Disclaimer: I don't own anything you can trace back to the Harry Potter world, the Guiding Light world, or any other world besides the one I made up in my head.
Chapter Eleven: Anne's Ordeal
He almost lost his connection with her in a second that lasted an eternity of blank shock. She was too persistent in keeping herself very firmly in his consiousness for the link to break, though. The whole thing seemed very surreal, like a nightmare more than a real event. I'm in Azkaban-no, there was no way that Anne had just said that. What's happened? he demanded again. She seemed wild, less than half sane.
Barty Crouch. Remember I told you he tried to question me and Liz and Remus? Well, he had me arrested-just pulled out of my bed and told to get dressed because I was arrested! There was an edge of hysteria in her voice, and he couldn't blame her.
Calm down and tell me everything, he said, trying to make the tone both firm and soothing, to steady her head and relax her nerves. No chance it would work-it never did-but it was worth a try. Are Remus and Elizabeth with you?
No. The men, the ones Barty sent, they said that the other two hadn't done anything wrong.
What do they say you did?
They're saying I'm a Death Eater and I was working with Sirius on the plot to kill you.
Is Sirius with you?
No- I saw him, though, he thought I was here to get him out, of all things, I had to stage trying to attack him like the heartbroken and betrayed wife-he's in the lower cells. I'm in one of the best ones, the ones they normally put powerful people in. They're not sure what to do with me-on one hand, I'm supposed to be a dangerous murderer, but on the other, Barty Crouch desires me! Oh, damn him, and damn me too! It's my own fault-if I had just- she broke off, and he got the idea that she was shuddering violently.
What d'you mean, he desires you?
He didn't ask me a single question about you and Lily that day. He asked me to be his mistress-he claims he's been in love with me since he saw me dance at my wedding. I told him to go screw some hooker if his saintly Mary Carey wasn't good enough for him. There was a sudden moment of removal, as if Anne had been rather roughly torn from her body and was somewhere else entirely. No! I won't give in, I won't! To hell with the dementors-I won't give way, I won't let go of my sanity. To hell with the dementors! That statement was his first confirmation that Anne was telling the truth. That was the way she always sounded right before a battle, screaming defiance at the enemy.
That's my girl, he encouraged. Hold on, Anne. They can't hold you forever without some kind of proof.
I'll sleep with the bastard if I have to, Anne told him grimly. I hope to God it doesn't come to that-he's as married as I am-but I'm no saint. I won't be a martyr. I'll do what a Slytherin does best, and that's survive against the odds.
Of course it is. Agreeing with her was the best thing he could do with her. Agreement was the one thing that stood a fifty-fifty chance of soothing her.
Don't leave me, she 'whispered', at least insofar as one could whisper in this manner. Don't leave me here until it's over, James.
I won't.
He tried to act normally, but Anne's reactions to dementors and other things associated with being a princess in prison so far as it went made that difficult. Sometimes she went out of her head, in a total downspiral, and he knew that she was on her knees in her cell laughing hysterically. He knew her, and he knew what that wild laughter meant-that she was at the brink of losing control. It took all the mental strength he had and then some to pull her back. She always said the same thing after she regained her composure. I scared the dementors out of their minds, if they have minds. No one laughs in Azkaban. No one but Crazy Annie. That's what they've been calling me since you left. Crazy Annie, who goes to the graveyard every night and opens up her brother's tomb so she can talk to his rotting corpse. Amazing what people'll believe. Then she'd fall back into the familiar pattern of fighting for survival in spite of the odds against her.
He thought he did a fairly good job of hiding his constant preoccupation, but apparently it wasn't good enough. After three days, Dinah, Danny, and Marina basically ganged up on him and demanded point-blank to know what the hell was up with him. He managed to put Danny and Marina off with something plausible-sounding rubbish about a fight with one of his department heads via e-mail that was threatening to lose him one of his best workers. Dinah was not so easily fooled.
" What's really going on?" she asked, her face and eyes unusually soft.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," he returned.
" There's nothing you could have done that I haven't done worse," she said reasonably. " I'm Dinah Marler, remember?"
" You're not going to let it go, are you?"
" No. Girlfriend's rights."
" All right. I can't tell you everything, but I will tell you what I can. I trust you, as far as I trust anyone."
" I'll take that as a compliment," she said, with a trace of her old humor.
" It is, believe me." Then he told her, in Muggle terms. About how he'd been on a business trip when his wife died. How it had been a murder, not a gas explosion. How his mistress had died in it too and been buried under his name. How his mistress' father had simulated his death before he knew it. How his brother-in-law and sister were taking the fall for his murder. The only thing he didn't get into details about was Harry, merely saying that the mistress' father had sent his son to relatives he didn't know where were to be reared with their own.
" Well," she said finally. " I can see why you don't want it to become common knowledge. You have lead an interesting life." In spite of her light tone, there was something akin to compassion in her blue eyes. " So it's your sister being in prison that's worrying you?"
" Anne's very claustrophobic, and she goes a little mad sometimes-goes into fits that go as quick as they come. It's only a matter of time until she cracks."
" Do you need to go back to England?"
" Dinah, I told you that I'm dead. They wouldn't believe it was me if Jesus Himself vouched for me."
" I get it," she said, and he knew she did. They were both ne'er-to-do-wells in a town full of goody-two-shoes, and she had been in a very similar position, once-having to disappear like she never existed from everyone and everything she had ever known, even crossing the Atlantic just as he had save for which continent she was heading to. " No one'll hear it from me," she continued. " I only break my word to enemies, and you're hardly an enemy."
" Thanks, Dinah," he said, relieved. He had no desire whatsoever to be the object of Springfield's newest scandal.
" I don't have enough friends to do something stupid to lose them on a whim," she said with a shrug, as if it were of no importance. He got it.
Another week dragged by. Anne's condition seemed to get worse and worse. Something had to give, and finally, in the first week of March, it did. Anne pushed her way rather rudely into his head again and was obviously hysterical-with relief. Thank God, thank God! Gloria in Excelcis Deo!
What is it, Annamaria?
I'm out-I'm at home. It's over. Sirius stated that I hadn't known anything and Remus called in some favors and pulled a few strings-oh, thank you sweet Jesus-
James knew he caught Dinah rather off-guard when he found her, whirling her around and kissing her without a care as to who saw. " Good news, I'm guessing?" she said.
" Anna just called-she got released. Lack of evidence."
Dinah smiled, her delight mirroring his own. " Excellent," she said. " I'm glad it all worked out for her." She laughed provocatively. " I of all people should know how wonderful it is to get sprung-I had the possibility of being executed for what I did, and prison's hell for anyone but especially a sheltered woman. I'll have to meet Anne and swap stories someday."
" Maybe you shall," he said. " I'm fairly sure the two of you'd be fast friends in no time flat." He didn't miss the flicker of expression in her eyes that defied analysis, leaving him to wonder what was going on in her head. Dinah manipulated the way other people breathed-rather like him in that, when it came right down to it.
Author's Note: I'm working like mad to finish ch. 12. Will be up today or tomorrow.
Augusta
