Chapter 5: A Voice at the Window
* * * * *
"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off--"
A door opening…a woman screaming… a man's indistinct shouting…a cold-sounding cackle…
"Avada Kedavra."
* * * * *
"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"
"Stand aside, you silly girl… stand aside, now…."
"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead--"
"Not Harry! Please… have mercy… have mercy…"
…A cackle of high-pitched laughter…
"Avada Kedavra."
* * *
…cold… very cold… a dim morning light…
"Aaahhh! Vernon! Come and look at this!"
"Hrrm? Yes? What is it, Petunia?"
…heavy footsteps pounding…
"Look! They-- those-- look at the doorstep, Vernon!"
"That's not… it can't be…"
…the sound of something rustling…
"Read this, Vernon! My freak of a sister! She's gone and gotten herself killed--her and that dratted husband of hers both-- and they leave her filthy son with us! Of all the nerve--"
"They can't. This can't be-- We'll take him to the orphanage as soon as it opens…
"Those--- look at this letter! Read it! A curse…! They've stuck us with him, Vernon!"
"Well, of all the--"
…more shouting… the feeling of being roughly carried…
"In you go, boy."
The sound of a cupboard door closing… and darkness.
* * * * *
"It all comes down to blood… bad blood will out… your sister was a bad egg… then she ran off with a wastrel and here's the result right in front of us… This Potter-- you never told me what he did?"
"He-- didn't work. Unemployed."
"As I expected! A no-account, good-for-nothing, lazy scrounger who--"
"He was not."
"Go on, boy, go on. Proud of your parents, are you? They go and get themsevles killed in a car crash (drunk, I expect)--"
"They didn't die in a car crash!"
"They died in a car crash, you nasty little liar, and left you to be a burned on their decent, hardworking relatives! You are an insolent, ungrateful little--"
* * * * *
A cemetery… a short man in a hooded cloak, with something in a bundle of robes…
"Kill the spare."
"Avada Kedavra."
* * * * *
"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"
"Stand aside, you silly girl… stand aside, now…."
"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead--"
"Not Harry! Please… have mercy… have mercy…"
…A cackle of high-pitched laughter…
"Avada Kedavra."
* * *
A cold floor… a cold, hard, dirt floor…
* * * * *
Darkness… boarded windows… a shack…
"You should have realized… if Voldemort didn't kill you, we would. Good-bye, Peter."
"NO! You can't kill him, you can't… We'll take him up to the castle. We'll hand him over to the Dementors… he can go to Azkaban… but don't kill him."
* * * * *
Darkness… an unmoving willow tree… a castle in the distance… a cloud shifting… moonlight…
"Oh, my-- he didn't take his potion tonight! He's not safe!"
"Run… Run. Now… Leave it to me. RUN!"
A wolf's snarls… a dog's warning barks…
"Expelliarmus! Stay where you are!"
A howl… a growl…
"Sirius, he's gone! Pettigrew transformed!"
* * *
A cold, hard, dirt floor… grey stone walls… grey light through a window… Is this Azkaban?
* * *
Indoors… the grey walls of a cell… an old man with sober blue eyes…
"…It is my expectation that the Department of Magical Law Enforcement will seek to have you sent to Azkaban. I do not know for how long; that will depend on the timing of when Voldemort plans to release the Dementors."
* * *
"I ASK THE JURY… IF THEY BELIEVE, AS I DO, THAT THESE CRIMES DESERVE FIFTEEN DAYS' DETENTION AT THE MINISTRY FOR RONALD WEASLEY AND HERMIONE GRANGER, AND FOR HARRY POTTER, LIFE IN AZKABAN!!!"
* * *
So I'm in Azkaban…this is what Azkaban is like… with all the Dementors… I've got to keep my sanity… Sirius did it by transforming… but I can't transform… I can't transform…
* * * * *
A howl… a growl…
"Sirius, he's gone! Pettigrew transformed!"
"…We'd better get up to the castle and tell someone. Come--"
Yelping… whining… a dog in pain…
"Sirius."
