In Memoriam

He mostly saw them at nighttime, when all external stimuli and distraction had gone with the daylight. He would curl into a little ball, dreading when the Dementors would pass with their icy lips and questing hands, bringing with them the memories that hurt him the most, of the day he should have died.

The pain was not as bad if he had changed shape before they came, but the memories, the guilt, were still there, gnawing at him.

He almost wished the Dementors would just go and kiss him now and end it. Why should he bother living? He had betrayed the people he had sworn on his life to protect – unknowingly, but that could not bring them, or those other victims, back to life.

And so he saw them. He saw them as he remembered them in his fondest reminiscences and in that brief, endless moment when he realized they had been murdered, simultaneously hearing jokes and laughter and seeing destruction and blood.

In a way, the memories made him want to stay alive and escape his mental and physical captivity. They reminded him that he once had had both friends and a life outside of the cell, forced him to remember that he wanted to put things right and clear his name, but where had he gone wrong in the first place? He had been a faithful friend; he had done all he could to protect them; he, he…

He had failed. For the rest of his life, he could expect no more than the punishment he deserved. It was his fault. It was all his fault. His best friend was dead, and he was responsible, and so he lived, trapped and mostly dead, in a world that would remember him as a murderer and a traitor. Even if he knew the truth about what had happened, he knew no one would believe him.

He tried to save them, but he really had killed them.