Disclaimer:
And Lo, the Gods of Fanfiction speaketh thus: "It's fanfiction, you fools! By definition, nobody except the published author owns any part of this!"
December, 1998. Five Years Ago.
Azkaban Prison.
The night was black in the absence of a full moon. The sea beat against the solid bricks with savage fury, trying to force its way into the cold, stone prison that sat in its path so that it might drag the fragile bags of flesh within the building to a watery grave.
It needn't have bothered. They were already all but dead.
Blank eyes stared at the metal bars of a grimy prison cell. The face they belonged to was still and gaunt with hunger. Coarse, matted black hair plastered itself against pale, bloodless skin. Cracked and bleeding lips framed an open mouth, a blatant invitation for flies to explore. Azkaban had no flies, however; the cold temperatures were unsuited for the carrion insect. It was a small, practically nonexistent mercy compared to what the inmates had to deal with. Azkaban had scavengers of its own.
Three dementors sat outside her door. They had been there for days, driving all the residents of nearby cells insane with their constant presence.
Even at the highest tier of security wings, the prisoners were allowed at least small breaks from the debilitating effects of the soul-eater demons, who were content to siphon off positive emotions from the prisoners on a regular schedule. It was this behavior that had magical xenobiologists convinced of, at the very least, rudimentary intelligence among the dementor population. After all, they reasoned, would not mere animals simply gorge themselves, rather than ration their food?
She no such luck. It often seemed that she never did. Amusement lazily poked through the haze of her mind before being swallowed by an oozing miasma of apathy and depression. She didn't have any luck, did she? If it wasn't true, she wouldn't be here.
No luck. No luck at all...
Her eyes twitched as another dementor moved into sight at her cell door. There was a strangled moan close by as the dementors' heavy presence weighed down on some criminal's soul. She paid no mind to it; unable, or simply unwilling, she couldn't say. If she were honest with herself (She was. Lying was too much effort), it was a relief that the dementors had driven her cellmates into catatonia. While silence was its own hell, the maddened screams of others had been what was truly clawing at her mind. It seemed that, even in the deepest, darkest corner of her psyche, she was still unable to bear listening to others in pain. She would much prefer to suffer alone.
But she was not alone, and it wasn't silent. The dementors were there, would always be there. Standing guard over her. Feeding on her. Breathing. Waiting.
They would be waiting for a long time.
A fifth dementor moved into view, next to the fourth. Both were behind the three crowded around her cell door.
It had started with just the one, at the beginning.
It had always lingered a little longer than its brethren, always a few minutes more each day it passed by. Then, one day, it stayed. The criminals screamed and wailed, but the guards never deigned to answer their cries. The criminals deserved it, they said. They were residents of Cell Block H, a place the guards laughingly referred to as "Hell on Earth".
They joked, but they weren't joking. The inhabitants of Cell Block H were the cream of the criminal crop. Rapists, child killers, and Black Arts practitioners made up the majority of her cellmates. She herself was dumped in there for the last option.
One harrowing month later, a second dementor joined the first. By this time one of the guards had noticed that one of the dementor groups assigned to Cell Block H was leaving and returning without a full squad. A quick jaunt up to "Hell" revealed why, and the irritated guard ordered the dementors back to their route.
Strangely, they didn't listen.
The guard was eventually forced to retreat due to his weakening patronus. A short discussion with his superior ended in a report unhurriedly delivered to the office of the Minister of Magic, Rufus Scrimgeor, who read over the report and then dismissed it out of hand. He sent back a curt reply.
The criminals of Cell Block H all had a life sentence. They were unimportant.
The guards shrugged their shoulders and went back to their work. It didn't seem to be a problem. If it was, it wasn't their problem.
The third dementor arrived another month after the second. By then, the various inhabitants of Cell Block H had collapsed under the continuous strain of the dementors' aura, lapsing in and out of catatonia. Her own mind had succumbed to the crushing depression that oozed from the tattered, frosted cloaks, but she was not yet broken like the others, merely beaten and subdued.
Despair wouldn't be the death of her, she knew. She had fought on in spite of it far too many times to be dragged down by it now.
She had no way of knowing how much time had passed between the fourth and the fifth, but she knew the dementors had, if they were indeed capable of it, given up all pretence of patience. More dementors filed into Cell Block H, beyond her sight but not beyond her senses. The temperature of the area dropped until the other inmates had undoubtedly frozen to death in their comatose states, though she did notice that the miasma in her mind had not increased along with the number of dementors. It appeared that their Aura of Despair had diminishing returns, she noted. Curious.
The soul-eaters continued to crowd outside of her door; more than she could count, and more than she cared to. It was easy to tell that they wanted something. Idle curiosity, the only kind available to her, slithered to the forefront of her mind before it too was buried under the effect of her jail guards.
Before it disappeared, she fleetingly wondered how long they would wait, or even how long they could afford to wait.
How long could she afford to wait?
It was a question that merited consideration.
So, consider it she did. The dementor's aura only affected emotions. Even though she could not overcome such a force, she had long since grown used to it, and could - slowly - ponder such an emotionally-neutral question.
It did help that the question was a simple one. The dementors clearly wanted something. They were willing to break routine to gather here. They were willing to break orders to stay here. Beyond even that, they were willing to kill their own food sources to be near her. But they would also, if they hadn't already, gather attention to themselves and, by extension, to her.
She knew quite well how that would turn out. Attention would be the death of her. Technically, it had been so already.
Therefore, denying the dementors would lead to an Unacceptable outcome. Attention was Unacceptable. Dying was Unacceptable. Staying Still was Unacceptable.
Pure willpower forced her muscles to move. Arms twitched, then flexed. Legs groaned under the sudden stress put upon them. Bones cracked and popped as the air in between joints and sockets was forced out once more. Inch by glacial inch, she crawled forward to certain death.
Beaten, but not broken.
Once she was near the cell door icy, rotting hands grabbed her and hauled her up with unreasonable strength. They pressed her face into the gap between the bars and all the dementors leaned in and inhaled, trying to catch the smallest scent from their meal.
For their prey, the draw on her soul was overpowering, and almost caused her to black out, even with her acclimation to the dementors' aura. Somehow she pushed through, using the iron willpower forged and tempered throughout her pitiful life. She reached around the bars pressing into her face and planted her hand against the visage of the dementor holding her, who had bent forward for a taste of her immortal soul. She could only imagine what it felt like, as she had long ago lost sensation in her body due to the biting cold. The dementor stilled and pressed no further, but a harsh, screeching whisper echoed in her foggy mind.
"Food."
If she had been capable of emotions beyond apathy and depression, she would have rolled her eyes. Men of any type, it seemed, were focused on their next meal. As it was, she swiped a sandpaper tongue across her cracked lips and forced her throat to work, as she had her body.
"No."
"Soul."
"Mine."
"Master."
This word set off the rest. Echoes of "Master" rippled in her mind as all the dementors joined in. She paused to process this. Her mind worked as best it could in its addled state.
"Who?"
"You."
She turned the word over in her mind for several seconds, wondering if she had ever heard of someone with such a name, before it clicked.
And for the first time in a full year, Viscaria Potter smiled.
AN: It really tickles my funny bone to have such feared monsters acting like puppies. Also, if you're wondering how a dementor can have a screeching whisper, go on youtube and look up Skyrim's Dark Brotherhood Door. That is the voice of my nightmares.
The PJO and HP timelines don't match up too well, so shift HP forward by eight years, or PJ back eight. Or, be like me and not give a good goddamn.