Azkaban.
The word sounds heavy with foreboding in his mind, as it has done every other time he has heard it. As children it was whispered about as a fabled place where the Bad Wizards went. More recently during his time in the Ministry it was a place even the best politicians had to hide a shiver after mentioning it. Even among the Dark Lord's inner circle it was never a welcome prospect - and why would it be?
He has heard the stories, grown up with them like anyone else in wizarding society. Stories of cold and madness and fear and dementors. After a while you simply loose your mind. You become a quivering wreck, helpless and hopeless. You forget your name, your age, your memories. Forget anything even existed before you were shut up on that impenetrable godforsaken island.
Or at least, that is what the guards had whispered (through the bars of his cell in the bowels of the Ministry) when they passed. Along with several other things which need not be repeated. He sat on the small bed, legs stretched out in front of him staring straight ahead and gave them no response.
No movement. No facial expression.
He would not give them that last satisfaction. But he remembered their words and now in the Wizengamot they come back to haunt him, echoing in his mind. You forget your name. Helpless. Hopeless. A shell. A small part of his brain tells him that at least Azkaban will not have small minded mudblood guards to insult or throw 'smart' comments at him (comments he has killed people for less), and amuses himself with that thought.
He tries to forget that in a short time he will long for any human contact no matter how degrading or small minded.
Because that is where he is going. Azkaban. Him. And Bella. (They will be together, in some small way at least). And Rabastan. (There is a small pang in his stomach for his little brother. How can he protect him now?) Crouch too, though the boy is loosing Rodolphus' respect rapidly as he pleads and begs to his father. Have some dignity, boy. Rodolphus knows that theirs is a forgone conclusion, as he sits up straight like a good pureblood boy.
Azkaban is a certainty that makes this court unnecessary, yet still they insist on a trial because of some ill-concieved notion of justice. Not that he doesn't deserve it, however. He casts his mind back to the people he has murdered and tortured (How many? He lost count long ago) and reflects that he has probably already lost his mind - if he ever had it in the first place.
He has seen people - fellow servants of the Dark Lord, in fact - in tears over the guilt they carry for killing some unimportant muggle. Rodolphus has never felt like that - not even in the slightest. Even now, as they read out a list of his crimes, he can't bring himself to feel remorse for what he has done. He has no regrets.
Maybe his sanity slipped away when he was still in his cradle. Before the stories of muggles and purebloods and halfbloods. Before he heard the name Lord Voldemort; or even the name Lestrange.
He sits silently as they ask him questions. He gives no answers - like the guards outside his cell he will not give them any satisfaction. He stares ahead, into the faces in the crowd. Appearing composed, presentable. As if he is in his office (in this very biulding, albeit several stories above) meeting with yet another bunch of mind numbing officials. Yes, that's it - he looks bored. At the trial which will decide his fate.
But Rodolphus knows his fate was decided a long time ago. Decided the moment a small baby banished Lord Voldemort into nothingness. (He is not gone. He is not gone. He is not gone. He can never be gone). The moment he held out his forearm for the touch of the Dark Lord's wand.
The moment he was sorted into Slytherin.
Still, he is proud of the path his life has taken. If he must go to Azkaban for the Dark Lord, then to Azkaban he will go. He almost wishes that he could laugh in the face of all this - laugh like Sirius Black did. That really shook them up. The bastards.
That was the one story those ignorant guards told him which gained a response. A smirk. A small chuckle. It was not the response they'd hoped for. They had boasted to him about how Sirius Black had been caught and imprisoned. Sirius Black the notorious Death Eater. Voldemort's right hand man.
He laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of the claims. Because Sirius Black the Blood Traitor was not a Death Eater - decidedly the opposite in fact - he knew from Bella's fierce ranting about what a shambles he was making of her family and the occasional run in they had with the so called 'order'. Yet he was in Azkaban now, and he had laughed in the face of those who had sent him there.
Something Rodolphus thought he would never feel - a sneeking respect for Sirius - is creeping up on him as he stares into the face of the Chief Warlock Bartemius Crouch Sr. as the older man glances at him with an expression of repulsion.
His eyes leave the balding man's face and travel quickly over his wife, the frail witch beside him in hysterics over her son's fate. He feels contempt for them both - they should be proud that their son decided to do the Right Thing.
Rodolphus' gaze moves to the blonde reporter watching following the court's proceedings with interest as her quill scribbles away of its own accord. Wasn't she the one that covered their wedding? Yes, he would've remember that awful croccodile skin anywhere. He catches her eye and winks, and to her credit she does nothing but blink and dictate something to her quill in a hushed voice. That should give her something to write about.
The trial comes to a close as the dementors stream into the room, and Crouch's shouts become more frantic. Surprise, surprise, they have been sentenced to life in Azkaban. He rises from his chair - doing his best to appear dignified and composed as despair threatens to overtake him.
He has never been in the presence of a dementor before, and he finds that the stories and books he has read cannot begin to convey the true feeling they bring. Bella rises next to him, and a small turn of the head is all it takes to see his little brother's quivering form. As they leave his wife shouts - shouts a final battle cry. "The Dark Lord will rise again, Crouch! Throw us in Azkaban, and we will wait! He will rise again and will come for us. He will reward us beyond any of his supporters! We alone were faithful! We alone tried to find him."
Bella's words remind him of their cause. The reason they are being sent away. Her words give him some hope - a hope he clings to when all others have been torn away from him.
In Azkaban he remembers those words - he remembers her - and he smiles.