A/N: Welcome to another stint in Azkaban. We'll see madness, a total lack of names and even in verse writing. But before we come to that a few items of business.
Review replies:
AlwaysHufflepuff: You're... partly in luck, although not full. The whole visit might be in another chapter. I have ideas, but for now that's all they are.
harrypottercrookshanks: Brilliantly uncapitalised review. Thanks for the compliment, and another idea of course. Goodbye!
Alicia Olivia Mirza: I always thought he would have to, yeah?
Fic recommendation: Danse Macabre, by RarissimaAvis. One of the best reincarnation fics Ive read!
Disclaimer:
I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER.
Trigger warning: Madness, amnesia, despair. Not too bad, though.
Whew, it's been a long time. But hey, sporadic, irregular updates whenever, I'm bored of my other stuff, right?
Okay, yeah, ten months does make me a little guilty.
But hey, here we have it, a new update! So don't be too mad. Just read!
Chapter 3: All That Is Left
His tears had long since dried, but his throat was still hoarse from shouting, screaming, pleading.
Life sentence. It hadn't quite sunk into the sandy-haired boy's mind. His father — his own father — had banged the gavel down and sealed the boy's fate.
He could picture perfectly the hardened, loveless face of the man who had raised him staring him down from above, deaf to his mother's cries beside him. Well, he supposed, the man never really had cared enough to give any proper effort into raising him. It had always been his mother.
His mother. It was only the thought of her that had stopped him from admitting. At least this way she could still doubt, still hope that her beloved son was innocent. Her cries haunted him, begging his father also, as he sat on the cold hard floor of what would be his room for the rest of his foreseen life.
It had finally sunk into the boy's. He would stay in this small cell for as long as he lived. That could be seventy years, for something he had done in the span of a single night. He'd been on a drunken high, caught up with his old friends, and as it wore off his whole life had crashed around his ears.
But, as one of his non-human jailors floated pasted and the cell lost all warmth, he could barely summon the energy to be horrified. He was worn, a shell, and had nothing left.
The crazy woman across from him was laughing again. At first she had been laughing at their human, self-righteous jailors, but now… now he didn't know why she laughed. She was cracked and bent, and with the poised, pure blooded mask gone and her madness was seeping, oozing out.
He remembered her from the night that had started this all. But… he couldn't remember… when was that? It had been so long…
He turned and looked at the scratch marks on the wall. One for every day he had been here. He made them each time food was brought, cold gruel slopping out of a rusty, fake silver bowl. He had made them so he could keep a record, of the time he spent in this small cell. But now he couldn't count them. They blurred before his eyes. What was he looking at? The dirty grey scratches on the dirty grey wall became great mass of misery.
Slowly, the cracked and maddened woman's cackle lulled him to sleep, like a twisted lullaby. His last thought before sinking into a murky oblivion was that it fit this place, didn't it? A hellish song for hell on Earth.
Earth?
What was that?
The boy couldn't quite remember. It was like an itching at the back of his thoughts, the word ringing a bell in his mind (not that he had much of one left to ring in). The jailor who had brought his food had muttered it: Worst job on Earth, this.
The boy did not know how he felt about those jailors. They were the ones who didn't seem to emit a negative energy and suck the thoughts right out of him. Or were they? Everyone was negative here. He was negative, just a hole in space, slowly filling up every inch of what ha once been a sandy-haired boy, screaming, screaming…
What?
Where had that come from?
A sandy-haired boy. Was that him? He tugged a lock of matted, filthy hair from around his waist to his eyes. It could have been sandy coloured, once. He'd know better if he still knew what sand looked like.
Earth. That was what he was thinking of right now.
But he just couldn't. Couldn't…
Where…
When…
Clatter clatter. Grey-brown slop.
He picked it up, poured it down. He waited for the bars to close again.
Ten… nine… eight… seven… six… five… four… three… two… one… Clang!
He hauled himself over to the wall. With one long, filthy nail, he scratched another line into the dirty grey wall.
Why…
He didn't know. It was a habit.
It was a habit to ignore the cackles
and the mutters
and even the dread-cold
but this wasn't habit.
The boy was screaming, crying begging. He couldn't ignore this. It brought back… memories
Another boy, screaming and begging:
fatherpleasenodon'tdothisididn'tdoiti'minnocentplease!
And another memory:
nonononononononoyou'renosonofmine
you're no son of mine
you're. no. son. of. mine.
You're.
No.
Son.
Of.
Mine.
Memories.
It had taken him twelve scratches. He could remember this now, just as he could now remember that the twelve scratches meant twelve days.
Memories.
He had them now: had memories of Earth, of growing up and making choices both good and bad (the memory of the black mark on his arm was one of those) and memories of this place: Azkaban.
He had memories of people, too: a tall, stern and thin grey man that elicited feelings of anger and being wronged and a burning desire for… he didn't know, but it was horrifying and satisfying and eating him up and he seemed to remember that this thing should be cold but it wasn't and he wanted it to be burning, to burn that man. His father.
He remembered his mother: warm and soft and naïve. She elicited feelings that were just like her herself, but the boy's other memories taught him better than to give into such emotions, so happy and so forbidden; these memories he did not want taken, but if they were good they would be.
Above all, he remembered the sandy-haired, child-like boy, the one he once was. But he remembered only so he knew what he no longer could be. His hair was black now, black as the black inside him and he wasn't a child. He wasn't that boy anymore.
Because he also remembered…
Well, You Know Who.
There was thin patch of sunlight in his cell today. This was rare, and only happened after he had made hundreds of scratches — after hundreds of days, he reminded himself viciously.
He glanced out through the bars; madwoman Bellatrix was aslepep today - she wouldn't bother him. He got up, stretching his rarely used legs and relishing in the little pops along his neck as he spun it. He reached the window and clenched the bars in his fists, staring out hungrily at the sea as it crashed own around the island. It was harsh and unwelcoming.
He wanted to get out to it.
Today was the boy's lucky day, as it turned out.
Footsteps sounded in the hall outside his cell. He turned in confusion. Other than the wizards who delivered his gruel twice a day, he never heard footsteps, as the only other people free in the prison did not have feet to make them.
They had passed the other cells and were slowing down. The boy registered with surprise that this must mean they were here for him. He did not have more time to contemplate, though; three people came into view around the corner. He froze.
It was not the jailor that froze the boy. Jailors were common in Azkaban - well, as common as a place with little to no free human being. Although, the boy noted, he was in an Auror outfit, but this did not surprise him. He had seen other prisoners receiving visitors, all accompanied by the extra security a fully trained Auror provided, rather than the regular guards.
It was not the second person that brought him up short, either. He had known she would come, eventually. How could she not have? It was not that he had been awaiting the visit, but more like… tentatively expecting it. He had know that she would eventually persuade his father to allow it.
Bt the boy had never expected the man to come too.
They met eyes, the two who shared the same name but had led so very different lives. The let his father see what had happened to him through his own eyes. He saw the choices and the suffering; the madness and the the regaining of control. He saw what had happened to the young person before him, who had once screamed for mercy in a ruthless courtroom. He saw all that was left of that boy. And the boy found his tongue first.
"Hello, father."
"Hello… Barty."
A/N: I know,t hat was long for a oneshot series. But it was SUCH FUN WRITING! Anyway, will use some of the ideas form this fics reviews for the next chapter, and will update MWPJ very soon.
Of course, some pretty little reviews would motivate me... *hint, hint*
Bye!
