Whilst I Linger On Top of the Land

by PencilHyphenMonkey

You'll see London, you'll see France, you'll see Taylor Hebert ruling the wizards and witches of Europe with an iron fist and innumerable insects. (Which includes ants, and not just for the sake of rhyming.) ... [AKA Space Whale Patronus Chums]

1. Meeting the Neighbors

Whilst I Linger On Top of the Land

Summary:
You'll see London, you'll see France, you'll see Taylor Hebert ruling the wizards and witches of Europe with an iron fist and innumerable insects. (Which includes ants, and not just for the sake of rhyming.)
(AKA Space Whale Patronus Chums)

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Chapter 1 - Meeting the Neighbors

Yet another soul-sucking monstrosity drifted past the bars to my cell. I yawned.

It screeched with a voice like a thousand cracked nails being scraped, with great force, down across Satan's blackboard. Lacking the energy for a more creative comeback, I settled for flipping it a lazy middle finger.

I thought for a moment, then decided against blowing a raspberry at it. Being imprisoned in a magical penitentiary that employed flying, un-living violations to the Geneva convention, it was anybody's guess if and when we'd be fed and watered. Just to be on the safe side, I needed to conserve fluids.

The Dementor snarled and gurgled, gripping the bars with both of its scabrous hands. White fractal patterns of crystalline frost promptly bloomed at a swift pace, spreading across the metal bars from the creature's fisted claws. The hood of its tattered dark cloak leaned closer, as it pressed its head between the bars. It howled some more. With a detached sense of vague, academic curiosity, I noted that the monster's screams never got any less terrifying, even after several cumulative hours' worth of exposure to the noise.

Somehow, its rasping breath reminded me of Sophia, barely a step behind me with her goons from Winslow's track team closing in, the sound of desperate gulps of air wheezing in and out of my labored lungs mingling with the jeering calls of my pursuers.

Looking at the Dementor's black cloak brought back memories of Emma, of days spent laughing with my best friend and sister in all but blood, as we played dress-up and make-believe, taking turns being Alexandria in our games of capes-and-villains; memories that had long since been tainted and ruined by what came after.

The Dementor's smell made me think of the Locker.

I pursed my lips, idly scratching my nose. "...Do you mind if I call you Nigel? That's a proper British name, right?"

The monster paused. Then, it lunged at me, no doubt eager to lacerate me with its cracked claw-like nails. It wasn't able to reach me past the bars, but it did manage to make itself look like it was throwing a tantrum, flailing its arms at me a bit.

"It's just, I'm pretty sure I've seen you float past before, and it'd be a lot easier to tell you guys apart if you had names, y'know?" I scraped off some of the mucus that had caked on my upper lip, after my earlier bouts of screaming and sobbing, and flicked the booger at the Dementor. "Hey, do you have a face under that hood, or just some kind of emaciated skull business going on? Picking your nose must be murder, with fingernails like those."

The ghoulish creature ululated a lilting screech, managing to sound both confused, offended, and horrifying; it seemed profoundly upset that I wasn't currently weeping on the floor in the fetal position. Frankly, it had managed to cram an impressive amount of emotion in such a simple, albeit bladder-loosening sound.

These psychopomps were more expressive than people gave them credit for.

Shaking its head, the Dementor waved its stick-thin arm at me in dismissal and drifted away, heading down the corridor.

"So, is that a 'no' to Nigel, then?" I called after it. "Would you prefer to be Desmond?"

I was answered with silence, or as close to it as this place ever got. There were faint echoes of distant moans and bickering from other inmates, but I'd been placed in a cell with very few immediate neighbors. I'd only heard a few angry mutters from them, thus far. Since every prisoner had their magic stick confiscated, or in some cases even snapped in half, I wasn't too concerned about random curse words. From what I'd observed, the members of this secret society of British Myrddin-wannabes needed to use wands in order to activate their Striker and Blaster powers.

Well, either that, or they all got so caught up in their wizard cosplay, they were loath to break character.

Resting my chin on top of my folded hands, and bracing my elbows against my knees, I tried to make myself comfortable where I sat on my cot. Then, I sighed and took another look around my current accommodations. Bare stone walls, cold and clammy from the North Sea air. It was a bad idea to try leaning against them, if you were hoping to relax and maybe even avoid hypothermia; I'd learned that the hard way. Thankfully, my cell didn't have a window. These people didn't seem to have discovered the magic of insulation, or they just didn't want to waste it on convicted felons. Getting a room with a view in this place meant getting enough natural air conditioning that even a polar bear would complain.