"Nooo… nooo… please…"
"Hermione! Try to think of something happy! Expecto patronum! Expecto patronum!"
"Expecto-- expecto-- expecto--"
"EXPECTO PATRONUM! EXPECTO PATRONUM! Expecto-- expecto patronum-- expecto patronum-- no, no, he's innocent… expecto-- expecto patronum…"
A rattling breath like an evil wind… a tall, dark hooded figure lowering its hood… a black face with a gaping hole for a mouth… a pair of strong, clammy hands lifting him upwards… putrid breath on his face…
* * *
Darkness… had a whole day gone past? How many days have I been here? Am I going to spend my whole life here? … Or is Voldemort going to come for me here? I've got to defend myself… Where's my wand? … They took my wand… And Voldemort will have his wand… and the Dementors… the Dementors…
* * * * *
"The Dementors will join us… they are our natural allies… we will recall the banished giants… I shall have all my devoted servants returned to me, and an army of creatures whom all fear…
"Harry Potter has kindly joined us for my rebirthing party. One might go so far as to call him my guest of honor…
"…but no matter… I can touch him now…
"I wanted Harry Potter's blood. I wanted the blood of the one who had stripped me of power thirteen years ago…
"…and here he is… the boy you all believed had been my downfall… Crucio!"
…a blinding pain throughout every cell of his body…
* * *
A dim grey light… it was day again… My mouth is dry… I feel weak…
A hunk of bread and a dish of water… Got to eat… got to force myself to eat… got to keep my sanity…
The bread is dry… got to eat it anyway… got to drink the water… can't let myself go mad in here…
How did Sirius do it? …He knew he was innocent… I know I'm innocent… got to think of that…I know I told the truth… they said I was a liar… I told the truth…
* * * * *
"Here-- you've earned a drink-- something from the Three Broomsticks. You won't have tried it before--"
"Butterbeer! Yeah, I like that stuff!"
…a man's raised eyebrows …a twinge of guilt… he had to come up with something…
"…Oh-- Ron and Hermione brought me some back from Hogsmeade…"
* * * * *
"Potter! Weasley! What are you doing?"
"We were-- we were going to-- to go and see--"
…he had to come up with something…
"Hermione."
* * * * *
A dimly lit dungeon… a man with greasy black hair and a threatening voice…
"Mr. Malfoy has just been to see me with a strange story…
"Mr. Malfoy then saw an extraordinary apparition. Can you imagine what it might have been, Potter?"
"No."
"It was your head, Potter. Floating in midair."
"Maybe he'd better go to Madam Pomfrey, if he's seeing things like--"
"What would your head have been doing in Hogsmeade, Potter? Your head is not allowed in Hogsmeade. No part of your body has permission to be in Hogsmeade."
"I know that. It sounds like Malfoy's having hallucin--"
"Malfoy is not having hallucinations. If your head was in Hogsmeade, so was the rest of you."
"I've been up in Gryffindor tower. Like you told--"
"Can anyone confirm that?"
"…How extraordinarily like your father you are, Potter… He too was exceedingly arrogant… Strutting around the place… the resemblance between you is uncanny… Your father didn't set much store by rules either… Rules were for lesser mortals… I would hate for you to run away with a false idea of your father, Potter… Have you been imagining some act of glorious heroism? Then let me correct you… There was nothing brave about what he did. He was saving his own skin…"
* * * * *
"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off--"
A door opening…a woman screaming… a man's indistinct shouting …a cold-sounding cackle…
"Avada Kedavra."
* * *
Daylight… had it been dark? had it just seemed that way because of the Dementors? the days all seemed to be blurring together… And the memories… terrible memories… he had heard that Azkaban could drive someone insane… but he had never imagined it could be like this… one memory after another… how many days had it been? He couldn't remember… there was bread and water… he had to eat… he had to keep his mind…
* * * * *
"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"
"Stand aside, you silly girl… stand aside, now…."
"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead--"
"Not Harry! Please… have mercy… have mercy…"
…A cackle of high-pitched laughter…
"Avada Kedavra."
