He'd felt the cold sweep over him, and the terror. But there was nothing more he could do. There was no escape from this horrible little stone room, with the wild-eyed, terrified little man, the shrieking woman, and ... that thing.
Of course, he'd seen Dementors before, in Azkaban, before and during that - trial, and at Bella's. He shivered slightly at the memory.
But he was in its grasp, the cold bony hands gripping his arms, as much as he tried to turn his head away, that freezing graveyard breath was closing on him. He was hearing the screaming in his head, he hoped it was in his head; he bit down on his lip until he tasted hot, metallic blood. But he knew it was all in vain. He saw his father, apoplectic when they'd got back to the house, screaming, shouting, raging at him. Stupid little man.
And then - and then ... and then.
He'd forgotten, of course. he'd clamped his mouth shut with the blood pouring from his self-inflicted bite, but that was like giving the Dementor an appetizer. His soul had left his body anyways, through his nostrils. He felt it, tried to draw it back, filling his lungs with the stench from the open black pit beneath the hood, but it could outbreathe him. It could suck his soul with that rattling breath like pulling a snail from its shell. He had no defence against it.
And now, here he was. Standing - here, or walking - here. Laying down, but never sleeping, looking but never seeing, never seeing anything he recognised, never seeing anything he wanted to see, never seeing anything ... anything. It was all grey. It was all pointless. He could almost hear people talking, but never quite hear what they said. And they were never talking to him. They were never saying anything he needed to hear, that he wanted to hear. There was nothing they could say to him, and they weren't talking to him, anyways. They never saw him. No one could see him.
When he realised, at the beginning, he'd tried to kill himself. He'd walked to a railway line, and sat down on the tracks, waiting. A train had come, and it had gone. He'd still been there, sitting. He'd tried walking into a lake. Nothing. It was grey, he couldn't see anything, there was nothing to see. He'd walked out again after a while. Nothing.
It was as if he were a ghost, but not a ghost. He walked down a busy street, cursing and swearing, shouting out death curses, insults, the worst things from his foetid mind. Nothing. No one heard. No one saw. He took his clothes off and flaunted himself in front of an old woman. Nothing. A group of children. No one saw. He tried walking into a bank to take some money. He couldn't take it, he couldn't pick it up.
He wasn't there.
He wasn't here.
He wasn't anywhere.
Except in his head. He couldn't leave his head. It just went on and on, his mind running the same memories through, about his stupid soft mother, who'd taken his place in Azkaban. His stupid, idiot, madman father, who thought he could keep HIM imprisoned. He pretended to spit in disgust. He'd shown him. He'd shown him that he wasn't a boy, to be told what to do, to be commanded. He'd been at the Dark Lord's right side. He'd been - he'd been - someone else. He couldn't remember.
He'd tried to cut himself, rolled back the sleeves of his robe, couldn't pick up a knife. Couldn't hold a razor. Rubbed his arm along the razor. Rubbed his arms down rough granite.
Nothing.
Nothing.
He took to sitting and rocking, back and forth, back and forth.
Sometimes it was almost like he felt something. But he never did.
Nothing.
He thought, Muggles don't see me. What about wizards? He walked. He walked. It didn't matter. Sometimes he forgot why he was walking. But sometime, he got to a house he knew. He knew it from before, but he couldn't remember. He thought he'd been here, been - something. But there were wizards here.
Nothing.
Nothing and no one.
It didn't matter anymore. There was nothing more he could do. He sat down and waited. Sometimes he walked some, but then he walked some more, and came back.
Sometimes, he thought some of the people - did he know them? Had he known them? But it didn't matter, anyways. They couldn't see him. They couldn't hear him.
Nothing.
Until - he watched the dark hooded things move toward the house.
They - glided.
He longed - ached.
Something.
He followed them.
They were admitted, they were shown to a place.
He followed, yearning.
They were together, and he - he was the wallflower, by the door.
They were huddled in a group, they were together.
And then, one detached and glided towards him.
His aching intensified, and fear rose in his throat like bile.
The cold, bony hand grasped his wrist, the hand felt wet, but wasn't, the breath came in a hoarse rush.
He thought, finish it. Finish it off, now. Finish me.
But he was disrobed. He was brought into the circle, and disrobed.
They surrounded him, and his fear raged.
A hand reached out, and a finger, cold and bony, drew down his chest.
Drew a blood-red line down his chest.
He wept with the pain.
He could feel!
Another finger, this time from behind, scored from his shoulder to his left buttock.
Glorious - he gasped - glorious pain!
Then the fingers, and whole hands were raking him, scratching his body, tearing his flesh, and he was in ecstasy with it. His cock was standing straight out, so full of blood, and one hand took it, and flensed it with a quick wrist movement. He cried out with the desperate agony, and came.
He heard a hubbub, as of bees in a hive.
It was a laugh?
Was it?
He was almost fainting with the glory of the pain.
His mouth stretched open with the scream of pain, of torture, of ecstasy.
One took him in its arms from behind.
The excruciating tearing strummed through his tendons, arching his body into a bow he couldn't relax. It tore his scalp as it took him, stripping the skin and hair as it stripped his bowels from within.
He grasped towards another in his agonies, and it lowered to him, producing a thing of flesh and razors, and fed it into his mouth.
He drove himself down upon the one behind as he pulled the other past his flayed tongue, to scarify his throat.
The pain went on for hours.
Glorious, shining, glittering pain.
It filled his world, filled his self with redness and ripping, and dripping things and dead things.
His body was raw red, skin gone, muscles moving in open air, a bit of fat covering his belly in a whitish-yellow cowl.
He looked at his hand. At his bony, raw wet, cold hand.
He looked around at the others, now red, too, with his blood.
And he laughed.
Oh, how he laughed.
And they laughed, too.
And when he stood up, they had a black cloak for him.
And when they glided out, he glided too.