The cell itself was a small marvel of architectural design, emphasis on "small". It was, at the same time, both spartan and cramped. Roughly square, with three walls built of stone slabs and one made up of a simple line of tarnished metal bars facing the hallway, it was large enough to make you want to pace restlessly, yet small enough that you wouldn't be able.

I had an old, worn cot with a grimy bag of lumps that might once have been a mattress, which I was currently using as a seat. The other item of furniture in the cell was a bucket; the - thankfully faint - odor clued me in to its purpose. Since it didn't actually contain any visible residue from previous residents, I held hope it would be cleaned at some point, or at least emptied.

So, terrible room, worse roommates. One-half star. Would not sign up to get incarcerated again.

Still, as dreadful as this place might be, it could be worse. It had been worse, for the first few eternities. Hours. Whatever. I'd never been particularly religious, but I'd heard the locals use the names of famous mages as expletives, in the same way I might say "God dammit"; with nothing better to do with my time at the moment, I spent a minute praying to Merlin, Morgana, and Mickey the Wizard's Apprentice that the guards wouldn't think to renew whatever technique they'd used to mess with my powers.

Speaking of which, my swarm sense was telling me that my neighbor across the hall had woken up, or maybe they just stopped pretending to be asleep.

It was odd, though; they had plenty of fleas and other parasites on their body, which was hardly surprising in a place like this, but the bugs had shifted position in a weird way. Not just from the person moving their limbs, but like a Changer doing a shape-shift. I got the impression they might even have had a tail, before they changed; it wagged a few times when the Dementor left.

Either way, my neighbor seemed more active now than at any point since I arrived. They crawled out from under the cot in their cell, where they'd lain curled up until now, and shuffled towards the bars blocking off the cell from the corridor.

They plonked down on the floor with a sigh, sitting with their legs stretched out in the hallway and leaning their upper body against the bars. Judging by the matted beard, the gaunt figure was probably male. There was a hint of dark eyes lurking behind the long tangles of his black hair, staring at me with surprising intensity.

"So, whose feathers did you ruffle, girl?" The rasping voice wasn't ominous like the Dementors' cadaverous rattle; it just sounded hoarse from prolonged disuse.

I tilted my head to the side, giving him a flat stare. "That's not my name."

His eyes glittered, and his ill-kempt beard twisted in what might have been a smile, or a wry grin. "Oh, I do apologize! You must be the honorable Mrs. Nigel Desmond, then."

That actually startled a laugh out of me. When I sensed the temperature start dropping and heard a distant yowl, I hurried to shove my amusement out into my swarm.

"Nah," I said "He wanted to kiss on the first date, and I'm not that kind of girl."

He grimaced. "Sounds about right. Those Dementors always had trouble taking 'no' for an answer." Scratching his beard, he shifted his position a little, crossing his legs while keeping them sticking out past the bars; after a brief struggle, he settled for crossing his ankles, in a position that didn't look too much more uncomfortable than any other available seating option.

"My guess is that, uh..." He scratched his forehead, then snapped his fingers. "A black cat crossed your path, so you Crucio'ed it to death, and then kicked the corpse in a ditch. But later, it turned out to have been a Wizengamot member's prize Kneazle, so they chucked you in here."

I gaped at him. "...Okay, I understood maybe three-quarters of the words you just used, but based on the parts that I did get, I'm gonna go with: 'Hell, no'."

"Oh, woe betide me!" He leaned backwards forty-five degrees, bracing himself against the bars with his legs to keep from toppling over. He clasped one hand to his chest, and rested the back of his other hand against his forehead. "What will my silver tongue avail me, if my teeth are rotting away and slurring my speech?" Another Dementor's cry wiped the grin from his face, and made him slump back to his former pose.

"Your pronunciation is fine," I said, rolling my eyes.

His beard twitched, perhaps hiding a crooked smile, as he rapped his knuckles against the stone floor. "Well, I wouldn't be the first bloke to end up prone from unseat-ation."

"I meant, your diction!" I pointed an angry finger at him. "And don't you dare comment on that one!"

He clapped both hands over his mouth and raised his eyebrows.

Sighing, I rolled my eyes and lowered my hand again. "I can hear you just fine, it's the words themselves that I didn't recognize."

