Author's Notes: Again, thank you for all the reviews.
Disclaimer: See part one; others belonging to me are Rubber, Eddie, Mack, Tom, and various guards.
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Breakfast and every other meal, it turned out, took place in a fairly large dining room, filled with straight rows of tables. Surprisingly it reminded me a little of Hogwarts. There was a kitchen, mostly fenced off, at one end. As Claw pushed me forward, I could see men collected bowls of porridge through a gap in the fencing. The porridge looked...well, it was food, I supposed, and that was what counted really.
It didn't help that half the prison was staring at me and I recognised more than a few of them, either from Hogwarts, or from my five years serving *him*.
Claw took me over to the table that he apparently always sat at, and gestured me into a seat. Harry was sitting elsewhere, I noted. I wasn't sure to be relieved or not - not all of the men in my immediate vicinity looked as though they were about to buy me flowers.
However Gary was sitting next to me, and hopes rose within me that perhaps I wouldn't be dragged into a fight this morning.
"You know Gary," Claw started. "These are Eddie, Mack, Rubber and Tom." The four men each nodded at me; the only one who didn't look as though he might try to strangle me at any moment was Rubber. He grinned at me, and I managed a small smile in return.
"How'd you get the name Rubber?" I inquired, attempting to stir the small amount of sugar I had been given into the thick porridge. It didn't work, so I simply started eating. It tasted like sawdust, but I suppose there are worse things to eat.
At my question, everyone except for Rubber groaned. Gary shook his head at me disapprovingly.
"Never, ever ask him that," he proclaimed. "He won't shut up for hours now, and I'm the one in the cell next to him." Rubber was grinning madly. I began to realise that there was a possibility that he *was* mad.
But his words alleviated my concern...somewhat. "I'm called Rubber," he began, "because I can do this:" He held out his arm over the table, and bent it. Backwards.
I had seen many grotesque things over the past decade or so. This was perhaps one of the worst. Although I wasn't going to admit that to anyone, ever.
Rubber returned his arm to its normal position. "I'm completely double- jointed," he explained. "And that was *before* some wizard made my bones pliable enough to be like, uh, rubber." He shrugged. "I wasn't complaining, it made my job a lot easier."
I opened my mouth to ask what his job had been, but Claw shoved my sharply with his elbow and gave me a warning look. Sudden comprehension dawned; Rubber's 'job' had obviously been what had landed him in Talsgate.
My spoon hit the bottom of the bowl, and I realised with a start that I'd finished the porridge. Claw had also finished, and when he saw that I was done, he pulled me from my seat and propelled me across the room to a large bowl full of murky water. We dumped out spoons and bowls into the water, and then Claw led me out of the dining room.
Most of the men were still eating, and although I'd only been in the prison for less than ten hours, it felt unnaturally quiet. It was a disturbing change to see the prison now, with only a handful of men walking around, when before it had been almost a hive of activity.
The guards in the gallery watched us as Claw took me to row A and his cell, number ninety-seven. I wondered whether they mistrusted all the prisoners, or whether it was merely Claw and I.
Claw's cell was on the ground level, and was even less sparse than Harry's had been. Harry's cell had been adorned with a few photographs, and he had had some paper and a couple of pens on the table. Claw had either been here longer or had people outside that were able to send him things - there were at least a dozen photos on the wall, there was some sort of ornament, which may or may not have been Muggle, standing on his metal chest, and there was even a small mirror nailed to the wall. . I wondered if anyone would ever send me anything. Perhaps, I mused, Mother might -
I cut that train of thought off abruptly and sat down opposite Claw, watching him expectantly.
"Since Harry asked me to lay out the basics for you," he began, "I may as well do it now and get it over with before roll call."
"There's a roll call?" I asked, startled. After all, Talsgate was impossible to escape from. A shiver ran down my back as I remembered another prison, and the single escapee from there. Alright, perhaps a roll call was necessary.
Claw gave an impatient sigh. "Yes, Malfoy, there is a roll call," he said evenly. "For everyone that's allowed out of cells."
"How do the ones that have to stay locked up eat?" I inquired curiously. Claw closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
"Why do I get the difficult ones," he muttered. "They're unlocked by the guards for meals, alright? Then locked up again. Roll call is after meals to make sure everyone's here and where they should be." He glared at me. "And it's as much for us as it is for them."
"Them?" I was puzzled for a moment. "Oh. The guards." He nodded brusquely. "So where does roll call happen?"
