CHAPTER ONE

When he awakes it is to his own labored breaths, hitch with remnants of a long deceased scream. The nightmare is fresh in his mind, a crude vision laced with screams for his blood to be shed. His heart shutters weakly within his ribcage and as the sky opened to permit a few rays of diluted sunlight to peer beyond the veil of dark gray clouds, he pulled himself upright. The jagged stone wall is hard and moist against his back, the flimsy material doing nothing to protect him from the cold draft that crept into the room. Above his head the window is small, barricaded with thick black metal that clutters when the waves below crash too violently against the exterior of the cement building. For a few minutes he was sits in silence, head cradled in his hands and eyes downcast. Exhaustion bends his body into a slouch, making him appear even smaller as his dry lips mouthed rapid, incoherent sentences. Every morning he does this, awakening from a horrid dream and sitting to reminiscent the contents of it till his heart no longer could bear the ache it constituted. Often he would be torn between tears and anger, of screaming his rage and the injustice that had been heaved onto his narrow shoulders and weeping with all that he had lost. But of late his blood had run itself cold with numbness. He reacts to everything that had once caused him to wince – as if struck – with indifference.

No surprise there, he supposed. Azkaban was known to change (to break) even the strongest of men. But he was not a man – he was only a boy; a simple, young boy that had been dealt a blow no child should be forced to endure. Raising his head with a somber sigh, his green eyes settled onto the window, hoping for a glimpse of a sunlit sky. Time trickles away as he tries to count the number of days had been wasted away within this suffocating quarters of hard stone and dampness. Seven hundred fifty-six days, his mind supplies, murmured by a non-descriptive voice. An entire two years, how strange to think that more than two years of his young life had been taken from him due to faulty circumstances. Closing his eyes against the subtle presence of another's anger in his mind, Harry Potter concentrated on evening his breathing as his skin puckered at the sound of harsh, rasping gasp of breaths that rattled away in his mind.

The Dementors had come to feast.

The other prisoners of Azkaban were roused from their death-like slumbers, bare hands and feet scrambling against the ground as they tried to become smaller and nonexistent in the eyes of the foul creatures. These soul eaters were not fooled by their attempts and like fiends from the depths of a child's nightmare they swept into the cells. Harry opened his eyes when one came into his own cage, looming near the cot he sat upon. Harry held the Dementors eyeless gaze as it peered down at him, scabbed, clammy hands hovering close to his face. The intention was clear, it wanted to feed from his emotions, to steal whatever remaining light of joy filled his heart; if only there was any happiness left within him. It was confused, uncertain on how to approach the boy. Leaning in closer to him, Harry bit the corner of his dry mouth, the first sure sign of his unease as the Dementor cradled the nape of his neck gently. Almost like a lover, a beloved who cared greatly for him, it tilts Harry's head towards its own. And he watches, eyes wide, as the gaping, open mouth moves to press against his own. Just one kiss, the only kiss he would ever receive in his life, and nothing else would ever bother him. He would be nothing but flesh and bones, living but never alive. Hollow.

He welcomes this with closed eyes.

When nothing came and the hands of the Dementor retreat, Harry's eyelids peel backwards to reveal irises of varying shades of green, an unspoken question of why in their depths. Without sparing further time on him, the creature turns away from him, gliding back out to find itself another suitable meal to devour. A mirthless smile curls the corners of Harry's lips at the obvious rejection. For the next half hour the screams ceased to echo in the halls, grown men and women crying and whimpering like scolded dogs. Breakfast came next, one of the two meals that would be given to all Azkaban inmates during the day. Harry glanced once at the brown water full of soggy, aged vegetables, molded bread, and glass of greyish water. His tastebuds are not yet dead, and he cannot bring himself to stomach the offered meal. In no time the plastic tray is taken away, untouched. Despite the pain of gnawing hunger in his stomach, Harry falls back into his cot to sleep. His dreams were once more jumbled, incoherent visions of past events and screams of murderer. He stills shutters, violently so, at the disappointment and accusation he had heard on that day oh so long ago.

