Warnings for incest and general melancholy.
All Challenges and Competitions are written below.
Word Count: 1014
He hears whispers sometimes, hushed and muted as if those creatures had not only stolen their happiness but their voices too. They speak cracked and hollow words, ragged breaths more prominent than coherent sounds as they ask why he is here, what has he done, which Lord he follows.
Before, he would have described the faint, almost indiscernible rise in their voices as interest, perhaps even fascination — but he knows that is no longer true; it is too beautiful a thing to exist amidst damnation.
He ignores them, lets the croaking, gasping voices die off into the darkness as silence rises once more to rule the air. There is peace in the disturbingly morbid silence if he lets his mind meld away and abandons all thought. It seems to be the only thing he does these days.
A low, keening wail shatters the lull of uneven breaths and shifting bodies.
Another, and another, and another follows. They rise and fall with low warbles and high trills, and he notes, dully, that the creatures are once more conducting a twisted choir of bawling hollers and whimpering sobs.
It isn't long until he feels it's presence — the way the world flinches — a weird, desolate emptiness crawling along the edges of existence. It arrives with a soft flourish, midnight cape billowing gently as it drifts, ethereally, into view. The creature pauses, contemplative, before continuing slowly, a bone-white hand raised and reaching towards him.
He locks his eyes onto the crusted, sunken sockets where its eyes would be, rotting teeth baring in a feral grin. A perfect chorus needs a leader, a star, and no star shines brighter than Sirius.
He throws his head back, throbbing muscles convulsing as the creature, foul hand upon his own, feasts upon the trembling wisps of happiness that dwell somewhere deep and long forgotten in his mind. There is no point in stopping it, no chance of stopping it.
So he does the only thing he knows how.
He joins the choir; first with the howls of a mad man, later with howls of Sirius, that beast that curls within him, all matted black fur and blank black eyes.
Later, when sleep's slender arms embrace him, dulling away the putrid stench of sweat and blood, he welcomes it. He welcomes the heaviness that weighs down his bony limbs, the fog that gathers at the corner of his vision, slowly seeping into a cloud that consumes every inch of aching pain in his hopelessly mortal body.
She greets him with a mirthless smile and hooded eyes, her hair an ever-alive frenzy of writhing black strands. She is lovely, in the way that evil is lovely; perfection marred by the manic glint coiling like a viper within her gaze. "Hello, dear cousin," she croons, voice crackling like a roaring fire.
He can't help but be reminded of the Gryffindor common room, of the hearth that was always alive with hissing flames near the edge of the room. In another life, perhaps, she would have been a great lion; the greatest of them all.
They stand on the precipice of oblivion, darkness rolling from all directions as dreams and memories rise like twinkling stars greeting the moon. He knows this is not reality, that the devilishly attractive woman smiling coyly in front of him is no more than his own sinful illusion.
She cocks her head, a wicked grin overtaking her features as she speaks once more, in a purr colder than ice, "Hello, my love."
Suddenly, they are back there again — to that night of regrets. Every minuscule detail is as he remembers it: the empty halls, wreathed in the flickering orange glow of candlelight; voices, cold and high and sharp, polished to perfection since childhood; shattered plates and broken wine glasses, gleaming shards scattering across the marbled floor; Regulus flinching in fear as their mother snarls, eyes filled with livid rage.
His eyes snap shut, breaths quickening as he tries to focus. Not real. Not real. Not real. Empty, forsaken cells of impenetrable stone, the vile stench of lost hope and human waste. Monstrous creatures shrouded by night, crowded by death. The wailings of the ones who know of nothing else. That is real. Azkaban. Azkaban is real - this is not.
In the blink of an eye, she is there, seizing his face in her hand. He is forced to open his eyes as she yanks him towards her, forced to meet those lifeless slates of hardened grey framed by long, coal black lashes.
"It is real, love," she hisses, her breath a soft flutter on his lips. She pulls him closer, bodies flushing against each other; he can feel her smooth skin brushing his. Her blood-red lips trail a thin line along the cut of his jaw, travelling achingly slowly towards his ear until she is close enough to snarl the words, "Now remember."
And he does.
There are some prisoners of Azkaban, the ones who have not yet lost their souls to the midnight-shrouded creatures that float within the barren walls, who wonder.
They wonder about many things — not happiness, most no longer understand such a concept. Instead, they ponder each other.
Prisoner ᚷᛉ-390 is a particular case. The fighter, with his sarcastic grin and livid eyes. The innocent, or so his fervent murmurs imply. The most alive of the dead, the star of the choir, voice still strong after eternal time has finished her journey.
His is the howl that echoes throughout Azkaban.
Yet, when Prisoner ᚷᛉ-93, his kin and blood — a gaunt woman with dark sunken eyes and thick, horribly tangled black hair — is transferred to another cell, her path towards her new enclosure passing by him, Prisoner ᚷᛉ-390 stops, freezes.
He falls to his knees, words dying in his throat as his eyes start to pool. He shakes, thin body quivering. Prisoner ᚷᛉ-93 bares her teeth in a wild grin, eyes meeting her cousin's before she is dragged away into the darkness.
The wolf of Azkaban does not howl that night.
Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition:
Chudley Cannons. Season 5.
CHASER 3: Write your Chaser One's NOTP. (Any incestuous pairings - Bellatrix/Sirius)
Prompts:
1. (word) lovely
7. (object) broken wine glass(es)
11. (word) attractive
The Choose-Your-Wand Challenge:
Prompts:
Wand Wood: Ebony - Write about a Death Eater
Colours of the Rainbow Challenge:
Prompts:
Black: #1 - Write about the Death Eaters or any member of the faction
The FRIENDS Competition:
Prompts:
TOW Eddie Won't Go: Write about a relationship that's more about obsession than love.
Shop for a Prompt Challenge:
Prompts:
(character) Sirius Black
(word) near