"In the yard - you saw that when you were brought in," he told me. Oh yes, of course, that grey area with the painted lines. Not that I recalled much of it, I had been very out of it then. Not that I could say I wasn't out of it now, of course. My situation hadn't really sunk in yet. "We have two hours of exercise out there after roll call in the morning, no matter what the weather," he continued. "The lockers join us after an hour."
"Lockers?" I interrupted. Maybe I'd missed something, but I didn't have a clue in hell what they were.
"The ones that are locked up all day," he expanded. "They're lockers, and we - the ones that can walk about - are outies. It just stops things getting complicated." He shrugged. "There are over three hundred of us at any given time, after all."
Right. How could I forget? Of course there were several hundred people in here - my cell was number three-three-six, after all.
"After that," Claw continued, "we come back inside and have until lunchtime free. Lunch is at...uh...one, I think. I'm not sure, we live by bells and locks in here." I nodded; that made sense, I hadn't see any clocks in here, and watches, I knew, were taken away from us when we first came in, and kept with our wands. The wands, I had been told by the guards yesterday before they brought me in here, were never snapped.
"What do we do after lunch?" I asked, forcing myself not to think about my wand. Claw, I am sure, saw my discomfort, but said nothing.
"There're some workshops, in the dining room," he said instead. "Uh, carpentry, and some other things - I never do 'em, they aren't required. Harry does some, sometimes, and Gary. Then we eat again at about seven, I reckon."
"Thank you for telling me," I said quietly. "Could I - will you answer some of my questions?" There were some things I needed to know, and I could not ask Harry, even if I knew him better than I knew Claw.
"Depends on what they are," Claw replied easily, tipping his chair backwards. "Well?"
"Why does everyone in here respect Harry?" The front two feet of his chair thumped onto the ground. "Why do they all...fear him?" I pressed.
He narrowed his eyes. "That's not my place to tell you," he said heavily. "You'll see soon enough, I'm sure." That wasn't any answer, but I could see that I would get nothing else from him. "Do you have any other questions?" he demanded. "Roll call's soon."
I remembered the scratched words I had seen under the 'Alley' signs. "Yes - why is Alley B called Salazar Alley?" I queried. "And last night, Harry said something about, uh, Godric Alley."
A grin stretched the scars on Claw's face. "Ah, that was what the first prisoner in here called the alleys - Godric, Salazar, Rowena and Helga," he told me, seeming quite proud of it. "Not that I understood at first, not being a wizard." I managed not to show surprise at this; I had known, of course, that this prison housed Muggles as well as wizards, but I had not expected...I had not realised that I would be talking with them. Although my opinions had...changed, somewhat, over the past few years, I was still my father's son. Muggles, I had been taught, were beneath wizards. I snapped back to attention, not wanting to think about my father.
"I suppose you went to that school, Hogwarts?" Claw asked. I nodded silently. "Then you know about the, uh, Founders. Well, the first prisoner put in here was someone called...oh, what was it. Harry or Gary would be better to tell you, I've only been in here three years. Uh...oh yes. It was a man called Ron Weasley."
I almost fell out of my chair. "Ron Weasley was in here?" I managed. "Ron *Weasley*?"
"You knew him?" Claw threw me a sharp glance, and I nodded, unable to speak. I hadn't known that Weasley was in here...but of course, I should have expected it. Weasley and Potter had been the leaders of the resistance...only then it had been Potter alone, because Weasley had 'disappeared'. So he had been prisoner number one. I wonder what had happened to him. Surely he was no longer here, since I hadn't seen him yet, and he and Harry would have been inseparable, I imagined.
Another loud bell interrupted my thoughts, and I suppressed a groan. 'I think," I muttered, "that I could learn to hate that bell."
"On the contrary, you'll learn to love it," Claw said cheerfully. "C'mon, roll call." I followed him from his cell, and realised that during our talk the prison had filled again. Claw took me back towards the front entrance; a huge group of men had gathered there, forming some semblance of a line, but in the middle of them several men appeared to be having a fight. One of them I recognised as Zabini, the other as Rubber, the man I had met at breakfast only a short while earlier.
"What on earth is Rubber fighting Zabini for?" Claw muttered, more to himself than to me. "He knows he'll never win."
"Why not?" I demanded in as quiet a voice as I could manage - not that it really mattered, the men about us were making enough noise to drown out whatever I might say.