He blinked at me. "Oh? Which ones?"

"Um, I know about the Wizengamot, a little..." I grimaced at that memory. The sham trial hadn't been the absolute worst moment of my life, so the Dementors didn't evoke the memory of it all that often when they visited, but it was hardly a pleasant experience, either.

I shook my head. "Anyway... What does 'Kneazle' and, um, 'Crucio' mean?"

"...Really? Those stumped you?" He quirked an eyebrow me. "Must have been a rather lackluster education in Dark magic you received, if they never even mentioned the Cruciatus Curse." He wagged a finger at me. "You're a colonial, right? That accent is a bit of a giveaway. Did you go to Salem?"

I shook my head. "I haven't attended any magic schools, Dark or otherwise. I'm not even a wizard, or a witch, or a warlock, or... Whatever other titles for magic-users start with W." I raised a finger. "I am from America, though. That's what you meant by 'colonial', right? So, one point to you."

His jaw had dropped further and further during my explanation. Now, he gaped at me, incredulity plain on the few bits of his face that weren't covered by unwashed black hair. "...You're a Muggle?! How in Mordenkainen's name did you end up in Azkaban? Wait, how are you even conscious, if you're a Muggle?!" His face looked decidedly pale with shock, now. "The Dementors' aura should have knocked you out completely! I've had over a decade's worth of exposure to build up a resistance to them, plus a trick or two up my sleeves, and I can just barely cope... But you!" He flailed his arm at me. "Look at you! You've only been here a couple of hours, and you're already able to banter again! Banter took place, just now! I heard it happen, I was there! I was the banter-ee!"

I folded my arms, and glared. "Hey, I'm tougher than I look, alright?"

He flapped his hand at me in a dismissive wave. "Oh, that much is obvious. My point still stands, though." He pointed a skinny finger at me, that looked to be mostly skin and bone and accusations. "I suspected you might have built up tolerance to the Dementors from a previous visit. Young as you are, it's just barely possible that you could be a repeat offender, someone who'd visited this fine institution before, and couldn't get enough of the comfy rooms and haute cuisine. But then-"

His paranoid rant was interrupted by the sound of cackling laughter. "Poor old Silly-Woose! Don't hurt your widdle mind, trying to understand what's going on!"

The man across from me sighed. "Speaking of haute cuisine... Allow me to introduce my entirely unattractive cousin, Mrs. Bellatrix Lestrange-née-Black."

I learned forward to get a better look. In the cell diagonally across the hallway from mine, adjacent to the black-haired man's cell, was a woman with long, curly black hair. According to my swarm sense, we were the only three people in this corridor. I'd been aware of her presence before this, of course, thanks to the bugs I'd directed to roam the prison so I could attempt mapping the place and its residents. This was the first time she'd talked above a low murmur, though. She'd been pacing in her cell, to the minimal extent that this was possible, and occasionally waving her arms; I got the impression that she'd been scraping her fingernails down the walls, and raking them through her long mane of bushy hair. Looking at her, there was a certain similarity between her features and those of my conversation partner, but it was difficult to tell how much was family resemblance, and how much was just the thematic commonalities of "really filthy" and "needs a good meal or twelve".

Her eyes were striking, though; violet, and violent, gleaming irises filled with something that made me think of rabid dogs - or Sophia.

Still, like Mom would say: Good manners cost nothing. I waved at her. "Uh... Hello?"

She snarled, spittle flying as she spoke. "Liar! You can fool my idiot cousin, but I'm not that gullible!" She started rocking from side to side, shifting her weight from one foot to the other while simpering at me in a sing-song voice. "Oh, I'm just a poor widdle Muggle, 'ere in Azkaban! I ain't bothered by the Dementors, but I ain't a witch, neither!" She giggled. "Silly widdle spy, with a silly widdle story! If you're going to snoop on me, try to wheedle out the Dark Lord's secrets, at least make the effort to come up with a believable lie!" She spat on the floor between our cells; if she'd had the angle for it, I'm sure she would have aimed at me.

The gaunt man barked a short laugh. "Oh, Bella! If she was trying to ingratiate herself with you and your Dark Tosser, don't you reckon she would've pretended to be a Dark witch, herself?"

