Moonlight filters through the window; she had read somewhere that when a woman is exposed to enough moonlight, her body bleeds with the moon. Her own body doesn't bleed at all anymore; she is all dried up, with just enough flesh and skin and life within her to still hurt and cry and wish she were dead. Truth be told, she still bleeds, though it comes from her arms and back and stomach and it runs down her body the whole month; when she still wore her ragged clothes, it would make them stick to her body.
She is punished for treachery and lying; for screaming too much—and once, for screaming too little. She is tortured for information and she has given all she knows. They try again, but she can't give what she doesn't have. She hears them calling her a whore and a blood traitor. They laugh at her and she's found some cigarette butts in her food. But part of her mind hears pity in some of their voices, from people whom she had been friends with even before things like the War and blood became important. She had helped one of the boys that sometimes hands her food to get ready for the Yule Ball. When she gets her meals from him, it's usually as edible as it can get. A girl that guards her sometimes used to giggle over boys with her; they would pass notes in class and cheated on a Charms test together once. On her nights, Pansy feels a small heating charm somewhere in the air.
These are small things that she feels keeps her sanity, Voldemort kept her alive only because if things got bad, a spy could be used as leverage. Politics was a game still played and she couldn't care less. The torture is less now, usually only coming when Voldemort's own spies can't supply enough information. The first few weeks (she knows it had been weeks because she hasn't lost count of the days just yet) had been unbearable. Spies were bad enough; but she bad been a double agent, had helped dozens of Muggles escape Voldemort. She had been caught delivering two Muggle families to the Order. Voldemort himself had overseen the first few sessions, the Cruciatus curse every now and then giving way to less polished methods of pain.
And then it had suddenly stopped, she didn't know why. Maybe more information had finally come or another spy had been caught. She was tossed aside, lost in a sea of prisoners and only occasionally found again. It had been then that the loneliness had gripped her; she had done everything and anything to fend it off. Played memory games, sung the nursery rhymes she had almost forgotten, counted everything she could—from the stones in her cell to the holes on her bread. Her guards won't talk to her as they give and collect her food; their gossip is too soft to hear.
There are few sharp corners here, no pain to keep the isolation at bay. She had tried throwing herself against the walls but the Death Eaters had come at once, drugging her until she promised not to do it again. She had always been a convincing liar. She had managed to gag herself with some ripped cloth, her mouth not making noise as she broke her bones and cracked her head. She bit down on the gag so hard that she eventually tasted blood; the silence of her screams had caused the Death Eaters' notice of her to be delayed. Drugs or pain, either was a welcome distraction from the aching sameness of her life.
And then in her hazy mind she had seen him, a man with kind eyes who smelled of the earth. He whispered in her ear and told her to stop hurting herself. He told her he loved her; with desperation in his voice, he told her he needed her safe and as whole as possible. Even now she ignores the logical part of her mind that said it was just a hallucination. She urgently needs to believe that it was true, that someone out there cared enough to want her back safe.
She is glad that, wherever she is, there is a window, for even though it lets the cold in, it lets the world in as well. There are no animals in her cell, save for the bugs that come for the food she barely eats. Animals can too easily be transfigured spies, bugs are too small to be of any use for either side.
But she suddenly understands the beauty of insects; the ants are military creatures, very systematic in their foraging and she doesn't have the heart to disrupt them. They, in turn, ignore her, but should she wish them to, they crawl on her fingers and explore her arms without hesitation. She is in awe of this easy trust and does not try to break it. There are bees that sometimes manage their way through the window; she saves bits of the rare fruit for them.
There are birds as well, small things that thrive off the absence of the hunters that are purposefully exterminated. She used to hate the sound of them in the morning; now she waits for it. They stay away from the building, as if they can sense the magic that is in the stones. But they sing just the same, loud and high. She sometimes hums along with them—softly, so that her guards won't hear and think she's gone mad. She most likely has, but, at any rate, should they ever start to think so, there would no longer be any use for her.
There are also moths. She's always preferred them to butterflies; moths are less wanted and less vain. She tries to remember their names and which ones she sees most often. They take their freedom for granted, but she can't resent them. She sings to them and they dance for her and it keeps her from hurting herself again. When she closes her eyes, she dreams of a greenhouse full of them.
