DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling.
~ In Memoriam ~
Lilith Goyle and Azalais Carrow huddle together on the floor of their cell. So many of their dark brethren have been incarcerated in the past few weeks that the Aurors are running out of places to put new inmates, and have been forced to start doubling up.
The two girls, like the woman they both love (more than each other, which they are not ashamed to admit between the two of them in the dark and the cold), refused to recant their allegiance to their Dark Lord and the Noble Cause - although unlike their idol, neither of them has been judged such a threat that she should still be in solitary confinement, even with the prison as overcrowded as it is.
So they cling to each other, for warmth, for comfort, and because they are each the only thing the other has left to hold onto in the world at this moment.
Strong of body but weak of mind, Lilith is the first to succumb. As surely as if she were Dementor-Kissed, she is soullessly silent and still. No one but her cellmate notices that her voice is no longer a part of the general chorus of screams. Azalais finds strength in the relative warmth of Lilith's embrace, even though she knows her companion is there in body only, mind irreparably shattered.
Even so, the cold is too much, and fourteen years is a long time to wait. When the Dark Lord's most loyal are at last sprung free, they leave behind a skeleton clutching a corpse.
After the dark forces are settled in at Malfoy Manor, Bellatrix - in a rare moment of sentimentality - places a stone in the garden and lights a candle for the two young women that she led into the dark.
~end~