Bellatrix bared her teeth in something that vaguely resembled a smile. "That's what they'd want you to think! But I know what they think they know that I know, so: No!" She raised her right index finger. "She pretends to resist the Dementors, to make me think: Dark magic!" She raised her left index finger, holding her hands so the two extended fingers were parallel. "But she pretends to be a Muggle, to make me want to kill her!"

Mimicking her pose, the disheveled man raised both his index fingers. He looked between them for a few seconds. Then, he smiled, and lifted his hands, pointing his index fingers at his temples and doing twirling motions. "

"What a triffic idea! Why, I'm sure people would stand in line to get killed by you."

She grabbed the bars to her cell, looking like she'd rather wrap her bony fingers around his throat. "Imbecile! She's obviously hoping I'd gloat about the Dark Lord's secret plans, before snuffing her worthless life! Then, she'd just... Portkey away to safety! Or something!"

I cleared my throat, loudly. The man across the hallway paused, and turned to glance at me. He'd been in the middle of thumbing his nose at Bellatrix, and blowing a raspberry; clearly, he wasn't concerned about rationing his fluids. "Quick question: If she's a Lestrange, and used to be a Black, and you're related to her... What does that make you? A Lestrange, or a Black?"

It was amusing to watch them both recoil, as if they'd been equally offended by that question.

The scruffy-looking man answered me first. "I'm a Black, of course! I may be a Pureblood by birth, but I would never stoop so low as to be born as a Lestrange!"

The woman shouted some more, defending the good - or at least odd - name of the Lestrange family and its long line of homicidal Dark wizards, but I tuned her out. "What about those other words you mentioned? Kneazle, and Crucio, or Cruciatus, or whatever?"

He started to reply, but Bellatrix beat him to it. "Don't worry, widdle Miss Pretend-Muggle... As soon as I get my hands on a wand, I'll be more than happy to demonstrate any torture curses you want!"

I scooted a little further away from her on my cot. "Ohh-kay... That answers one of my questions, I suppose. What about Kneazle? Is that something awful and disgusting, too?"

Shrugging, the emaciated man grinned at me. "If you're a dog person, sure," he said. "Kneazles are a breed of magical cats; a bit bigger than a domestic housecat, and almost as smart as a person."

Bellatrix chortled. "Which doesn't mean much, if the person is you, Sirius!"

"Hang on..." I studied the sunken features of the dark-haired man more closely. "Your name is Sirius Black? Isn't he supposed to be some sort of..." Suddenly, his resemblance to Bellatrix was far easier to spot. "...Mass murderer?"

He glowered at me, straightening his pose to look more, well... Imposing. "I. Was. Framed!"

The ensuing rant was enlightening, at least. I'd heard a few horror stories about Sirius Black before, in what he called "the Muggle papers", but was really mostly television and internet research. The true story, according to him, was far stranger. In between his shouts and anguished sobs, I learned about the Potters, and Lupin, and Pettigrew, who Sirius seemed to hate even more than he despised You-Know-Who. It took a little effort to make him understand that, no, I don't know who, so referring to someone by that title doesn't help me understand what you're talking about. Also, calling them He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, instead, isn't really an improvement; frankly, it's something of an oxymoron, since He-Who-Etc is a nickname in and of itself, and therefore a contradiction in terms.

Then I had to explain 'oxymoron', so I guess we both learned something today. Unless he was just winding me up, of course.

Eventually, I discovered that He-Who-Has-Too-Many-Hyphens, also known as You-Know-Who, was the same person as Bellatrix's dear Dark Lord. Pettigrew was apparently a Peter, and a Wormtail. Sirius spoke to me of Fidelius charms, and betrayal, and the Killing Curse, and treachery. Words like "two-faced", and "double-crossing", and "heartless backstabbing vermin", all put in an appearance, as well. It might just be a result of hindsight being twenty/twenty, but it really didn't seem surprising to me that you couldn't trust a guy when even his childhood friends called him "Wormtail".

Once Sirius ran out of steam, Bellatrix took over. Unlike her cousin, she didn't try to defend herself, or find excuses for her actions. She just bragged; proudly, and at great length.

"...Then, after Frank had soiled himself," she chuckled. "I gave sweet Alice a widdle more attention. She'd already started drooling, and her wuvly Blood Twaitor eyes had rolled back in her head, but I thought I could probably get another two or three decent screams out of her, if I just-"

"Stop!" I held my hands in front of me, as if I could ward off the grisly images by force. My hands lowered when I noticed the smug, triumphant look on Bellatrix's face. No doubt, she thought her detailed descriptions of gory sadism had turned my stomach, and that was why I'd cried out.

