Azkaban's Agonies

It is cold here—a damp and penetrating chill, meant to kill

As surely as the endless crying of the condemned, dying still,

With the specters in their hooded robes forever feeding on the last

Remaining vestiges of joy, colored shards of the kaleidoscopic past.

It is here that I sit waiting, amidst the torment and the pain,

Trembling as countless tears fall from my eyes like rain.

I cannot block the sounds of screams that pierce the air,

Pouring from open mouths, the silent pleas, and vacant stares.

And yet it matters not—my own agony, more than sufficient, provides

Ample distraction, for I am fed upon by demons and accused endlessly by eyes

Held fast in memory, once soft and laughing, but now filled with rage

With the cries of blame and betrayal pouring forth as I'm held in this cage.

I see them—Prongs and Lily—two sets of eyes fixed and staring,

Glassy with the swift emerald rush of ruthless Death, its snaring

Grip having caught them both too soon, leaving a child crying

His bright eyes filled with tears as he watched his world dying.

Moony's eyes, too, bore into mine—flashing wild with feral hate

That only the cruel silver moon once brought into being, now great

And bitter, hard amber glinting with tears, anger, and pain that's just

Not all human; the wolf in those eyes cries with hurt born of broken trust.

And still no end—I see another pair of eyes, beady and deep-set in

A traitor's malicious, mocking face, laughing at his own dark sin

That killed heart's sister and brother, his disloyalty to sacred bonds

That trapped me here—leaving him free, with the truth to abscond.

Dark, eerie visions, angry words reaching like knives to pierce

A vulnerable heart, left all too fragile with memories that coerce

Fresh blood from wounds long thought healed—a mother's shriek,

A father's brutal blows, a brother's scorn—all leave me weak.

I look too, on this—emerald eyes wide with innocence and trust

A tiny baby's eyes, calling out to me, frantically, as so they must;

Reaching out of dark memory's thin, weaving veil and into this gloom,

Pleading for a miracle, crying for me to reverse Mother and Father's doom.

Of course, I cannot. The past has past, and all that I live for now, near dead,

Is vengeance, the chance to spill the traitor's blood as payment for blood shed

By Darkness made flesh, embodied by hate, empowered by treachery and lies—

This I swear, on James and Lily's memory—for his crimes, Wormtail dies.

But I am imprisoned, and innocent condemned, for betrayal I never would commit;

Here, in the deepest, shadowed reaches of a never-ending nightmare, a Hell, I sit.

Where the Dementors are still creeping and the prisoners insane—this is the norm.

It is now, for some short peace and an escape from accusatory eyes, that I shift form.

Wrapped now in fur that insulates—from natural cold, at least—

I may find some shred of comfort in the body of my inner beast

And when the creatures pass, some dim glimmer of memory to give

Me solace—hope enough to persevere, and strength enough to live.