A/N: Written for the 10 times 10 challenge, Potion Category, polyjuice potion.
Lying Past
Part 5
I became a dog more often and a human less – if there was any human left in me after rotting away in this prison for countless days. It was easier that way: I was growing lax, less faithful…even less angry, less guilty…
I don't know when it happened; I thought that decay of my soul had frozen to let me live out my sentence. Apparently it hadn't, because I could blink and find another echo of that anger, of that guilt, fading away into the ravenous mist. Part of me was afraid: the anger and guilt was, for the longest time, all I'd had left. Now I was losing those as well.
I tried to hang on to them, tried to pretend I was that dog who couldn't lose human memories, that could remember the smells of James' smelly socks and Harry's nappies, that could remember the smell of an antler and a werewolf and a rat –
And, luckily, that's enough to spark a little anger, enough to bring a face to mind – and, from there, a rush of other faces: some smiling, some laughing, others looking fuzzy and holding no expression at all…
They might have been other people's faces, but they were all I could remember, all I could hold on to. They might be dreams now – but the despair eating what's left of my soul is very real.