Disclaimer: None of the characters and/or plotlines that are featured in the Harry Potter books belong to the author. But the plotline and character pairing/situations that you, reader, do not recognize from the book series belong to the author.
Author's Notes: Ain't this chapter pretty? Sorry for the delay, I had a piece writing to do on Stand By Me for school and before I knew it I was neigh high in kittens. Well, sorry if the language is a bit messed up, court cases are pure evil.
Spalmato In Ceneri
Chapter One
"Kev my man, how you hanging?"
"Ah the usual, same old you could say." a guard replied, flicking a cigarette butt in the direction of the cell door in front of him.
"Wife causing you trouble still?" his companion asked, rubbing his hands together in a bid to banish the cold that turned his fingers numb.
"Aye," he let out a long breath and continued, "where's you been? I ain't heard from you in a while - moved in with them rats have ye?"
"Nah, them things give me the willies, was called down to see the new arrival."
"That Potter kid eh? Everyone's on about him, just another good for nothing murderer is all I see." the guard, sixteen years in the service pulled his regulation grey jacket around him, he didn't often like to dwell in the prisoners affaires.
"Eh, he's one of the roughest. You should've seen him, hood pulled way down over his face, hunched over and scheming. I reckon he was planning the death of every person he laid eyes on, the chill I got when he walked past."
"Well, kids today. He was a dark wizard in the making if any, only a matter of time before he showed his true colours."
The other guard, Mike, nodded. "Yeah, as black as night and stitched in a with a dark mark for measure."
Kev grinned for a moment, "Who would've thought, the Boy Who Lived landing himself in Azkaban for multiple manslaughter, but his friends."
Mike shook his head, a sad smile tugging at his lips as he thought of the in depth description he received from a close friend of his, "You've heard the reports, all of them lined up in a row, shackled to the wall - unmistakable illegal curse marks all over them."
"Three of them, dead! How could he have done it? They were his friends, the people he'd grown up with for six years."
"You don't know what they teach them kids nowadays, I reckon they should be more picky of who they choose - that Dumbledore must've known that one day Potter would go off the rails, parents being dead and all, who's to show him what's right and wrong?"
"Aye, but those witnesses - they were so shocked they're being treated for severe mental disorder. Who's to say he turned on them too uh?" Kev strained.
"He turned on all of us mate, we all thought he were special, nothing but some messed up kid with issues."
He felt the cold numbness of a strong metal arm clutch him, and dig into his frame. Then drag him by his limp arms, bathing his robes with dust and mud from the track leading to the castle. It was odd he supposed, that the sky seemed to form new, strangely interesting patterns. He could feel in the back of his mind the magic take over him and calm his senses.
He looked back with quiet reflection induced, remembered with a haze the people screaming and running from him. His protectors chasing him as he ran, anger bubbling behind each glance of his path forward.
Harry remembered the dementors swooping down on the crowd of residents of Hogsmeade, the sudden faint feeling that took over him, the sickly guilt that rose in his throat - hearing the faint echo of a long, high-pitched scream.
The rain seemed to pour down in buckets, hitting his back and stinging him. Like sharp pellets biting into his skin. Mindless minutes of falling bodies, slowed rolling of limp forms and nameless faces, all leaving behind some family, an income, a home. Countless spells cast into the air, many with a nasty glow that left the attacked injured or dying.
Then, those hooded figures once dwindling in the cold damp and Knockturn alley, shifting out of their hiding places, concealing their faces behind blank and lifeless masks, cowardice didn't deserve disguise. Every one of them, omens of death pulled their cloaks tied and shielded themselves from the rain, as they came in huge numbers and destroyed everything in their paths.
A clang and a clatter, a bowl piled with a sloppy excuse for food was suddenly, almost thrown into his cell. He doubted anyone wanted to see him, his school robes pulled over his eyes to stop him from seeing the musty cell that he resided in, that's why the place was dark and cold, no-one dared open his door to tell if he were alive or dead.
Every night those events played over and over in his mind, sometimes twisting to a vile illusion of what really happened that day. He'd been questioned and examined so many times he hardly knew the truth any more, reality seemed mixed with fiction and nearly impossible to pull apart. But there, deep down some memories stuck out.
Like that horrible image of his friends, shackled to the wall. Ron, gasping for breath, Neville, Seamus and Pansy; their bodies hanging. He guessed the worst at that moment, something which was proved when the ministry arrived, all three dead.
Those few seconds of quiet glory, relief of the fighting stopped and the deatheaters and their master gone, sitting in the middle of the great hall, twirling his wand around in his fingers, staring up at the ceiling and trying to ignore the bodies motionless silence. He could oddly piece together each event as it had come in order, how he'd been pulled out of Tralawney's boring lesson and, pushed along the halls with Dumbledore, Snape, and others at toe.
