Author's Notes

This story is a minor Alternate Universe stemming from the fact that I began writing it before book six came out – so it's not "OotP safe" and does not take the events presented in book six into account.

Every new section (there may be more than one section to a chapter) begins with a 'soundtrack' and, usually, a quote. The quote usually has some relevance. The soundtrack is just what I was listening to. If you have the music handy pull it out and listen while you're reading. It does synch up, trust me.

Read and enjoy, comment if you believe me deserving :)

--

Soundtrack:
Worms v. Birds, Modest Mouse
Inner Universe (theme from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex)
Nature Boy, Celine Dion

"I am terrified by the eternal silence of these infinite spaces."
-Blaise Pascal

--

Azkaban smelled of death.

Logically, one would think first and foremost of the prisoners, but they alone were not the condemned ones. Among the Aurors the word held a double meaning - partially a prison for those tried in a court of law, partially a prison for those tried in a court of peers. It was occupied by that odd class of Auror not quite deserving of dishonorable discharge, but not worthy of retiring to rest on their laurels.

The first question anyone asked to a newcomer was, "What did you do?" It was as valid a question to the prisoners as it was to the guards. One was banished for regularly beating his wife, but he was a good Auror, good at his job, so the Ministry turned a blind eye as long as possible, until finally he was here. Another stole a few petty amounts of money here and there from his department. At first, he had good excuses, and then, he did it because he could. And then there were people like MacNeill. Whenever someone asked about them, they never answered directly, just a voice to their left coughed nervously about an old partner, an accident, a case that's never been solved, suspicious circumstances.

Some were just too soft. They didn't stay very long. The hard ones stayed, blurring the line between gaoler and prisoner.

It was night. Adams could just barely tell because the candles in the building had gotten just a fraction lighter. Azkaban was timeless - winter was only a fraction colder than summer, both night and day were impenetrably black, silence punctuated only by the steady drumbeat of the waves pounding the building as tempests rose and fell, rose and fell. It was dinner time only because he had been told it was dinner time, and he was given the cart full of bowls of barely-nourishing soup to push around and distribute. It was an effeminate, soft job. That was why Adams had it.

Rinaldi walked beside him, shooing away the dementors that stood around each cell like hungry vultures. Around the bars of one cell, a particularly large pack of the beasts stood. Adams swore he saw one drooling, and almost believed that as Rinaldi waved them back with the strong light from his wand, it gave a hyena-like cackle and growl.

With a shudder, he pushed the creaking cart full of bowls of soup up to the next cell. Breaking the silence, he remarked:

"You know, I've heard about him."

Rinaldi snorted loudly. "Just give the soup to 'im and move on." His voice held a tense edge of nervousness.

Adams looked over to him questioningly.

"Give it to 'im and move on. I... I don't like 'im," Rinaldi explained nervously before his voice picked up speed and courage. "You shouldn't either."

"Dangerous? Him?" Adams' voice held a small lilt of happy doubt. "I know what they say, about him being, you know, the grandson of You-Know-Who an' all, but... Look at the kid, Rinaldi. I mean, he's... he's a kid."

"No kid stares at you like that."

The words hung very heavily in the air - the one piece of evidence Adams could not dispute. Lips puckering into a pout, then a frown, then a grimace, he hastily stuck the bowl in-between the bars of the cell, shoving it forward towards a figure lying up against the corner.

He was small, they had gotten that accurate. And thin - impossibly, skeletally thin, hidden beneath the tatters and rags of what used to be a simple but elegant black set of robes. His hair was long - tied back behind him, falling in loose messy curls over his face and onto his shoulders, the black of each curl blending with the black of the shadow. And his face...
There was no face - just a porcelain mask. It smiled stupidly at Adams and Rinaldi as they came, as they talked, as they went - as it had been molded to. Nobody questioned the mask - he had been taken from his grandfather with it on; he refused to take it off, even when sleeping, and speculation on what it hid ran wild. Just where the mask ended a long, thick scar scurried down his neck, an indication of why he gave no verbal answer to any question. And... his eyes. They were deep set in the mask, large and matte black, holding no gleam of intelligence or spirit or drive - otherworldly in the whole - like a little china doll's. He sat there in the corner of his cell, limp and lifeless, a plaything tossed aside, staring fixedly ahead with a stupid false smile pasted on his face, not noticing the world, not noticing the soup near him growing cold.

