damned_institute | Day 27: Lunch

Bast gave up on chewing on his fingernail, sneaking another step back. It was his lower lip that his teeth dug into this time. While he wasn't precisely afraid of Harry Potter, the boy had bested the Dark Lord himself. That wasn't exactly something to sneeze at. Still, Bast did have the reassurance that he was -real- while Harry was not. At least he hoped not. These things were sometimes hard to decide.

"Me? I woke up here a long, long time ago. Do you know that I've still not seen a monster at night. Everyone runs around saying there are monsters here at night, but I haven't seen one."

Believe it or not, Bast actually looked a little put-out at that, much like a kid that had missed snack time somehow.

"There's even a Dementor. I haven't seen it, but they say there's one here."

A thin finger sneaked up to snare a lock of his ragged hair, Bast twisting it nervously. The sarcasm was either lost on Bast or he chose to ignore it.

"Bella and the others didn't do it. Severus was here for awhile, but I haven't seen him for an awful long time. They were talking about us one day on that bulletin board thing, and they said that you weren't real and that Dumbledore had died... that Snape killed him. Dumbledore looked pretty alive when he showed up at the Ministry that night about two or three weeks ago."

His face brightened some, that vacant look not leaving his eyes. There was a better than average chance that Rabastan had a few gears slipping in there to say the least. Too many years in Azkaban tended to do that to a person.

"It's better than Azkaban here! I have a bed, a real one, and there's plenty to eat. How did you get here anyways?"

Harry wasn't sure what Lestrange was talking about. It sounded like a lot of mad gibberish to him. He was thankful, and all the more impressed, that Sirius had been able to keep his sanity after Azkaban. Harry wasn't sure he would have liked to be around his godfather much if the man had rambled about things that made no sense. This wasn't even a riddle or some clue that he had to figure out, it was just nonsense talk of a broken and crazy Death Eater.

It was talk of Snape that angered Harry though, and talk of Dumbledore. This... lousy excuse for a person had no right to talk about either of those men.

"What are you going on about?" he asked. "The Ministry? That happened years ago." He didn't even want to approach the subject of what happened last year between Snape and Dumbledore with this man, so he simply ignored that part of the ramblings completely.

There was one part that was worrying to Harry, though. Dementors. Without his wand, how could Harry defend himself against them? He didn't want to have to hear his Mum and Dad dying again, he had seen that night from too many perspectives already.

"Years?"

Rabastan lifted a thin hand to his forehead, pressing the tips of his fingers against his skin until both whitened. Dropping his hand away, Bast shook his head, ragged white hair flying.

"It wasn't years, Harry Potter. It was days. A week or two, I think. We went to the Ministry..."

Rabastan stopped there, eyes shifting to the side. One could almost see the hamster in its wheel that served as his brain running top speed. Either that or he was having a brief respite from his madness when that dark intelligence came through.

"They said different places and times. You could be from the same world, but another time. Severus... something was off with him too, wasn't there?"

He stepped back from Harry again as if distance would sweep away that wretched clarity that made him understand when he would rather not, raking a hand through his hair. His ragged fingernails scratched his own skin as well as his hair, leaving thin pink lines on the paper-thin flesh.

"Could it be that you're my future. So the Dark Lord didn't win?"

Harry crossed his arms, forcibly stopping himself for reaching for a wand that wasn't there as well as showing the 'hospital' a pretty good display of Muggle dueling. Every time the Death Eater said Snape's name it made Harry want to hit him.

"I'd say he lost," Harry said coldly. "I'm pretty sure the whole point was for him not to die."

Tom Riddle had never cared for another person in his entire twisted life. The only thing he had cared for was himself. He had wanted to live forever. That was why he had mutilated his own soul and why, in the end, he had set up his own downfall. Too bad he had taken so many good witches and wizards (as well as many innocent Muggles) with him. Snape had been one of them, and it made Harry furious that Rabastan would talk about the Potions Master so causally.

Rabastan twisted his fingers before him, the sharp intelligence in his eyes fading out to leave that misty vacantness of before. Maybe sometimes it was better being stupid. Or Bast could have been a good actor. He blinked a few times, watching Harry with a blank look before a timid smile rose.

"Then... I can stay here? Really? Severus said I could, and I helped him! I found him a few things he needed. I think he needed them anyways."

