this is her home. Not by choice, of course, but because it is where she lives. She sleeps, eats and studies here. She was never permitted to go to Hogwarts. Too much of a danger to other students, at least that's what the staff told her.

Bullshit. Astrea thought bitterly. She had never harmed anyone other than herself during her "episodes".

Ah. Her episodes. Astrea assumed this was the reason she was put in St. Mungos. She often had dreams - although she soon realised they weren't quite dreams - about things that have happened, are happening, or are about to happen. Not very pleasant. They usually occur when she is sleeping. However, they have often occurred when she was wide awake. Her whole body goes rigid and the next thing everyone hears is screaming. Although, it's not always screaming. Sometimes she cries. Sometimes she's panting, like she can't quite catch her breath. Sometimes, and this is the rarest, she's laughing as if the funniest thing in the world has happened. And for her, it probably had.

During the bad ones—the ones that cause her to cry, scream, or lose her breath—she doesn't treat herself well. Scratching is the main thing she does, mostly because all sharp objects were confiscated, and she often gets nosebleeds – usually accompanied by a skull-splitting headache. Her body seems to be littered in scars and burns and she never seems to remember what caused them. It's like, when she's dreaming, she's actually there and not in the hospital. Like she's in a whole other world. And to Astrea, it is another world. One she had been cruelly forbidden from entering.

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She was alone. It was cold and dark. She could barely see anything in front of her as her eyes adjusted to the darkness surrounding her. Astrea could see the black outline of a small church beyond a large tree to her right. There was a hill above her to her left and she could just about make out the outline of an old house on the hillside. She looked around slowly and could see that she was standing in an overgrown graveyard.

Before she had time to do, or think, anything, there was a flash of light and two boys had appeared with a neon cup of sorts. She couldn't tell if it was an effect of the darkness but the brightness faded. One of the boys, a smaller one with messy hair, had fallen to the ground. He looked injured. When he raised his head, she recognised him immediately. Astrea had no idea who he was, but he was in so many of her dreams that she knew more about him than he probably knew of himself.

"Where are we?" He asked. The other boy, who looked older, shook his head and pulled the younger boy to his feet. They both looked around slowly, and carefully.