* * *
Darkness again… he was slumped against a wall in the corner of his cell… Got to keep my mind… it's terrible in here… I'm innocent… I told the truth… I'm innocent… I didn't kill Cedric… I didn't kill Cedric…
* * * * *
A stormy day… thick grey clouds… a torrent of rain… fourteen teenagers on broomsticks… a golden flash up ahead… a tall boy racing him for it… a sudden cold silence… a hundred tall, dark, hooded figures… and falling, falling…
"We didn't-- lose?"
"Diggory got the Snitch. Right after you fell…"
* * * * *
"Wangoballwime?"
"Sorry?"
"D'you-- d'you want to go to the ball with me?"
"Oh! Oh, Harry, I'm really sorry. I've already said I'll go with someone else."
"Oh… Oh, okay, no problem."
"I'm really sorry."
"That's okay."
"Well--"
"Yeah."
"Well, 'bye."
… footsteps walking away…
"Who're you going with?"
"Cedric Diggory."
* * * * *
Darkness… a dimly-lit path… hedges all around… a gleaming cup… a tall boy…
"Take it, then… Go on, take it. You're there."
"You take it. You should win. That's twice you've saved my neck in here."
"That's not how it's supposed to work… the one who reaches the cup first gets the points. That's you. I'm telling you, I'm not going to win any races on this leg."
"No."
"Stop being noble. Just take it, and then we can get out of here…"
"Go on."
…silence…
"Both of us."
"What?"
"We'll take it at the same time. It's still a Hogwarts victory. We'll tie for it."
"You-- you sure?"
"Yeah… we both got here. Let's just take it together."
"You're on. Come here."
"On three, right? … One-- two-- three--"
A jerk behind the navel… a howl of wind and swirling color… slamming into the ground…
A dark graveyard… a distant house on a hillside…
"Wands out, d'you reckon?"
"Yeah…"
A short man… a strange bundle of robes… a sudden, terrible pain in his forehead…
"Kill the spare."
"Avada Kedavra."
* * *
Daylight… got to eat… got to drink water… didn't seem to help much… still feel awful… I think I'm losing it…how many days has it been?
A voice of a woman… she sounded like a lunatic… "The Darrrrrk Lorrrrrrd will riiiiiiise agaaaaaaain… The Darrrrrk Lorrrrrrd will riiiiiiise agaaaaaaain…"
Had he heard that woman's voice before? … Where had he heard it before? … Voldemort's coming… he's coming… got to be ready… how can I be ready? it's all I can do to keep from going batty in here… got to hold on… but how can I be ready for Voldemort?
* * * * *
An underground chamber… a man with a foul-smelling purple turban… a man's unnaturally high-pitched voice…
"Let me speak to him… face-to-face…"
"Master, you are not strong enough!"
"I have strength enough… for this…"
The man unwrapping his turban… a face… a face where the back of the man's head should have been…
"Harry Potter… see what I have become? Mere shadow and vapor… once I have the Elixir of Life, I will be able to create a body of my own… Don't be a fool… or you'll meet the same fate as your parents… they died begging me for mercy…"
"LIAR!"
"How touching… I always value bravery… Yes, boy, your parents were brave… I killed your father first, and he put up a courageous fight… but your mother needn't have died… she was trying to protect you… Now give me the Stone, unless you want her to have died in vain."
"NEVER!"
"SEIZE HIM!"
A strong hand on his wrist… a needle-sharp pain in his forehead… pain, pain…
I* * * * *
Another chamber, deeper underground… a red-haired girl, lying still, near death…
"Ginny! Ginny-- don't be dead-- please don't be dead--"
"She won't wake."
A dark-haired boy with a hazy appearance…
"I have many questions for you, Harry Potter…"
"Why do you care how I escaped? Voldemort was after your time…"
"Voldemort… is my past, present, and future. Harry Potter…"
…letters form, and rearrange themselves to spell …
I AM LORD VOLDEMORT.
I* * * * *
Darkness… a steaming cauldron… a short man standing by it… a tall, thin man with a snakelike face rising out of it…
"Robe me."