I needed to change that impression, even if it was accurate; Bellatrix clearly wasn't the type of person you wanted to show your weaknesses. She'd probably take notes, for future reference.

"Um," I said. "Didn't you swear a solemn oath, scant minutes ago, that you'd never tell me any of your Dark Lord's secrets?"

Her cruel frown turned upside down. This wasn't an improvement. "Aww, did the widdle Muggle understand all the big, scary words I'm using?" She shrugged. "So? What of it?"

I stared at her, trying to look bored and indifferent. "Well, wouldn't that list of secrets include your hard-earned knowledge of how to use the, uh, Cruciatus Curse to optimum effect?"

She opened her mouth. She closed it again. This pattern repeated a couple more times. Then, she growled at me, crossed her arms over her chest, and spun around to face the wall.

Sirius turned to look at me with a grin. "Right, then. Your turn to play storyteller."

"What?" I raised my hands as if to signal surrender, or harmlessness; neither of which applied to me at the moment, but hey, he might still buy the 'innocent teen' act. "Regardless of what you think of me, I actually try to avoid torturing people, or kicking cats, or what have you."

He rolled his eyes at me. "Fine, so you're not a kitten-punter, or a Crucia-tussler. What are you, then?" He shuffled around a little, flopping down on his stomach and resting his head in his hands, elbows braced against the floor, while kicking his feet in the air. "C'mon, girlfriend! Spill, spill, spill! Why'd they chuck you in here, huh? Huh?"

I huffed at him. "Seriously? Are you trying to turn this into a slumber party?"

"What?" He twitched his shoulders, probably trying and failing to shrug while slumped on the floor. "Don't you like slumber parties? We could paint each other's toe nails, after you tell us a scary story."

Eventually, he relented under my glare, and lay down completely flat, his limbs splayed out wide. "See? I'm just a harmless fur rug. You can talk freely now, oh hater of fun."

Bellatrix snorted, grumbling something about "Fake Dark Muggles who don't even wanna talk about the Cruciatus," before going back to muttering angry nonsense under her breath.

I shook my head at the absurdity of the situation. I wasn't going to tell them about why I disliked slumber parties, especially with Bellatrix reminding me of Sophia every few minutes; that being said, they'd shared their stories of how and why they'd been incarcerated. It was only fair for me to tell mine.

Besides, I bet they could just ask other people about it, if and when they got any visitors, or the guards checked up on us. My Kafkaesque farce of a trial had been fairly public.

I sat up straight on my cot, smiled, and waved at Sirius. By now, I'd gotten a pretty good handle on how much fun I could have before the Dementors took notice - or rather, how little. "Hi, I'm Taylor Hebert, and I, uh... I mind-controlled a woman. Once, by accident!"

Sirius tilted his head to the side, managing to convey his confusion while, presumably, giving his chin a break from digging into the hard stone floor where he lay, at the same time. "Really? One measly Imperius curse was enough to land you in the maximum-security section of Azkaban?" He tilted his head in the other direction. "Also, the Imperius curse? I thought you said you weren't a witch?"

Bellatrix kept her back to me, but judging by the way she froze up and stopped murmuring to herself, I suspected I'd gotten her full attention, now.

I rolled my eyes at him. "I'm not a witch. I'm a parahuman." Sirius just looked confused. "You know, a cape?"

His confusion gave way, but only to bewilderment. "Right, sure... Looks like its my turn to have my vocabulary expanded. What do you mean, you're a cape? I take it you're not talking about clothing, here?"

I opened my mouth to explain, then closed it again. He genuinely seemed not to know about parahumans. Come to think of it, none of the rest of these 'wizards' and 'witches' had called me a cape, or a villain, or anything like that. Even at my trial in their kangaroo court, they'd referred to me as a 'Dark witch'. I'd thought they were just super-dedicated to their cosplay, like Myrddin, but what if they weren't faking their ignorance? This whole secret society I'd stumbled across by accident, it seemed... Well, pretty darn secret. Secluded, even. Had they managed to hide from the world so well, they didn't even know about parahumans?

Boy, were they in for a nasty surprise, if one of the Endbringers decided to visit Britain.

...Wait, hadn't the Simurgh already attacked London or some place like that? How the heck had they managed to miss that?