Caught in his thoughts, Harry was the last to rise from his subconscious slumber as the stationed Auror on that floor began to make rounds for showers. "Get up, Potter," commanded McNair as he stalked past. Drawing himself to his feet, Harry swayed dangerously for a moment before settling himself. The corridor is a narrow space of stone walls faded grey and streaked with aged blood and with each step his feet are cut. He could feel the blood, warm and sticky, leaving its mark as he walked. The bodies before him shuffled forward, mindless animals that tripped into one another and snarled or shrunk away when touched. When they arrive into the shower station – which in truth is nothing more than a minuscule quarter with rusted shower heads installed and an ever present chill that only intensified when ice water struck naked flesh – they go five at a time, and are allowed only ten minutes. When it came time for Harry to strip, he averts his attention away from the leering eyes and steps beneath the running stream of water. His skin has hardened, no longer discomforted by the presence of frosty water, and he cleans away a layer of dirt that cakes his skin and hair.

Dressed once more and standing to attention in line, Harry contemplates with a morbid curiosity how many more bodies will be shipped away that coming morning to be buried. It would not be the first time – since his being here, anyway – that one or even a dozen inmates died during the night. Whether from the cold that seeped into their bones after a shower, clinging to them during the frigid nights, or they simply fade, unable to continue on with living. And there are even moments in which Harry himself wished he could succumb to that very same weakness.

They make their way back into the holding blocks. The cells are neat aligned along the west and east walls, with black bars that burn of ice when touched. Harry was pushed back into his cell by the stationed warlock who gave him a mocking grin of apology and sauntered off. With his clothes still damp, Harry sits with a heavy sigh on his cot – which in fact was nothing more than stiff, threadbare piece of mattress. He should count himself lucky though, he supposed. There were very few prisoners who even had such a luxury of sleeping on an actual bed. Yes, but they do not need to service anyone, now do they? Murmurs a sardonic voice, and if Harry hadn't been worried about losing his wits he would have felt inclined to retort with equal malic. Quickly scrubbing his face with his calloused hands, Harry levels his focus onto the window. Outside the sun had been consumed by dark clouds, and he could faintly taste the scent of ozone and coming rain. When he had first arrived at the wizarding fortress (screaming, crying and insisting that they have made a mistake) he had held onto a hope that they would see the error of their ways – that his life would be returned to him and they would see that he was the victim in this situation as well. But that hoped had wilted away and buried itself in the deepest corner of his heart where it could not be touched. As the days progressed and the nights became a mess of violent hands and grunts in his ear, as the sunlit mornings grew fewer and rarer, Harry just stopped hoping for anything.

With each day that passed him without a change in his predicament, he would often wonder how his godfather, Sirius (Sirius is dead. Sirius is dead. Sirius is dead because of me) survived Azkaban with his sanity intact. But, like any thought that regarded his past and those whom he had come to know and once cherished, Harry was quick to deter his focus away from such a subject. Closing his eyes and leaning back against the corner, he brought his knees up to his chest and rested his forehead atop of them. He was tired, he was hungry, and his body ached and burned with a coming fever. Skeletal fingers dug into sunken cheeks as the darkness of night closed in. The Dementors continued to stalk the halls, their heavy breathes echoing eerily with the whimpers and cries from the prisoners. Harry did not look up when the door to his cell slides open. His body does not tense and his breathing does not change when a new weight is introduced to the mattress. He tells himself to not cry because crying was the only weakness he dared not accept. He hates himself for leaning into the warm torso when the large hands draw him in closer to his victimizer.

This doesn't matter, he tells himself when he is pushed onto his back. This means nothing, he thinks when his clothes are stripped away and he is left bare and shivering beneath the man. You're fine. You're fine. You're fine – it doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt….It hurts. It hurts and it is painful. The grip is too tight, the man too rough, and he is torn inside once more. He's crying out, begging, pleading stop, but he never does. And Harry is ashamed and disgusted with himself when his own body betrays him as well.

Freak, his mind whispers just as the man croons in his ear "Good boy."

"Harry James Potter. Born on the thirty-first of July nineteen eighty, fourteen years of age. You are charged and have been found guilty of the murders of Vernon Dursley, Muggle, Petunia Dursley, Muggle, Dudley Dursley, Muggle and the suspicion of committing the murder of one Cedric Diggory. You are hereby sentenced to a maximum of fifty years upon which date completed you will receive the Dementors Kiss."

