Waiting
It was a typical dungeon. He had found himself almost disappointed by that fact on his first visit here, his first day of work. He had expected more from this jail, the tales of which were the subject of any wizard's darkest nightmare. But no, no originality here. The walls dripped with the prerequisite damp, the stone was so cold that it chilled the very air that whistled past it in a perpetual whine, and each step downwards into the depths of the prison was accompanied by the scuttling of rats as they hastened away from the unaccustomed light of his sputtering torch.
Yes, it was so typical, so humdrum, that it could have featured in any muggle storybook and yet… And yet, no one who came here, whether visitor or resident, could fail to notice that beneath that typical exterior there lurked something else. Something other. Few realised what it was. Few stayed here long enough to realise that it even had a source but he did. He had been here before and had noticed the change. The Dementors, forced to confine their attentions to the prisoners, made barely an impression upon the individuals strong enough to work here but her presence could be felt by all, from the first day of her arrival, and it thickened the air like the cloying scent of decay that lingers around a rotting corpse, impossible to avoid and impossible to disguise.
He could feel it overwhelming him now as he descended into the deepest bowels of the prison, where the most dangerous of the prisoners could receive the full weight of the Dementors attention. It crept slowly over his skin as he progressed down the steps, like the dark waters of a tar-pit clinging to its unwary victim that had strayed too close to the edge, drawing it deeper and stifling its cries. He fought the urge to turn and flee, just as he did each time it was his turn to fulfil this sweep. Once a month, regular as wandwork, he made the weekly check for deaths and injuries and each time she was waiting.
He wondered each time what it was that warned of his impending arrival; did she retain some vestige of sight in those long-covered eyes that allowed her to discern the glow of his torch in the otherwise unalleviated blackness? Or had her hearing been sharpened by her enforced isolation until she could hear his coming by the panicked fluttering within his chest despite the care he took to be silent in his cloth-smothered boots? Whatever the reason, he would never ask which, she always knew.
This time was no different. As he rounded the corner he knew already what sight would greet his eyes and only the knowledge that it was his solemn, and well-paid, duty to the wizarding world forced him to look, to check. She stood at the bars of her cage, the only occupied cell at the end of a very long row – there had been others here once but her taunts, her games and the sheer malice of her presence had driven them all to insanity or death long ago and know she waited alone. Her teeth glittered in the torchlight as he hesitantly approached, her twisted smirk widening as she somehow perceived his reluctance. He shuddered in remembrance of the way her dark eyes used to gleam, sharp as a knife blade, from the shadows and blessed anew the brave soul who had dared to cloak them. Her body twisted so that she faced him fully and her scarred hands tightened around the barrier that separated them. The talons of her uncut nails clicked sinisterly against the pitted metal that held her entombed, but she did not speak. She made no other sound than that of the deep breath that seemed to consume his entire being, as if she was drawing him into herself until he was so twisted upon within her coils that he could never be free and would be forced to remain in the echoing hole that had taken the place of her soul for the rest of eternity.
He faltered slowly forwards, shuffling the final few steps until he was close enough to the bars. Kneeling, he placed the sack on the jagged surface of the natural basalt floor with unsteady hands. They were in the deepest levels of the jail where the cells were hewn form the very rock of the island, and there was not even the steady trip of moisture to break the tedium of the silence or temper the clatter of the items in the package as they struck the floor. Slightly less than controlled. As always. With trembling fingers, grown further clumsy by their sudden haste, he unknotted the string at the nape of the sack before thrusting it across the floor to rest against the bars by her bare feet.
His job complete the man rose, backing away from his captive towards the relative safety of the floors above. His fearful posture and tense wariness revealed who truly had the power as clearly as his swift backward glances betrayed his desperation to escape. Finally, thankfully, he felt his back scrape the solid stone at the entrance to his passageway and, with a sigh that felt like it expelled all the breath he must have drawn in over the last few minutes, he turned away at last heading into the passage that would lead him upwards and away. He thought for a moment that he had evaded her, that his departure would be undisturbed.
It was a brief moment only for at that last possible point, in the very instant of his escape, she spoke. As she always did. Her voice was cracked, a rasping ruin of a sound, more akin to the grinding of the rocks that surrounded her than human speech and yet…still there was the residue of what it was. Beneath the broken walls of her voice still rested the smoothly carved foundations that imbued her voice with a trace of its previous tantalising beauty even now, after all the years of decay.
"How much longer, Alasdair?"
"Years. Decades. Centuries. They'll never let you out, not after what you did!"
"How much longer, Alasdair?" The question came again, no variation in the inflection, only the faintest possibility of the nuance of laughter that wasn't present before.
"Eight years, three months and twenty-one days."
"I can wait."
That was the thought that consumed him each time as he finally staggered free of her presence, that clung to him as he followed the winding stairs back up into the light. She could wait; she had never been incapacitated by her residence here as so many of her fellows had been. Instead her incarceration had served only to file away the few soft edges she entered with, to ensure that when she once more stepped free it would be as a perfect, polished blade, no longer marred by the imperfections of emotions that weakened lesser men. She would walk tall and strong through the destruction she would wreak and never once be threatened by the slightest trace of doubt or deliberation.
She could wait.
Heya, helpful criticism always appreciated!
This is just an idea that came into my head that I had to write, but I don't normally write fanfiction so I'd love to have some comments. It's not meant to be Bellatrix especially, although now I've written it I can see the similarities.
PS, Alasdair is a Scottich derivative of Alexander meaning 'defender of mankind': I thought it fitting.