Bast sighed, running out of space to keep slinking back from Harry. While Sirius had come out Azkaban mostly while, Rabastan seemed to be a shattered creature. It could have been a lie, of course. Whether it was truth or lie or if Harry even cared to find out was up to the Boy Who Lived.

"If the Dark Lord is gone, then I can just stay here, can't I? We're not even in our world. They think we're from a book, but we're real."

Bast swallowed thickly, peering up at Harry hopefully.

"We are real, yes? We're not characters in a book like they said?"

Harry's green eyes narrowed at the blond. Characters in a book.... what? This whole conversation was pointless and ridiculous, yet Harry didn't simply want to walk away. He still wasn't sure what Rabastan was talking about. It would probably give him a headache to try and figure it out. He had been looking forward to a life with as little headaches as possible.

It wasn't too surprising to hear a Death Eater talk about Voldemort as if they were happy he was dead. Harry had seen what had become of the Malfoys. He hadn't really ever interacted with Rabastan before, so he didn't know the reasons the blond had to join Voldemort. It was possible that he had just been pulled into it by his brother and sister-in-law.

Except he had still had a part in torturing the Longbottoms.

"I'm real," he said. His fingers flexed against his arms. "You're mad."

"I've been called far worse than mad," Bast replied, relieved in his own warped way. He was real. He had to be. He was one of the few really real people after all. It was the other people that were the shadows, the fictional characters that could fade away at any moment.

Bast sighed sadly as he spread his hands out in front of him, appearing to study them carefully. "I miss Dolph and Bella, but if you're right, I guess they're in a better place. Dolph was a good brother and took care of me even if he did say that I was stupid a lot. Bella would buy me chocolates even if she did make fun of me for not being as good as she was or being afraid of the dustbunnies."

Bast's lower lip trembled a little. They had been all he had in the world, and now they were gone or so he supposed. He couldn't see Bellatrix living if the Dark Lord were dead, and if the Dark Lord were gone, that meant Rodolphus' chances at returning to power were all gone too. Maybe it was better that way.

"I was younger than you when I went to Azkaban for life," Bast said quietly, turning his fishbelly white hands over to study the backs. "And now it's over. Not with a bang but with a whimper. Did either side win anything, Harry Potter?"

Harry's body stiffened at the last question. "Yes," he said without a single doubt in his voice. "We won. The good side won." Otherwise all of the death would have been completely pointless.

And their deaths were not pointless. Life without Voldemort would be better. Maybe not the same as it was before, but Teddy would grow up in a world that Voldemort didn't live in, even if the self-proclaimed "Lord" had set the course of his life by being the reason he was an orphan. Harry thought about Mrs. Weasley crying over the body of her son and the memories that Snape had left him because he was dying.

He couldn't allow himself to even consider the implications of the Death Eater's question. The Light had won and the sacrifices had been made meant the victory was that much more important.

"You... you didn't answer my question. Did either side win anything?"

Bast nibbled at his lip again, hands spreading apart as he struggled to try to explain what he meant. It was difficult for him, having no understanding of what good and evil really were beyond words that people used to define their views.

"I don't see the difference, Harry Potter," he said quietly, a thin flush coming to his face. "I mean, if I say I'm good because I try to save one person but accidentally kill four others, and I really good? The nurses keep telling me I have to be good, and I'm good if they do what they say, but the Dark Lord said I was good if I did what he said but then your side said I was evil. Did either side really win anything? Who was right?"

This was the heart of Rabastan's problem with the world. He had no idea what either was, only did what he was told to by either side, his mental illness leaving him with a complete lack of morals.

"What did you win, Harry Potter? What did 'good' win?"

Harry stared at Rabastan for a moment, not sure how to answer those questions. There was a moment when he couldn't believe what was being asked of him.

"It's not about what I won, I never set out to 'win' anything. What you did was inhuman and there were others who set out to do much worse. No one who was good could let that happen. It was you people that wanted to 'win' something. We just wanted to protect the people that you thought it was fun to hurt." Harry looked seriously at Rabastan. That was the truth. Harry had never wanted to be the 'Chosen One' had never wanted to be famous. What he wanted was to have a family, a real family. In a way he had gained one, but he couldn't help but feel that it might have been better if Voldemort had never existed to murder his parents in the first place.