Then, after he'd thought of how things had gone. He remembered when the ministry turned up, he was numb then. He couldn't move, so he just sat there. He supposed it was the presence of death in that room, like he could've sat in there all day with the clutches of the dark just holding him in place. He hadn't wanted to move either, because it felt like something, or someone was whispering in his ear, all the bad things he would see if he left that room.
Maybe a demon on his shoulder, leaning over and smiling mischievously. A red glow radiating around his tiny form while he cackled at his own words. He'd coaxed Harry into staying still, just letting the whole atmosphere weigh on him, adding already to the pounding sensation of being a saviour, or maybe a messiah to the whole world, that everyone had landed on him.
However, there right in the back of his mind was tiny voice. It was deep and meaningful, his own voice he recognised. It ordered him to run, but it also shamed him for running away from those who had tried to keep him safe. But there, that sharp biting tone of the demon tugged at him.
Stay, it whispered.
It made him feel sick, the power like seduction was yanking at him, ordering him what to and becoming more spiteful with its choice of words. It made him laugh later, out of pure boredom, his mind turning wicked with the dementors gliding to and from his door. Who would've known that Harry Potter would have Lucifer residing on his shoulder.
"Harry Potter, we have assessed the situation this past some weeks, we've gone over every single motive that could have been caused during the deaths of Musses Longbottom and Finnigan, also Miss Parkinson."
Harry sighed, he'd been through the same trauma for weeks on end now, countless hard evidence of murder was stacked up against him, innocent truth meant nothing in this room. The court against him currently had a representative pacing while he thought over the evidence, coming to a barrel of meaningless questions to fire at Harry, who sat still in the witness box, chained to a guard who stood sullenly beside him. These questions seemed random, about his school life, what he did outside of school hours and who he considered his comrades, sadly they only flared his temper.
"The court has just one witness left hear from," the magical lawyer called to the Jury and court. "Please stand down mister Potter."
He did as he was told and was shoved along to watch the hearing from a more safer place above the Jury.
The Jury being made up of many of his friends and foes from Hogwarts, those who'd paid a handsome sum for front row seats, and the families of the victims.
Even now Harry could not forget the icy stare Ron and his family would give him every time he passed, Ginny would silently cry next to her mother. The kind and caring Molly Weasley certainly couldn't contain her anger that a boy who she had taken in and cared for like her own had killed and severely injured some, even her own son who had been bedridden for many weeks.
Harry would've given anything, even his left foot to have a moment to tell the some hard truths, to hug Ginny senseless so she would at least smile, he hated it when she cried. Even though he wasn't that much close to the girl, his stomach lurched every time he saw a tear slide down her cheek, he wanted her to smile, like she used to.
"The court calls Hermione Louise Granger to the stand." that commanding voice echoed around the room, almost at once whispers irrupted.
Harry hadn't seen Hermione since the morning before the attack from Voldemort, no-one would tell him why she didn't attend to the hearing, he guessed she was too upset.
But there, sliding into the courtroom and accompanied by a female guard, she limped to stand. Her clothes hung off of her because she was deathly thin. Her once vibrant and bouncy curls were limp around her shoulders, and dark circles drew deep beneath her eyes, which were dull and lifeless.
Harry breathed deeply, why was she like this? What was wrong with her?
Finally, Hermione reached the stand and sat, her eyes staring at her lap.
"Miss Granger, could you please tell the court your relationship with Mister Potter." The Lawyer started, as he was backing the murder case.
He was answered only by silence.
"Miss Granger, please could say how you knew the Harry Potter."
Silence again.
"Miss Granger, please answer all questions directed at you." The judge, a hard-faced and grey haired woman told Hermione, who flinched and wrung her hands together.
"I'll repeat the question, could you please tell the court your relationship with Mister Potter."
It seemed that there would only be silence again, but she let out a deep ridged breath and spoke, her voice was small and shaky. "We were... we were just friends."
"Good friends?"
"Y-yes I suppose."
"How did Mister Potter act during the few weeks before your friends deaths?"
"Quiet, he didn't speak much, didn't do his work in lessons either." Hermione kept her face hidden behind a curtain of dark, dull hair.
"Was he in any way, different to how he usually acted?"
"Yes, he was lot angrier."
Lies, Harry thought, she knew very well he'd found an old letter from his godfather, Sirius Black, and it'd upset him deeply. He hadn't realised how much he missed Sirius until he had found that letter, the last letter he'd ever received from him.
And, still the court processed onto much later in the afternoon. The Jury was dismissed and ordered a decision of Harry's sentence in two days time.
Harry had little hope of a guilt free conclusion, but so, it went on and on.
And on.
Chapter dedication to Veela of Erised for agreeing with me on many things, I know she's looking foward to this chapter so its for her.