There is nothing in this world that prepares you for the trauma of realising you are nothing but a child conscript in an adults war


Now she thought of it, and the irony of that was the realisation that she rarely thought these days, she had ceased marking time. Minutes, hours, days, weeks, it was all meaningless now.


Time no longer held any meaning. She simply existed in moments.


Existing in moments, she mused, was reminiscent of slipping in and out of consciousness


She found a biro in the dust of the track. She couldn't recall the last time she had used a muggle pen. Suddenly she felt an overwhelming sense of grief and it was almost too much to bear. Surely it wasn't rational to feel an emotion so strongly for simple things such as ink, quills and brand new parchment.


Rumagging through a bin on the outskirts of a muggle town she found a muggle newspaper. The headlines held no interest to her. She lacked the cultural context. The date was 23rd October. She had been on the run for 2 months. She had no point of reference for when she was separated from the others.


She found herself doodling on the edge of the muggle newspaper.


She unfolded the only sheet she had left. It was the only important one. It had the date on it. Across the top she had written

"And miles from where you are, I lay down on the cold ground and I pray that something picks me up and sets me down in your warm arms".


She no longer had the muggle pen. She had cried when she realised she had lost it.


Her delicate fingers smoothed over the cursive of her script. Anyone reading this would think it was about Ron she thought.


Cold metal pressed against his skin and he felt two things: The way his scalp tightened with her grip on his hair and the warm trickle of blood down his cheek.


Crazy didn't even begin to describe this woman in the black corset and heeled boots.


He ran his fingers across the markings of the wall. Others who had been here before him had found ways to mark it to count time. He chose not to think in numbers


In the cold dank darkness of the cellar he attempted to preserve his sanity by thinking of synonyms for crazy. Insane. Kooky. Mad. Nuts. Nutty. Wacky. Berserk. Cookoo. Lunatic.


Potty, he smirked at that one.


Psycho. Screwball. Batty. What was that muggle phrase about bats?


Bats in the belfry.


"Crucio" she cackled gleefully. He ground his teeth in an effort to not scream. He soiled himself instead.


He had moved on from synonyms and attempted to think of adjectives for the woman in the corset and heeled boots. Pureblood. Fanatic. Mental.


He mused ironically that "Aunt" was no longer an adjective he associated with her.


There was no point of reference for him to calculate the amount of time that had passed since he had been thrown in the cellar.


Whispering was coming from outside the cellar door. Wormtail was never good at keeping his mouth shut, he thought drily. He strained to hear what was being said. He couldn't discern very much of the discussion. All he knew was snatchers had caught them.


He sobbed in the corner at the guilty realisation that he had briefly felt a flutter in his heart that he might see her once more. He hated himself for not hoping she hadn't been caught.