A/N: She will set her son free to atone for her sins.
Submission for:
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments): Transfiguration Assignment #7 - Write about someone setting someone, or something, free. Prompt: (word) free
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments): OCTOBER EVENT: Halloween Carnival (Bingo) - (potion) Polyjuice Potion
She stared at her son through the rusted iron bars, taking his gaunt, sallow face, limp hair and wide eyes. However, he seemed to barely register her presence. Only a few months in this dark place and he had already started losing himself to his mind.
She cast a quick glance down the hallway where she knew her husband was standing, his back defiantly straight and his eyes and ears open for anyone who may come near. It had taken a lot of convincing to get him to come here, and the only way he could justify this is if he didn't watch the actual event occur.
"Bartemius," she whispered and she waited for any sign of recognition but the eyes just stared back. "Bartemius," she tried again. "I've come to get you out of here, to free you."
He let out a barking laugh which echoed even in the suffocating darkness around them before he said, "Free me? You care now? You care about what I've been going through, about the prison I'm living in?"
Then he jumped forward, prompting her to jump back as his hands latched onto the metal bars. "What about the prison I was living in before? The perfect son who could never be perfect enough? Where were you then, Mother?"
She fell to her knees, hiding her face in her hands as she sobbed. It was true. She had cast a blind eye to the effect her husband's expectations would have her son. She had neglected her son just as much as he had, and look where it led. He had joined the Dark side, and gotten caught and thrown away like all the other criminals.
"Please, let me help you, Barty," she whispered, her voice cracking slightly. She reached blindly into her pocket and held the vial of murky liquid out towards him. "Let me make it up to you."
A few moments later, she watched herself on the other side of the bars shuffle down the hallway, her own back pressed up against the cold stone walls of her son's cell. With this, he would be free, he could live his life on the outside and she would atone for all her mistakes against her son.