Sirius watched me impatiently, while my thoughts raced.

"Um... My point is, I'm, uh... I'm an East Coast Enchantress."

I didn't want to unmask completely and show off all my capabilities to a couple of near-total strangers - at least one of which was a violent psychopath, and proud of it - but I'd probably need to display at least a little bit of 'magic' to make them believe my story. At this point, it was almost a stroke of good fortune that my swarm was so limited at the moment. Being trapped on a craggy, barren island in the middle of the North Sea, I'd only been able to scrounge up a few flies and roaches, a whole lot of fleas, ticks, and lice, and not much else.

Luckily, my powers didn't just affect bugs.

I swept out my arm like a conductor, right at the moment when a handful of crabs scuttled down the hallway and paused in front of my cell. Sirius watched, wide-eyed, as the crabs clambered on top of one another, forming a crabby pyramid. He grinned and applauded a little, when the crabs started dancing the can-can.

All the while, I twitched my fingers and waved my hands like a puppeteer pulling on invisible strings. If I wanted to conceal exactly what my power could do, it wouldn't hurt to make them think I needed gestures to exercise my control, like they seemed to rely on special sticks.

Plus, it was kinda fun, hamming it up.

Sirius scrutinized me more closely. "Wandless, non-verbal magic? Pretty bloody impressive." He ignored the angry noises from Bellatrix's cell, that grew louder at that comment, and pointed at my crab-show. "Doesn't seem like there's much difference between an enchantress and a witch, though."

I waggled ny eyebrows at him. "Of course there is! I told you it didn't start with a W, didn't I?"

Sirius had sat himself upright again. "So, you're an enchantress. From the distant shores of the New World, no less. What brings you to our quaint little neck of the woods, and who'd you have to Imperius to get to meet my charming self?"

He batted his eyelashes and tossed his matted, grimy hair over his shoulder, making me suspect that, cut off from the wider world though their society might be, Sirius must have watched a shampoo commercial at some point.

"Well... I suppose it started when Dad died..." I noticed that Bellatrix was watching me over her shoulder, and shook my head at her. "And no, I didn't kill him."

Her eager, shark-toothed grin dwindled into a frown, and she went back to sulking with her back turned and arms crossed.

"He worked down by the harbor, with the Dockworkers' Association," I continued. "Drowning accident, they said." Privately, I had my suspicions. Dad avoided talking about the murkier side of things when I was in the room, but I'd overheard a couple of arguments he'd had with Mom. I knew that some of the gangs wanted protection money. Dad had refused. Then, he'd died, in a tragic 'accident'. I wasn't sure if the cops were corrupt, or just too swamped with work to notice. In Brockton Bay, it could be either, or even both.

I picked at a loose thread on my sleeve. "Mom and I, we... Well, we tried to make things work. Just, keep going. For a while. But, uh... Eventually, she got a job offer in Britain, so we moved overseas." She'd had to pull a few invisible strings of her own, I knew, to get that job, but once she found out what Emma and Sophia had done, she wanted me as far away from that mess as possible.

Moving to another continent seemed a bit excessive, but I appreciated her effort.

It had been hard, leaving the house that had been our home all my life, but we gritted our teeth, and carried through. Mom wasn't making a lot of money, as an English professor and single parent, and we'd probably have had to sell the house, anyway, even if we'd stayed in the US.

From Sirius's expression, he'd likely noticed that I was leaving a lot out of my story, but he didn't comment, which I appreciated.

"Before we moved, I'd started, uh, training my gifts," I said. That much was true; my debut as a cape might also have been my closing night in Brockton Bay, but at least I'd gone out with one heck of a bang!

...Armsmaster got all the credit, though, but that was OK. The guy worked hard, he was a professional hero. I knew the truth, and so did he, and that was enough.

"After we got to Britain, I tried to... Well, help people, using my powers. It, uh... It didn't work quite as planned." I heard Bellatrix snigger. Jerk.

Sirius pursed his lips, tapping his chin with the nail on his thumb. "Ah. Is this the part with the Imperius curse?"

I began to nod, then shook my head. "Kinda? It wasn't a, uh, an Imperius, as such..." I sighed. "Have you heard of a reporter called Rita Skeeter?"

He waggled his hand. "Vaguely. The newspaper deliveries are a bit spotty, in here, but some of the hit-wizards and Aurors throw away a copy of the Daily Prophet, once in a while. She's a muckraker, tries to find dirt on everyone so she can smear it across the front page, right?"

