AN: I'm so depressing, am
I not? Nothing is mine but my words, take those and be damned. *g*
I'm so uplifting. Review,
please.\
Wrists as thin
as willow branches grasped the bars.
The bars were bigger around than her emaciated arms. Her thighs and calves nearly matched in
their diameter, and her hips jutted out like a shelf for her ragged pants to
hang from. Through her shirt you
could count ever rib in her body, see her stomach churn through her skin. But she wasn't hungry. She hadn't been hungry in a long time.
"Hey,
puny."
"You like
to do crime like the big boys, but you won't take it like the big
boys?"
"Look at
him! It's
disgusting!"
Eyes as pale
and bleached at the hair that was cropped close to her skull stared blindly at
the cell opposite hers, through the bars, through the stones. She saw the outside. Larks sang, children laughed, small
animals ran about, flowers bloomed.
The sun shone down on them all.
She smiled. Never before had
she seen the world so clearly. But
she couldn't see it. She had been
blind for a long time.
"Hey—you
hear me?"
"Don't be
stupid, man, he's deaf and blind as a Dementor. Takes them
horribly."
"Yea, we
had to ask that they stay away from his cell or he goes bonkers, shouting that
it's all Crouch's fault, he never asked to do this, but 'I love my
son!'"
"Kid's two
bales short of a load, there."
She smiled
around her as laughter and heavenly music swirled through her twisted mind, as
the chirping song of birds serenaded her.
Head cocked to one side, she listened intently to her own private
orchestra, a look of pleasure washing over her demented features. But she couldn't hear it. She had been deaf a long
time.
"He don't
respond to nothing anymore."
"Hasn't
eaten in days, just drinks his water."
"Think the
cell should be cleared? At this
point methinks it be kindness to the lad."
"Yes, tell
the manager."
What was
this? She was snatched away, and
coldness filled her skin from the inside out, the cold of misery. Blindly she reached for her visions,
gone from her sight. Deaf ear
strained to hear her music. A
stomach empty of all nourishment grumbled it yearning for something that was now
forgotten. She wailed, clasping her
hands over her head.
"This one's
purely crazy, sir."
"How
old?"
"Nineteen,
sir."
"How many
years with us?"
"He's been
here a year, give a month or two."
"Ah, this
one's a weakling. Clear the
cell."
"Yes
sir."
She was being
swept away again. They were taking
her away! If only she had the
strength to kick! Her body was
wasted and offered no more resistance that a piece of wet rope. But it was for good, she
remembered. They were leaving the
castle, leaving Azkaban.
It was for
good. Her son would live, because
now she died in his place.
"It is good,"
she sighed.
Someone tossed the body next to a prepared hole,
grabbing a board to carve the head stone. She lay by her grave,
dying. After a short amount of time, she was rolled down into the
grave. The bruising impact knocked the breath from her body. It was
hard to breath in her own grave. Weakly she felt the walls, staring around
with her blind eyes.
"Where am I?" She shook as dirt hit her
feet. Inch by inch, she was buried alive.
The worker shovelled the dirt over the
shivering body. Feet first, slowly,
bit by bit until they were dead and could be buried within the law. By the time he had buried the legs, she
was gone.
Farewell,
Amelia Crouch. Or, as the worker
said:
"Good
riddance, Bartimus Jr."