"Because Zabini was one of your Death Eaters," Claw replied impatiently. "He's got training that Rubber never had." I watched the fight, and realised that Claw was right - Zabini was pounding on Rubber, and Rubber had no notion of how to fight back - his pliable limbs obviously weren't helping much, as Zabini was using them to his advantage, twisting them around. Blaise had always made use of his opponent's weaknesses and strengths, I recalled. That was how he had got in here, if I remembered correctly.
"Stop it!" Harry's voice rang out from the crowds, and he stepped forward, pushing Gary aside. "Zabini, drop it." Zabini ignored Harry, although even I could see that it wasn't perhaps the brightest idea to do that. He hit Rubber again, sending the man sprawling back into some other inmates.
Suddenly Zabini was slowly lifted into the air; he was facing me, so I could see the look of utter panic on his face. Expecting to see a guard with a wand, I looked around. Then I noticed that everyone was watching Harry.
My old arch-enemy was standing with his legs braced and his arm outstretched towards Zabini. A look of intense concentration was on his face, and he was beginning to sweat. He was obviously the cause of Zabini's levitation, although I didn't see how that was possible. He had no wand, and I could see on his wrist a metallic bracelet that I knew had been devised before Harry had been caught. It was loaded with spells, all designed to stop the use of magic. It mostly was used for children now, so that they didn't do any accidental magic before they were old enough for a wand. It was useless when one was in possession of a wand.
Harry had no wand, he had a prevention bracelet, and he had just levitated Blaise Zabini several feet into the air.
Suddenly I knew that the rumours were not rumours. They were fact. I also knew why everyone in this prison thought twice before upsetting Harry.
Zabini was slowly lowered. Harry was shaking and sweating profusely, but his voice was steady, and cut through the crowd.
"Don't attack my friends again." He looked at Rubber, who was picking himself up. He didn't appear much hurt, and he flashed Harry a thankful grin. Harry was stony-faced. "I can take care of myself, Rubber," he admonished. "I'm not worth a day in isolation."
"Neither are they, one-oh-two," came the voice of a guard. I turned, and the guard walked past me towards Harry, an unjustified look or pleasure on his face. "You can spend the day in isolation for what you just did."
Harry's eyes flashed, but he silently followed the guard. Other guards were here now, and we were briskly ordered into lines. Everyone ignored Zabini as we were taken outside into the yard and lined up against the wall. When my number was called, I answered as the others had done.
My mind stayed firmly with Harry, and what I had just seen.
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To be continued.
Disclaimer: See part one; others belonging to me are Rubber, Eddie, Mack, Tom, and various guards.
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Breakfast and every other meal, it turned out, took place in a fairly large dining room, filled with straight rows of tables. Surprisingly it reminded me a little of Hogwarts. There was a kitchen, mostly fenced off, at one end. As Claw pushed me forward, I could see men collected bowls of porridge through a gap in the fencing. The porridge looked...well, it was food, I supposed, and that was what counted really.
It didn't help that half the prison was staring at me and I recognised more than a few of them, either from Hogwarts, or from my five years serving *him*.
Claw took me over to the table that he apparently always sat at, and gestured me into a seat. Harry was sitting elsewhere, I noted. I wasn't sure to be relieved or not - not all of the men in my immediate vicinity looked as though they were about to buy me flowers.
However Gary was sitting next to me, and hopes rose within me that perhaps I wouldn't be dragged into a fight this morning.
"You know Gary," Claw started. "These are Eddie, Mack, Rubber and Tom." The four men each nodded at me; the only one who didn't look as though he might try to strangle me at any moment was Rubber. He grinned at me, and I managed a small smile in return.
"How'd you get the name Rubber?" I inquired, attempting to stir the small amount of sugar I had been given into the thick porridge. It didn't work, so I simply started eating. It tasted like sawdust, but I suppose there are worse things to eat.
At my question, everyone except for Rubber groaned. Gary shook his head at me disapprovingly.
"Never, ever ask him that," he proclaimed. "He won't shut up for hours now, and I'm the one in the cell next to him." Rubber was grinning madly. I began to realise that there was a possibility that he *was* mad.
But his words alleviated my concern...somewhat. "I'm called Rubber," he began, "because I can do this:" He held out his arm over the table, and bent it. Backwards.
I had seen many grotesque things over the past decade or so. This was perhaps one of the worst. Although I wasn't going to admit that to anyone, ever.
Rubber returned his arm to its normal position. "I'm completely double- jointed," he explained. "And that was *before* some wizard made my bones pliable enough to be like, uh, rubber." He shrugged. "I wasn't complaining, it made my job a lot easier."