"If you don't know the difference between good and evil then maybe you belong in a place like this." Harry finished. Maybe a Muggle mental ward was exactly what Rabastan needed.

That didn't explain what Harry was doing there, though. He wasn't insane and he wasn't sick. He belonged in Hogwarts with the others who had fought the battle within the castle grounds. How had anyone managed to get past all the defenses of the school to bring him to a hospital?

"Inhuman?"

Bast frowned, the expression on his face that of a child trying to grasp a concept that was far beyond their intelligence. The fingertip crept back up to his mouth, teeth nipping at the nail.

"I never said it was fun, but... that's what we were supposed to do, wasn't it? I mean, Rodolphus said they weren't real, like those little crawly bugs on the walk. We didn't want to win anything either. Not really. We were supposed to bring back all the things that had been lost. A majesty and beauty instead of slap garishness and fake glitter. Something real and lovely that had been forgotten. We were going to preserve our lines so that they wouldn't be forgotten or destroyed. Isn't that... good?"

Bast frowned, struggling to comprehend the idea put before him.

"I like it here. No one calls me stupid or dumb. People are nice to me and don't hate me like you do. Maybe you're the evil one, Harry Potter. You say the Dark Lord was wrong for bullying those weaker than him, but isn't that what you're doing right now to me?"

"You tortured my friend's parents because you thought they might know how to get back to your so called 'Lord'," Harry said. He didn't like anyone comparing him to Death Eaters. He knew that the Longbottoms had also been targeted because of the prophecy, because of him. He knew it was irrational, but he felt guilty. "You aren't defenseless and I don't think you're any 'weaker' than me."

He was angry and frustrated, but he wasn't actually trying anything but talk. He had even stopped himself from attacking the blond. He sighed, calming himself more. His voice grew quieter and softer.

"You're saying, what, that your brother and his wife sweet-talked you into hurting two people so much that they can't even raise their own son? And that seemed 'good' to you?"

"I didn't. Rodolphus told me to watch the Floo, and I did. He was my brother. Besides they said the Aurors were trying to kill us."

Bast looked Harry up and down, the Death Eater shorter than most everyone at his 5'2 height and bone-thin body. He looked like most people could break him over their knee. Then again, most people didn't take on fully fledged Dark wizards with murder already to their names, not to mention a true psychopathic nature. Bast continued to nibble at his fingernail, still eyeing Harry as if he expected the Boy Who Lived to launch an attack at him any moment now. Frustration showed on his face, lips thinning down as he shook his head.

"You say 'good' like it's easy! You see one thing as good, but others don't. It's all a point of view."

"It's not!" Harry insisted, his emotions carrying away with him again. "Voldemort was evil. If you followed him and believed all the rubbish he taught and hurt people in the name of it, or even helped people that hurt others, then you've done something evil. There's no 'point of view' about it. There is good and there is evil and it's your choice which one you side with. Having a family that supported Voldemort did not mean that you automatically had to mindlessly follow him too."

Sirius hadn't and neither did his little brother after he realized what was really going on and the Black family was as about as Dark they came, obsessed with the 'pure bloods first' creed that Voldemort taught. Both of their sons had ended up trying to defeat Voldemort. There was no excuse for what Bast had done, even if he had just ended up watching the Floo, he had still done something terrible.

The best that Bast could do at first was give Harry a puzzled look, trying to sort out everything the other wizard had just said. It wasn't the easiest task for Bast considering that in the morals department, the hamster running that wheel had gone on vacation long ago and not come back.

"But if I hadn't done what Dolph, Mother, and Father said, I would have been evil. They told me so! Everyone knows that."

Bast frowned, getting frustrated and simply unable to grasp the concepts Harry was trying to get through to him. Psychologists would have sympathized with Harry, especially Stegman who had been cursed to being Bast's doctor. Bast never would truly understand good and evil. All he could ever get was a child's understanding that people liked it when he did Thing A and didn't like Thing B. Being around those with good morals helped him decide which people liked, of course, but that was the closest he cold get.

Bast scowled and crossed his arms, giving poor Harry a half-hearted glare that said Bast thought Harry was teasing or trying purposely to confuse him.

"So... what about the monsters that are going to try to eat you and everyone else up tonight? Are they evil or good?"