"Pretty much," I nodded. "It's a long story, but, uh... I ended up mind-controlling her, by accident." It wasn't that much longer, really, but I didn't want to admit that my powers were limited to bugs, and didn't work on people. Thus, I left out the part about Skeeter having been transformed into a beetle, at the time. It had been pretty horrifying, suddenly noticing that one of the bugs in my swarm was thinking like a person.

"When I let her go, she called the, uh, Aurors. I got arrested." I'd probably have been able to put up a better fight, maybe even gotten away, if I wasn't busy freaking out about my bug minions possibly being Changers in disguise, at the time. I'd taken out eleven of them, but they were likely just rookies, or the magical equivalent of donut-munching rent-a-cops; their tactics had been abysmal, especially when you considered that they had access to a ridiculous number of grab-bag powers.

Sirius gave me a knowing look. "Let me guess: They didn't let you speak in your own defense, the trial was a foregone conclusion, and then they tossed you in here and threw away the key?"

"Yes! Exactly!" My hair whipped around with the force of my nodding. "That Skeeter woman's got blackmail material on all sorts of people! She convinced the Minister and the judges to sentence me to..." My voice cracked. "Well, this place."

This time, Sirius's smile didn't look sardonically amused; just sympathetic, and tired. "Look on the bright side: At least they put you in the worst part of the prison."

I glared at him. "...Yay. I'm so excited. See this face?" I pointed at my scowl, with my middle finger. "This is my happy face."

He actually laughed, the swine. "Think about it! Down in the low-security areas, where they put the small-time crooks and minor offenders?

offenders?" He waved at me. "And the offending minors, as well, when they feel the need to chuck a child in Azkaban? Well, the whole island is covered in Muggle-repelling wards, but the lower sections also have plenty of vermin-repelling and other critter-repelling charms. The Auror guards don't want rats nibbling at their packed lunches, y'see." He gestured at my crabs, who were taking a break from their Broadway performance. "You wouldn't be able to get your little friends in, down there. Up here, they don't bother with the animal-repelling spells, since they hope the fleas and lice will kill us by inches."

Watching him try to scratch the back of his head with his foot would normally have amused me. Right now, I just tried not to show the sensation of dread that was pooling in my stomach. The Aurors must have used those vermin-repelling 'spells' to keep me from swarming them with bugs, after they arrested me. Once I was in prison, the higher-ups must have assumed the local protection measures would keep me under control, and forgotten to inform the guards about it. I'd really lucked out with their lax containment protocol, but if somebody noticed the oversight...

I shivered, and not just from the cold draft.

I shook my head, trying to think of a distraction from these dismal thoughts. "Um... Do you know someone named Lucy Malloy?"

Sirius stopped his amateur contortionist routine, and rolled back around on the floor to face me. "Hmm... I knew a Ravenclaw called Lucinda Morton, when I was at school." He grinned, holding one hand to his mouth in a suggestive pose. "She's hard to forget, since she had this amazing technique w-"

"Nope!" I cried, sticking both fingers in my ears. "La-la-la! I can't hear youuu!"

He gave me an innocent look, like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. At these frigid temperatures, that might even be true. "What? Do you have something against saxophonists?"

I huffed at him, rubbing my arms. All these terrible jokes were luring the Dementors closer, increasing the cold. "I just wanted to know about Malloy," I said, stressing the name.

"Because I heard the name from Rita Skeeter. Or, well, something similar. I kinda got the impression that this Lucy Malloy - or whatever the name was - that she's pretty close to the Minister, and was manipulating him, as well. Maybe she's..." I scowled at Sirius and his amused look. "Giving him private saxophone concerts. Eww. Anyway, if it wasn't for dear Lucy, I might have gotten a lighter sentence. Probably still would have ended up in Azkaban, just not the maximum security wing... So, by your logic, I guess I owe her a fruit basket, or maybe..." I glanced to the side. "Um, are you alright?"

Bellatrix had started laughing so hard, she was sprawled on the floor, making wheezing noises. "Oh, widdle old Lucius! Always making a mess of things, trying to be cunning!" She wiped away her tears, sobering quickly when a Dementor drifted through the hallway, warbling a shrill cry.