I opened my mouth to ask what his job had been, but Claw shoved my sharply with his elbow and gave me a warning look. Sudden comprehension dawned; Rubber's 'job' had obviously been what had landed him in Talsgate.
My spoon hit the bottom of the bowl, and I realised with a start that I'd finished the porridge. Claw had also finished, and when he saw that I was done, he pulled me from my seat and propelled me across the room to a large bowl full of murky water. We dumped out spoons and bowls into the water, and then Claw led me out of the dining room.
Most of the men were still eating, and although I'd only been in the prison for less than ten hours, it felt unnaturally quiet. It was a disturbing change to see the prison now, with only a handful of men walking around, when before it had been almost a hive of activity.
The guards in the gallery watched us as Claw took me to row A and his cell, number ninety-seven. I wondered whether they mistrusted all the prisoners, or whether it was merely Claw and I.
Claw's cell was on the ground level, and was even less sparse than Harry's had been. Harry's cell had been adorned with a few photographs, and he had had some paper and a couple of pens on the table. Claw had either been here longer or had people outside that were able to send him things - there were at least a dozen photos on the wall, there was some sort of ornament, which may or may not have been Muggle, standing on his metal chest, and there was even a small mirror nailed to the wall. . I wondered if anyone would ever send me anything. Perhaps, I mused, Mother might -
I cut that train of thought off abruptly and sat down opposite Claw, watching him expectantly.
"Since Harry asked me to lay out the basics for you," he began, "I may as well do it now and get it over with before roll call."
"There's a roll call?" I asked, startled. After all, Talsgate was impossible to escape from. A shiver ran down my back as I remembered another prison, and the single escapee from there. Alright, perhaps a roll call was necessary.
Claw gave an impatient sigh. "Yes, Malfoy, there is a roll call," he said evenly. "For everyone that's allowed out of cells."
"How do the ones that have to stay locked up eat?" I inquired curiously. Claw closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
"Why do I get the difficult ones," he muttered. "They're unlocked by the guards for meals, alright? Then locked up again. Roll call is after meals to make sure everyone's here and where they should be." He glared at me. "And it's as much for us as it is for them."
"Them?" I was puzzled for a moment. "Oh. The guards." He nodded brusquely. "So where does roll call happen?"
"In the yard - you saw that when you were brought in," he told me. Oh yes, of course, that grey area with the painted lines. Not that I recalled much of it, I had been very out of it then. Not that I could say I wasn't out of it now, of course. My situation hadn't really sunk in yet. "We have two hours of exercise out there after roll call in the morning, no matter what the weather," he continued. "The lockers join us after an hour."
"Lockers?" I interrupted. Maybe I'd missed something, but I didn't have a clue in hell what they were.
"The ones that are locked up all day," he expanded. "They're lockers, and we - the ones that can walk about - are outies. It just stops things getting complicated." He shrugged. "There are over three hundred of us at any given time, after all."
Right. How could I forget? Of course there were several hundred people in here - my cell was number three-three-six, after all.
"After that," Claw continued, "we come back inside and have until lunchtime free. Lunch is at...uh...one, I think. I'm not sure, we live by bells and locks in here." I nodded; that made sense, I hadn't see any clocks in here, and watches, I knew, were taken away from us when we first came in, and kept with our wands. The wands, I had been told by the guards yesterday before they brought me in here, were never snapped.
"What do we do after lunch?" I asked, forcing myself not to think about my wand. Claw, I am sure, saw my discomfort, but said nothing.
"There're some workshops, in the dining room," he said instead. "Uh, carpentry, and some other things - I never do 'em, they aren't required. Harry does some, sometimes, and Gary. Then we eat again at about seven, I reckon."
"Thank you for telling me," I said quietly. "Could I - will you answer some of my questions?" There were some things I needed to know, and I could not ask Harry, even if I knew him better than I knew Claw.
"Depends on what they are," Claw replied easily, tipping his chair backwards. "Well?"
"Why does everyone in here respect Harry?" The front two feet of his chair thumped onto the ground. "Why do they all...fear him?" I pressed.
He narrowed his eyes. "That's not my place to tell you," he said heavily. "You'll see soon enough, I'm sure." That wasn't any answer, but I could see that I would get nothing else from him. "Do you have any other questions?" he demanded. "Roll call's soon."
I remembered the scratched words I had seen under the 'Alley' signs. "Yes - why is Alley B called Salazar Alley?" I queried. "And last night, Harry said something about, uh, Godric Alley."