"What monsters?" Harry asked, feeling exasperated by Bast's lack of understanding. He couldn't believe that anyone had no idea of the difference good and evil and that the Death Eater was just crazy or trying to mess with his head.

He wasn't about to give into it either. He didn't believe the blond and couldn't, however, if some of the rantings could explain what was going on in this place, then he at least had to listen to find out more about it.

Bast was more than happy to move on to another subject. Trying to figure out all that was giving him a mild headache.

"The monsters, Harry Potter. There's all sorts of them. People say that they see huge bugs or cats. There's spiders the side of the hallway and a Dementor. There's all sorts of nasty things out at night. Come on."

Bast headed towards the bulletin board, pointing out Renji's warning to the other wizard.

"See? We go back to our rooms for dinner, and then all the lights go out. When they do, the doors unlock, and we can wander the hallways, but there are all sorts of monsters out there, ones that eat people or tear them up. Look around at the other patients. They didn't get those bruises, broken bones, or hurt places from the nurses or doctors. The monsters got them."

Bast sighed, touching the wand stashed up his sleeve for comfort.

"Severus was here, but he's gone now, I think. So is Raistlin and maybe Yazoo. I've been here an awfully long time, Harry Potter, and most people vanish in the night or get killed. Lots of them. Sometimes they take people, make them think everyone is the enemy, and set them loose so that they kill or hurt the other patients. Other nights, they take patients and do terrible things to them like torture and stuff. They always call the false name then. Mine is Stephen King, not Rabastan Lestrange."

He glanced at Renji's written warning again, thin fingers smoothing it out and the little pinned up replies beneath it.

"You have to be careful, Harry Potter. You do have your wand, don't you?"

((Renji's warning is at: http://community.livejournal.com/damned_bulletin/113751.html ))

Harry half listened to the Death Eater as he read the warnings. His stomach clenched. This place... this all couldn't be true could it? Then why was he here and where were Ron and Hermione? Where was Ginny?! He forced himself not to panic around Rabastan and looked at the other wizard when he asked the question.

Harry felt himself pale but he nodded. "Yeah," he lied. "Of course." He paused. "You... really think you've seen Snape don't you?" he asked, his voice sounded slightly hollow. He didn't want to let the subject of his wand remain the main topic of discuss and he wanted to focus on anything other than the fact that he had been kidnapped and brought to another dangerous place to once again fight to survive. Was it possible Snape was brought to this place before he died? But then people would have noticed him missing. There was no way that it could have really been Harry's old Potions Master.

He looked over the bulletin board, scanning over other conversations and Renji's other posts. His body felt heavy and empty at the same time.

What was he going to do?

"Of course it was Severus. I've known him since I was small. He's the only one of us that I've seen besides you. Everyone else thinks that we're fictional book characters. He's just... gone. I've looked everywhere for him, and no one has seen him. Not that a lot of people knew him in the first place anyways since he's Severus and snarls equally at everyone. But he was nice to me, and ... I miss him."

Bast touched his fingers lightly over some of the messages on the bulletin board, pointing out some to Harry.

"Tomorrow morning there will be a lot of them here that is Person A asking if Person B made it through the night. A lot of them go unanswered since the person died or vanished in the Nightshift. Like I said, the monsters get them or the bad doctors do. Mr Radio and the Head Doctor talk a lot during the Nightshift, each of them sniping at the other. Sometimes they give clues to treasures too, if you know where to look. I've been over a lot of Landel's, so I can sort of find anywhere I need to go. I like the kitchen best since there's chocolate cake there, and the Dementors hate chocolate cake. Oh!"

Bast began patting himself down, finally pulling out a little baggie with a chocolate chip cookie in it from his pocket. Offering it to Harry, he shrugged sheepishly.

"I can't find block chocolate, so this is all I have. Most of the other patients think I'm stupid for wanting cookies, but I knew the Dementors would be around soon enough. Lucky said they liked you, so maybe it'll help."

He wrinkled up his nose then, eyeing the notes thoughtfully.

"That was good, right?"

Harry wasn't sure taking sweets from a Death Eater was a good idea, but neither was being rude to an insane wizard with a wand when you were unarmed. He took the cookie carefully, as if waiting for it to be cursed and attack him and nodded.

"Yeah. It was," he said. "Thanks."

