Ummmmm yes my dear faithful readers I am insane, all hail the awesome evil of SATs that will drive all but the most devout of its follower's sanity to the edge of the metaphorical cliff. Personally I think mine is enjoying its vacation as a nice little pile of splattered mush at the bottom of said canyon of mental limitations, which is why I am now starting yet another fic whilst my other ones are already waging World War III for my computer time.

So on with the mental meltdown heh heh.

Chapter I: Judgment

The slow dripping of the walls was going to drive him crazy if he wasn't already. He had almost lost count of how long he had been here or would have if it weren't for the ceaseless taunting of the jailers when their rounds brought them to his cell.

It had been almost two months since the Auroras arrived at Hogwarts the day after the fall of the Dark Lord to begin the long process of picking up the pieces and to lead him and his family away along with any others who had survived the vengeful mobs of students and the families of those who had died in the last battle.

Now less than twenty-four hours stood between him and his doom. Tomorrow was the hearing to decide the fate of him and his parents and he didn't have any illusions of how it was to end.

The Ministry had lost no time sweeping up the last few pockets of those loyal to Voldermort which had been next to none since the majority of his followers had come rushing to join what they had blindly believed to be the fight to complete their hold on the Wizarding world.

How he wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Despite the fact that Kingsly Shacklebolt, the current temporary Minister, had proven his full intent to make a break from the Ministry's former policy of 'guilty till proven otherwise' by holding as fair a trial as he could get for each condemned person more cells were filling than were being emptied.

Most of those who had either been threatened, cursed, and/or blackmailed into submission and servitude had been cleared within the first week or so if what little information that had managed to trickle in was true.

Those who were bribed or indirectly supported the dark Lord's cause were heavily fined, placed under parole or house arrest, or given time in lesser prisons.

A smaller number who had openly shown their loyalty to him and the few remaining Death Eaters who had somehow survived the fight at Hogwarts had been tried and quickly found accountable. Just two days before a Death Eater, who he knew only by face, had been taken from his cell across the hall for judgment, he hadn't returned. The subtle jeers from the wizards on duty when they brought the evening meal had been more than enough to let him know the outcome.

The idea churned his already nauseous innards. Ever since he had come in contact with them on the train in his third year he had never been able to suppress the infinitesimal shudder that coursed through him whenever he thought of the dementors and the way they magnified every shadow from his past. He had only been a spoiled, pampered thirteen year-old then and still had wished with everything in him to never have cause to come in contact with the creatures again.

Now he carried the full burden of things he had done and witnessed in his time with the deranged maniac that had clearly never been very stable to begin with. The added bonus of being stuck with the source of the pantomimes of these past two years made for a recipe of a nightmare from hell itself.

Hell. That's were he belonged after everything he had done. He may not have done them directly or by choice but he was still responsible for allowing himself to be pushed so far. He deserved to rot in a lake of fire while the ghosts of those who had suffered because of him, because of his weakness, laughed and reviled in his fate.

How the mighty have fallen. They would screech and poke and sneer at his torment, but still it would never compare to the agony of this last year.

Before that he had at least had the safety of the school away from Voldermort. But it hadn't been safe. Nowhere had been safe. Not since the day, not since he…..

A sudden wave of surreal cold raised the hair on the back his neck.

Oh no. No no NO! Not again please no. There is nothing he can do, there are no more loving parents or godfather to protect him and his wand was taken away the second the Auroras had laid hands on him. The dark slowly but steadily snipes away at his vision.

"No"…..the wispery moan is all he can manage before the shadowy yet strikingly clear images begin to take form in his mind.

Running through a hall filed with screams and multicolored streams of light… he must do this he must, their lives…

"Do it", the voice thin but tortuously high rose to settle like a hissing fog of subtly toxic miasma… "Please." The small whimpered plea is like a thousand frozen needles piercing every orifice of his being…..

"Finish him." Dark lidded eyes that just barely contained the gleaming desire for death and a subtle jealousy for not being the one to serve it.

"Prove the truth of your devotion." The voice slithered through the air to coil in his throat like the snake whose master now urged him on.

"…Specifically instructed he must be the one to do it."

"Just end it." Eyes that matched the summer skies he once found his freedom from all this in, framed in crimson from the large gash inflicted by some ring on the hand of one that found it amusing to strike one so helpless against them.

The body hung midair, the look, though now void of life, some how still held sadness, and was that….pity? for him? Who would stoop low enough to that level?

"It's not your fault. I won't blame you." How could one so young and, previously, innocent assert such a thing?

"You are not a murderer!"

"Undeserving scum! Do it! Do it NOW!"

"It doesn't have to end like this."

"They are filth that pollutes our kind. What we do is a mercy…."

"There IS another way!"

Corroded senses failed to notice the receding chill that signaled the dementor had moved on. All he was conscious to was the screeching of the phantoms dancing behind his closed eyelids mingling with hoarse cries that he was just barely able to identify as his own.

Finally after what seemed an eternity the cries quieted down to strangled sobs. Tears flowed freely down chalk white skin adding to the tracks formed by their predecessors.

He made no move to wipe them away. Instead curling into an even tighter ball in the corner. He would not ask for, could not ask for mercy, for the horrors to be taken away.

This was his payment, his punishment for it all.

His judgment.

And there was none to help him. After all, it was only what he deserved.

Ok it's a little watered down from my normal 'start with a bang' method but I just got home from a dressage (that's fancy horse riding for those who do not spend 80% of their free time at a stable) competition at like 11 pm and am being drilled in why it is a very bad idea to consume coffee, vodka, beer, and wine all within the space of three hours*shudders*. So my plot bunny decided to take advantage of my fried defenses to launch an attack with this new story it's been campaigning for since last week.

So if something is screwed or it sucks let me know and I'll try to a take a shot at redoing it when I'm sober without the caffeine rush.