There is silence. It is hushed and untouched by the dozens of shadowed faces in the stands. They peer at him, gauging his reaction as his mind registers the weight of what was said. Guilty. The word may have very well been screamed n his ear. It echoes, it taunts, and he finds himself hysterical with tears. Someone laughs at his expenses, and he cries harder. "NO!" he screams. "You're wrong! You're all wrong! I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I'm innocent!"

He is babbling incoherent nonsense now, desperate to free himself from the chair. The chains binding him are heavy and cold, the metal biting into tender flesh. He looks to the stand for someone to stand by him, to support his case and finds hostility directed to him by all sides. Except one. Albus Dumbledore is disappointed. His aged face says it all. He cries pitch off into a shatter sob.

"Innocent…innocent…you can't…I didn't…."he whispers mindlessly, eyes never wavering from the face of the old wizard.

"You have been judged by the High Court of the Wizengamot and have been found hereby guilty," commenced Amelia Bones. "With a count of forty in favor of guilty and ten abstaining from voting. For your crimes you have been hereby stripped of all titles, names and wealth. Due to Gringotts refusal to release all Potter family heirlooms, by order of the Wizengamot all else which does not fall under the veil of heirloom will be seized from the Potter vault hereby effective immediately by the Ministry of Magic. May Merlin have mercy upon your soul."

Harry awakes to stiff muscles to protest each movement made. From his shoulders that felt out of place to his legs that cramped as he shifted to push himself upright. Sweat gathered on his brows from his efforts, fingers cruising the length of his emaciated body to delve between his legs. Liquid, cool and thick greeted his fingers. Glancing down, Harry's lips fell into a grimace at the sight of blood. Wiping the blood with the hem of his shirt, he redresses slowly. The day of his trial (or condemnation as he had taken to thinking of it) was a reoccurring dream he had come to accept. When his mind was not otherwise preoccupied with more grotesque nightmares, he would often find himself back in courtroom ten and under the scrutiny of others. On that day he had lost everything. Those whom he had once foolishly thought were his friends had damned his name and very existence. Oh, Harry remembers so clearly how perfectly they played their parts of the frightened little do-gooders who had thought they could change his "dark and evil" ways. More so, even the very man whom he presumed to have only his best interest at heart had spoken of nothing but his disappointment in Harry. "Never would I have thought Harry capable of such crimes," he had said solemnly. "To kill his relatives whom had taken him in when no other would – it is unthinkable."

The Dursley's may have taken him into their home, but they did not welcome him. From the moment he was old enough to understand that other children were not treated as he was, that they were not mocked and scorned for being something that did not fit the bill of normalcy, Harry knew that he was not loved by his relatives. He accepted that, and he felt no love for them either. However, it was learning that Dumbledore had been aware of the Dursley's treatment of him and blindly turned his eyes away from what was happening was what truly upset Harry the most. All these years the man had known what was occurring behind the doors of number four and never once raised a hand to intervene on Harry's behalf. Harry wasn't what hurt more: realizing that his friends were anything but, or that the man he thought was trustworthy was no better than the Dursley's.

His fingers closed around the knitted, rough patch work on his chest. Prisoner number 2931345. He wasn't Harry Potter anymore – they had taken his name, his legacy and his freedom and tucked him away in a little cage where he could do no one any harm.

As he sat there, cold air billowing around him and trying to uproot his sore body from the bed, Harry could not help but to wonder where he had gone so wrong in his short life to deserve such an ill-gotten fate. Maybe, he presumed, it had all began when he had survived a night that should have been his death. By surviving alone he had marked himself for a fate where he was damned if he did or damned if he didn't do what was expected. Or, perhaps, it had festered into something more when his need to please, to prove himself too worthy and not the waste of space his said he was that he had gone wrong. Or even, it all began when he had chosen Gryffindor ― he shook his head. There was no point of thinking of it, no purpose in contemplating anything at this point. Still, he could not help his thoughts from drifting over to his once-friends. Their betrayal, only one of many if one was to look into the on-and-off behavior of Ronald Weasley, left the same familiar sting, and birthed an age-old vulnerability he hid from public. For all the wrong reasons he wanted to be better for them, his friends and surrogate family, and gain the approval of the only man he had ever looked towards for guidance – the very same man who had allowed him, a child, to be sent away to prison without a proper trial.

A short, bitter laugh falls from his lips as he closed his eyes and threw his head back against the wall. Damned if you do and damned if you don't, he thought dully as another day begins.