… a high, cold laugh… the tall man looks at something on the short man's arm…
"It is back… they will all have noticed it… and now, we shall see… now we shall know…"
…he touches the other man's arm… and pain, burning pain…
* * *
Voldemort's coming… I'll be helpless… I've got no wand, or… anything… somebody's got to rescue me… maybe Dumbledore or somebody… or Sirius…
* * * * *
A dark evening… a shack… a skeletally thin, dark-haired, threatening-looking man…
"There's only going to one murder here tonight…"
"Why's that? Didn't care last time, did you? …What's the matter, gone soft in Azkaban?"
"Harry! Be quiet!"
"HE KILLED MY MUM AND DAD!"
A struggle… wands sensing sparks past his face… a hand on his throat…
"No… I've waited too long…"
A kick… A grunt of pain… A cat sinking its claws into his arm…
"NO YOU DON'T! … Get out of the way!"
"Going to kill me, Harry?"
"You killed my parents."
"I don't deny it…."
* * *
A grey room, indoors… blank walls… a tall, white-haired man with a hard look in his blue eyes…
"…the three of you stand accused of attacking young Draco Malfoy and his friends.
"Tell me, Harry, did you do this?
"Tell me, Harry. Why did you do this?
"… In a war right feelings are not enough. Right actions are necessary as well. And I hope that you have realized that by your actions you have allowed the enemies of the truth-- both those who are willful liars and those who are willfully ignorant-- the opportunity to score their greatest triumph since Lord Voldemort's return to his body."
* * * * *
Descending a staircase in a castle… walking through a doorway… a short, bitter-looking man with an unpleasant gleam in his eye…
An angry woman with square spectacles and her hair in a stern bun…
"I would never have believed it of any of you… Mr. Filch says you were up in the astronomy tower… It is one o'clock in the morning… Explain yourselves."
Silence…
"I think I've got a good idea what's going on… I'm disgusted… I've never heard of such a thing before… As for you, Mr. Potter, I thought Gryffindor meant more to you than this… fifty points will be taken from Gryffindor."
"Fifty?"
"Fifty points each… Don't tell me what I can and can't do, Potter. Now get back to bed, all of you. I've never been more ashamed of Gryffindor students."
* * * * *
An office in a school… an angry woman… a vindictive-looking man… flames in the fireplace…
"Sit… explain…"
"Why didn't you send us a letter by owl? I believe you have an owl?"
"I-- I didn't think--"
"That… is obvious."
A knock on the door… a tall, white-haired man…
Silence…
"Please explain why you did this…"
"I must also warn you that if you do anything like this again, I will have no choice but to expel you."
* * * * *
"Don't expect me to cover up for you again, Harry. I cannot make you take Sirius Black seriously. But I would have thought that what you have heard when the Dementors draw near you would have more of an effect on you. Your parents gave their lives to keep you alive, Harry. A poor way to repay them-- gambling their sacrifice for a bag of magic tricks."
* * * * *
"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off--"
A door opening…a woman screaming… a man's indistinct shouting …a cold-sounding cackle…
"Avada Kedavra."
* * * * *
"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"
"Stand aside, you silly girl… stand aside, now…."
"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead--"
"Not Harry! Please… have mercy… have mercy…"
…A cackle of high-pitched laughter…
"Avada Kedavra."
* * *
Darkness again…another day had gone by… Voldemort was coming… the madwoman was still calling out about him… "The Darrrrrk Lorrrrrrd will riiiiiiise agaaaaaaain" … I can't face Voldemort like this… I can't keep my mind… I'm going mad… I need help… I need somebody to rescue me… I have friends… they've got to rescue me…
* * *
"I ASK THE JURY… IF THEY BELIEVE, AS I DO, THAT THESE CRIMES DESERVE FIFTEEN DAYS' DETENTION AT THE MINISTRY FOR RONALD WEASLEY AND HERMIONE GRANGER, AND FOR HARRY POTTER, LIFE IN AZKABAN!!!"
* * * * *
"Don't you care about Gryffindor, do you only care about yourselves, I don't want Slytherin to win the house cup, and you'll lose all the points I got from Professor McGonagall for knowing about Switching Spells… I hope you're pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed-- or worse, expelled. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to bed."