His head was still filled with too many thoughts. Monsters. Dementors. He got chills just thinking about them.

"It... can't have really been Snape though." Harry paused, not wanting to really put what had happened the night before into words. "He died." He said it and still he felt as if it were hard to believe. He remembered the blood and the memories pouring from Snape and the way that his eyes had looked after the wounds had killed him.

The cookie itself appeared to be normal, just the average chocolate chip cookie that Rabastan had gotten famous (or infamous) for conning out of nurses for being good. Either that or he was stealing them at night from the kitchen. Who knew with him?

A pleased smile came at being told he had done good. Since coming to Landel's, a great amount of stress had been put by the staff and Doctor Stegman on that he be 'good'. While having no real concept of that, Rabastan had figured out that if people were happy, they said he was good. It worked in his odd brand of logic.

At Harry's words, that smile faded, the diminutive wizard sidling back a step from Harry again. His lower lip trembled as if about to cry, either some mental damage or acting making his emotions come and go with a quickness.

"You're lying," he whispered. "Severus was alive days ago. He might not be around, but he's not dead! He... he... maybe he escaped! Severus is dreadfully smart, everyone said so. He was alive, living at Hogwarts before that! He... he was a little odd about when I mentioned people saying Dumbledore was dead, but he's not! Neither of them are. You're just... just trying to trick me. Severus isn't dead. He's all I had."

Bast wiped his eyes with his sleeve, sniffling. In truth, Severus had been all he had, even if the Potions Master hadn't been exactly thrilled to find himself saddled with a nutty Death Eater.

"We were going to make potions. He said!"

Harry looked at Bast. At first he looked as if he might pity the man, but as he kept talking all Harry could feel was anger.

"Well that's the sort of person you were working for isn't it?!" he said, his voice raising again. "Voldermort killed Snape because he thought he could get control of Snape's wand, but it turned out all wrong and Snape basically died for nothing. That's the sort of person that Voldemort was, and the sort of people your bother and his wife were! Don't tell me that I didn't see what happened. I was there. Snape died because your boss was too short-sighted to really understand anything that was going on."

Snape's death was the one that seemed the most pointless to Harry, but talking about it made him think of the other bodies that had been laid out on the floor of the Great Hall. He couldn't deal with this anymore. He tossed the cookie back at the Death Eater, not wanting his help, and turned to walk away.

Bast caught the cookie as it was thrown at him, holding onto the plastic bag with hands that trembled. Severus couldn't be gone. That single idea in his mind didn't stop the vicious words coming from Harry Potter though. As the Boy Who Lived spoke, Bast drew back again, trying to make himself smaller as he peered up at the other wizard.

"I guess you never had to do or be anything you didn't want to because of who you were born as, Harry Potter. Or do what everyone told you that you had to do because you were a Lestrange. Or a Black. Or a Snape. Or all my other dead friends. You haven't had that problem, have you?"

Letting Harry go, Bast slunk to one of the open chairs and sat down, turning the cookie package in his hands. He wanted Severus. He wanted Raistlin, Yazoo, or any other of his friends that had left him. For once, Landel's didn't seem like such a great place when he was on his own.

Harry stopped as he heard Bast's retort and turned around. He marched right back up to the Death Eater.

"A Black?" Harry demanded. "My godfather was a Black and he never, ever joined Voldemort or the Death Eaters. Don't you ever say that being a Black means you automatically are completely mindless follower of the Dark Side. Sirius never did anything like that. You don't even understand that, do you? And you don't know anything about Snape either."

He really shouldn't have gone back, should have let it drop, but Harry had never been very good at letting people insult the wizards and witches he cared about.

Rabastan sniffled again, wiping his eyes and staring down at the cookie in his hands instead of at Harry.

"Sirius was strong in ways that some of aren't and never will be. Not all wands have the same core. Sirius was strong enough to lose so much, but he had things to replace it on the outside. Some of us don't. To some of us, the outside is a huge and frightening place that we don't understand."

Bast continued to stare down at lap, sneaking a hand over to snare up a paper napkin to wipe his face.

"Severus didn't let many people know him. He was a broken man in a lot of ways, I think, like me. Or maybe a few. I don't know. I would have liked to."

Bast paused there, twisting the tissue through his hands.

Day 27: Lunch

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[ooc. omg the spoilers >.>]

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