A grin stretched the scars on Claw's face. "Ah, that was what the first prisoner in here called the alleys - Godric, Salazar, Rowena and Helga," he told me, seeming quite proud of it. "Not that I understood at first, not being a wizard." I managed not to show surprise at this; I had known, of course, that this prison housed Muggles as well as wizards, but I had not expected...I had not realised that I would be talking with them. Although my opinions had...changed, somewhat, over the past few years, I was still my father's son. Muggles, I had been taught, were beneath wizards. I snapped back to attention, not wanting to think about my father.
"I suppose you went to that school, Hogwarts?" Claw asked. I nodded silently. "Then you know about the, uh, Founders. Well, the first prisoner put in here was someone called...oh, what was it. Harry or Gary would be better to tell you, I've only been in here three years. Uh...oh yes. It was a man called Ron Weasley."
I almost fell out of my chair. "Ron Weasley was in here?" I managed. "Ron *Weasley*?"
"You knew him?" Claw threw me a sharp glance, and I nodded, unable to speak. I hadn't known that Weasley was in here...but of course, I should have expected it. Weasley and Potter had been the leaders of the resistance...only then it had been Potter alone, because Weasley had 'disappeared'. So he had been prisoner number one. I wonder what had happened to him. Surely he was no longer here, since I hadn't seen him yet, and he and Harry would have been inseparable, I imagined.
Another loud bell interrupted my thoughts, and I suppressed a groan. 'I think," I muttered, "that I could learn to hate that bell."
"On the contrary, you'll learn to love it," Claw said cheerfully. "C'mon, roll call." I followed him from his cell, and realised that during our talk the prison had filled again. Claw took me back towards the front entrance; a huge group of men had gathered there, forming some semblance of a line, but in the middle of them several men appeared to be having a fight. One of them I recognised as Zabini, the other as Rubber, the man I had met at breakfast only a short while earlier.
"What on earth is Rubber fighting Zabini for?" Claw muttered, more to himself than to me. "He knows he'll never win."
"Why not?" I demanded in as quiet a voice as I could manage - not that it really mattered, the men about us were making enough noise to drown out whatever I might say.
"Because Zabini was one of your Death Eaters," Claw replied impatiently. "He's got training that Rubber never had." I watched the fight, and realised that Claw was right - Zabini was pounding on Rubber, and Rubber had no notion of how to fight back - his pliable limbs obviously weren't helping much, as Zabini was using them to his advantage, twisting them around. Blaise had always made use of his opponent's weaknesses and strengths, I recalled. That was how he had got in here, if I remembered correctly.
"Stop it!" Harry's voice rang out from the crowds, and he stepped forward, pushing Gary aside. "Zabini, drop it." Zabini ignored Harry, although even I could see that it wasn't perhaps the brightest idea to do that. He hit Rubber again, sending the man sprawling back into some other inmates.
Suddenly Zabini was slowly lifted into the air; he was facing me, so I could see the look of utter panic on his face. Expecting to see a guard with a wand, I looked around. Then I noticed that everyone was watching Harry.
My old arch-enemy was standing with his legs braced and his arm outstretched towards Zabini. A look of intense concentration was on his face, and he was beginning to sweat. He was obviously the cause of Zabini's levitation, although I didn't see how that was possible. He had no wand, and I could see on his wrist a metallic bracelet that I knew had been devised before Harry had been caught. It was loaded with spells, all designed to stop the use of magic. It mostly was used for children now, so that they didn't do any accidental magic before they were old enough for a wand. It was useless when one was in possession of a wand.
Harry had no wand, he had a prevention bracelet, and he had just levitated Blaise Zabini several feet into the air.
Suddenly I knew that the rumours were not rumours. They were fact. I also knew why everyone in this prison thought twice before upsetting Harry.
Zabini was slowly lowered. Harry was shaking and sweating profusely, but his voice was steady, and cut through the crowd.
"Don't attack my friends again." He looked at Rubber, who was picking himself up. He didn't appear much hurt, and he flashed Harry a thankful grin. Harry was stony-faced. "I can take care of myself, Rubber," he admonished. "I'm not worth a day in isolation."
"Neither are they, one-oh-two," came the voice of a guard. I turned, and the guard walked past me towards Harry, an unjustified look or pleasure on his face. "You can spend the day in isolation for what you just did."
Harry's eyes flashed, but he silently followed the guard. Other guards were here now, and we were briskly ordered into lines. Everyone ignored Zabini as we were taken outside into the yard and lined up against the wall. When my number was called, I answered as the others had done.
My mind stayed firmly with Harry, and what I had just seen.
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To be continued.