* * * * *
"Oh, side with Ron, I knew you would! First the Firebolt, now Scabbers, everything's my fault, isn't it! Just leave me alone, Harry, I've got a lot of work to do!"
* * * * *
"So… congratulations."
"What d'you mean, congratulations?"
"Well… no one else got across the Age Line. What did you use-- the Invisibility Cloak?"
"The Invisibility Cloak wouldn't have got me over that line."
"Oh right… I thought you might've told me if it was the cloak… but you found another way, did you?"
"Listen, I didn't put my name in that goblet. Someone else must've done it."
"What would they do that for?"
"I dunno."
"It's okay, you know, you can tell me the truth. If you don't want everyone else to know, fine, but I don't know why you're bothering to lie…"
"I didn't put my name in that goblet!"
"Yeah, okay… only you said this morning you'd have done it last night, and no one would've seen you… I'm not stupid, you know."
"You're doing a really good impression of it."
"Yeah? You want to get to bed, Harry. I expect you'll need to be up early tomorrow for a photo-call or something."
* * *
Darkness… another day had gone by… Voldemort was coming soon… very soon… he curled up into a ball in the corner… if somebody didn't rescue him, he'd be a goner… Have I made everybody I've ever known hate me?
* * *
A courtroom… a man's smooth yet malicious voice…
"Mr. Potter's letter to Mr. Black will now be read before the court, so that it may be properly entered in the court records as evidence of Mr. Potter's crime…
"There's one girl that I liked, Cho Chang, but she liked another guy, and that was Cedric Diggory…"
A strangled choking noise… Footsteps headed for the exit…
"…Ron's little sister Ginny… but I've never really felt like that about her… She really acted weird around me in her first year…"
A muffled sob in the audience…
"After what happened with Neville's parents…"
"If anything, she and Ron might like each other, but don't tell them I said that…"
A boy and a girl glaring…
"Parvati Patil, from Gryffindor in my year, but there's nothing going on there. It was kind of bad, I suppose I should have danced with her more at the ball…
"I suppose I ought to be ready for it and not be such a total prat as I was last year… I suppose this has been a totally stupid letter…"
* * *
Perhaps there was nobody that cared about him… perhaps Voldemort would come and kill him, and that would be fine with everyone… it would be fine… nobody would miss him… everybody would be better off without him… there was no reason to resist… his parents were dead, and nobody else cared…
* * * * *
"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off--"
A door opening…a woman screaming… a man's indistinct shouting …a cold-sounding cackle…
"Avada Kedavra."
* * * * *
"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"
"Stand aside, you silly girl… stand aside, now…."
"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead--"
"Not Harry! Please… have mercy… have mercy…"
…A cackle of high-pitched laughter…
"Avada Kedavra."
* * *
Daylight… another day… who knew how long it had been, everything was blurred together… when was Voldemort coming? …They've brought me bread and water again… did I remember to eat yesterday? … I don't know… I don't care… I'd just as soon starve to death as be killed by Voldemort… it won't make any difference to anybody anyway… I won't bother eating… it's not like anybody will care… nobody would care… nobody would care…
* * *
Harry's mind seemed to be clearing. Where were the Dementors? Had they gone somewhere? There seemed to be some shouting outside… but no, he didn't care… there was no reason to care… he curled himself into a tighter ball in the corner of his cell…
* * *
"Harry!"
A voice at the window… but he didn't move… he didn't care… nobody would care…
"Hurry up, Harry!"
The voice again… this time he looked up… a reddish blur at the window… he wiped the moisture out of his eyes, and adjusted his glasses for the first time in who knew how many days…
"Harry, come on! Don't you want to be rescued?!?"
It was Ginny Weasley.
I
* * *
A/N: Non-profit fanfiction based on the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. Sections preceded by five asterisks (* * * * *) are flashbacks quoted directly (or almost directly) from books in the Harry Potter series. Sections are preceded by three asterisks (* * *) are composed of original material.
Thanks again to Zsenya for beta-reading.
"Well, well, well… we are in trouble."