"Malfoy..." She hissed. "You'll get what's coming to you, filthy traitor. Once the Dark Lord returns, he'll..." She hunched over, wrapping her arms around her knees, and started muttering again.

"Lucius Malfoy, huh?" Sirius squinted at me. "Say, when did Skeeter tell you that name, exactly? Was it while you used your not-quite-Imperius on her? Because I doubt that she'd be throwing it around in casual conversation."

I rubbed the back of my neck. "During the, uh, trial... I wasn't controlling her again, I'd only done that once, by accident..." I couldn't have controlled Skeeter when I saw her in the Wizengamot chamber, even if I'd wanted to; she wasn't in her bug-form, then. I doubted she'd want to let her inner beetle out in public, if she used it to spy on people, like the world's tiniest paparazzi.

"...But I could hear some of... Some of her thoughts." And hadn't that been a fresh shock? Even when Skeeter was wearing her human form, my power still registered her as kinda-sorta-almost-bug-like; enough to let me listen to her surface thoughts, and give me a headache trying to parse the input.

Sirius was looking uneasy. "Are you saying that-"

"Enough!" Bellatrix whirled around and grabbed the bars to her cell, leaning towards me. "Imperius curses, Legilimency, resistance to Dementors... Do you really think I'd believe your feeble fibbing?" She sneered, looking me up and down. "A skinny wet-behind-the-ears slip of a girl, barely old enough to have taken her OWL exams, and yet you claim mastery of such a breadth of insidious and arduous Dark Arts?" She cackled and laughed, her voice loud and brittle. "Preposterous!"

"Are you sure you don't mean: Ex-posteriors?" Sirius stuck his head out between the bars, giving Bellatrix a toothy smile. "As in: Something you've pulled out of your backside? I'm sure you're an expert on that kind of thing, dear cousin... What with all the time you Death Eaters spent on your knees, when your Dark Lord asked you to-"

Bellatrix lunged at him, swiping a long-nailed hand through the air. With two sets of metal bars between them, it was a pretty futile gesture. "Silence, Blood Traitor! Man-children should neither be seen, nor heard!"

Sirius gasped, holding his hand in front of his mouth, wide-eyed. "Gosh! Should I be smelled, instead?" He scrambled to his feet, turned around, and bent over, aiming the seat of his raggedy pants in Bellatrix's direction. He started making a long, straining grunt: "Hrnnnggg...!"

"Alright, that's enough!" I clapped my hands, drawing their attention. Well, I got Bellatrix's attention, at least; Sirius was too busy yelping and squealing, and struggling to dislodge the crabs that were currently pinching his buttocks with every claw at their disposal.

Bellatrix sniggered as she watched. "Aww, how adowable! The widdle tiny OWL-y can make pwanks! She and the Blood Traitor would make such a cute couple!"

"Nah, I'm not interested in little kiddies," Sirius growled. He was rubbing his sore backside, alternating between glaring at the crabs marching out of his cell, and glaring at his cousin. "I leave that sort of thing to your Dark Lord. He's got quite an obsession with young boys, doesn't he?" Before Bellatrix could scream at him again, he barreled on, pointing at me. "Besides, I was thinking that you two Dark witches would want to team up. You'd make a right lovely pair, you would."

"Oh, puh-lease!" Bellatrix scoffed. "As if this tiny OWL-y could measure up to my standards. Why, she's never even tortured someone! She's never exulted in inflicting the deepest agony upon her enemies!"

I'm not sure why I didn't just keep quiet, at that point. Maybe I was tired from the constant strain of keeping the Dementors' influence at bay. Maybe it was because this psychotic murderess had inadvertently taken my Mom's favorite nickname for me, and turned it into something ugly and mean; she probably didn't even realize what she'd done, but it still reminded me of Emma.

"Oh, yeah?" I yelled at her. "The first time I was in a fight to the death, I beat a guy who was eight times my size - and I won by making his genitals rot off! Top that, asshole!"

They were both silent, at that. Sirius looked more horrified than at any point before; he was crossing his legs, possibly on reflex.

Bellatrix was stone-faced. She gripped the bars with both hands, leaning forward to rest her forehead against the cold metal. Slowly, her lips twisted into a smile; pure nightmare fuel. "Tell me... Everything," she breathed. Her legs were crossed, too, but her expression was excited and her voice was husky and oh god oh god that was probably because mentioning extreme violence had made her eww eww eww.

...Yeah, I definitely should have kept quiet.

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