"I tell you, I don't like that boy," Rinaldi grumbled in a whisper as they got farther down the corridor, where the lights were less frequent and dimmer.

"Mmm," Adams agreed in a worried hum. And the cart of soup squeaked.

---

It was sunny out.

Catiline liked the sun. It made everything warm and pleasant and happy, especially where he now was - the nice little cottage that he and Rose and Joseph all shared, but he could only get to every-so-often. It was a beautiful place. Sunlight gleamed over the near fields (which were full of horses - Arabians and Mustangs) to the far horizon (which changed every day - sometimes a beach, sometimes a forest - it depended on what Cat fancied). Today, though, he stayed close to the house, focusing very hard on each step through the grass, each pinprick on the soles of his bare feet. He could feel himself being pulled dangerously back to where he used to be - cold - hungry - lonely, but he knew if he tried hard enough he could stay... stay with Rose and Joseph, warm and provided for with company.

The dull ache at the bottom of his stomach disappeared as he focused harder and harder on the little garden around the cottage. Irises. Rose had planted irises, because they were pretty, and some of them were blooming right now. Cat bent down to examine one. It was blue, such a pretty blue, with little streaks of yellow in the center. But it didn't smell of anything. Something else did, though - butter and flour and apples, cinnamon and nutmeg: a baking apple pie. He relaxed. He was in, he was there, he could stop worrying.

Gleefully, he opened the door of the cottage (and it squeaked, it always squeaked). Rose called out hello to him as he entered. Her voice was cheerful. He called out hello back. It had been such a long time since he used his voice, he had almost forgotten what it sounded like, but here, with Rose and Joseph, he could speak freely. It was a happy freedom he experienced nowhere else.

"Where's Joseph?" he asked Rose curiously, led into the kitchen by the tempting smell of the cooking pie.

"Out with the horses," she replied pleasantly. "Someone has to groom them and exercise them, after all. They've been rather anxious. I think they've been missing you." She continued in a worried tone: "We've been missing you."

"I'm sorry I didn't come for so long," Cat answered in a sheepish tone. "I just couldn't make it over."

"That's all right, dear." Rose dusted the flour from her hands to give him a motherly half-hug. "I know how hard it is for you. Just take your time."

He sighed, leaning against her for a moment, before she patted him on the back.

"Why don't you go see if Joseph needs any help? If anything, you can go feed the horses this," she said, placing an apple in his hands.

With a laugh and a nod, he hugged her tightly and then swiftly went out the door once more.

"Be back for dinner!" she called out at him.

"I will!"

As soon as his feet touched grass, he knew he had to concentrate. Between the house and the barn, his mind always got a little muzzy and easily distracted - so vulnerable to slipping back. He concentrated on the apple in his hand. The sun was shining off it. It was such a large apple - maybe he should split it between horses...

And it was such a pretty red...

"Dinnertime! Dinnertime! Wake up, yeh little gits. You gotta be in 'ere for summin', doesn't mean I have ta' treat you like anythin' like yer 'ooman!"

Such a –

The sun, it was going –

Rose - Joseph - ?

"Dinner! I said it was dinner. Now get up. Damn azy good fer nuthin's. I pass out th' soup and even do th' work of gettin' th' Dementors away from you an' this is how yeh repay me..."

The sharp sound of Auror Mackinac's ladle hitting the bars of his cell jolted Catiline back to reality. With reality came cold and hunger and loneliness - and dispair.

"Don't just stare at me, boy. Hand me that empty bowl so you can get your dinner. Jeesh. Damn lazy, retarded good-fer-nuthin's." The old Auror grumbled, leering at Cat with a one-eyed glare. Hesitantly, Catiline reached over to push the bowl in his cell towards the bars.

It sloshed, the cold soup from last night spilling out the front.

Riled, the old Auror snatched it up. "Good-for-nuthin' boy! If this is how you eat yer soup, I don't see why I haveta help th' Ministry waste money on you," he spat, glaring at Cat with all his might. "Maybe you'll be hungrier t'morrow, huh?"

He waited a few moments to see what Catiline would say, but of course he said nothing. After a very short while the dreamy false smile on his mask got to the older man, and the Auror skittered away.

Catiline watched him go. After that, he curled up again in the corner of his cell, trying desperately to get to Rose and Joseph. Somehow, it didn't work. All he gained were nightmares.