Her dreams are varied and odd, the nightmares now coming only once every few nights. It amuses her, how easily she has gotten used to captivity. Her dreams are full of faces and voices that intermingle. She dreams of a man, tall and looming; he holds her as she cries. Ghost arms wrap around her back and stroke her hair. There's also a woman with calm eyes who listens to her and helps Pansy cover her mouth so no one can hear the screams.
There are stones wherever she is; she had once decided it was a castle. It would fit, after all, the spy being thrown into the dungeons. Tortured on the rack to confess her sins against the Dark Lord. Voldemort has always had a bit of a flair for the dramatic.
She spends her time remembering, spends more time forgetting. There are things that hurt to think about, but they are all she has. Any emotion reminds her that she had friends once, had laughter and a bed that was warm. A bed that she shared with someone, someone who loved her. Who needed her because of it. But doubt seeps into her mind, she wonders if he has someone else to love and need. She wonders what this other person would look like, be like. She mourns for a loss that hasn't yet been established; she's simply a girl who is forced to stay and wait for her sweetheart while he fights on the battlefield. She likes to think that he mourns for her as well.
The nights are getting longer, colder. When she first came, it had been the start of spring. She had watched a baby, only two weeks old, while her mother went to fill out papers for the father's funeral. She had cooed over him, his eyes watched her, bright and happy and for a moment she felt uplifted from the sadness around her. The baby had been lulled to sleep by Pansy's soft crooning and the bottled breast milk that his mother had left for her.
The trust that he had in her—that she would keep him safe and well while he slept—humbled her. She had never understood the biological clock until now; there is love in a child that takes one's breath away.
Her arms ache for that child again, aches for something warm and soft to hold. Her body seems empty, her movements have no meaning. She tries to remember the face of her lover, the one who loves her and needs her.
She can't remember the colour of his eyes nor the delicacy of his face.
----
There is tension everywhere; she can feel it in the stiffness of the guards as they collect her food, the tightness of the corners of their mouths. She had enough sense left to know that there is something wrong, that someone is losing and someone is winning. Someone is dying while someone is living.
She wishes she were dead so she wouldn't have to worry about those who weren't.
Her tray drops in front of her with a clatter louder than usual; nervousness shakes the hands of her guard and the sound causes her to jump, though Pansy doesn't even seem to notice. Her body is curled like a cat in the sunlight and like a cat she stretches, blinking lazily. She doesn't say a word, doesn't talk anymore to anyone but her birds and insects.
But she can feel the worry radiating off this girl. And that is all she is, a girl so young she looks like she should still be in school; she carries her face as if she needs to cry. But they won't come. Or maybe she just doesn't have any left to shed. There is a ring on her finger, a small band of silver that shows that she has a lover somewhere. Or at least that she had one.
Pansy has nothing to give the girl, no small means of comfort or hope. Indeed she has forgotten such emotions; they lie buried safely so that she won't have to cry herself to sleep at night. But she does manage a smile; it cracks her chapped lips and causes them to bleed but the girl notices and manages a small half-smile of her own before running out. The door makes a heavy sound as it closes behind her.
She looks at her plate, so accustomed to hunger that she only eats when the dizziness of it overcomes her. Usually, she simply lays it out for the ants. She had wondered why there were no roaches to be found, no mice or rats or anything else but her ants. But she remembers a woman with black hair and dead eyes who had once said she couldn't stand them all. Perhaps it's her doing. But her ants, it seems, have resisted all attempts of eradication. She admires them for it.
There is something wrong with the plate; it leans slightly to the side, the angle causing bits of food to slide just a bit. It's a small movement, but she catches them all these days. Movement means life, be it her ants or the wind or her ragged blanket shifting. While the floor is uneven, the tray somehow makes up for it; this change in her routine startles her and this, coupled with the sorrow in the girl's face, makes her wary.
But she goes anyway, lifting the plate and then not noticing as it slips out of her shaky fingers.
On the tray is a feather, large and grey. She touches it tentatively; her mind is racing and memories she had kept firmly shut away are coming back. She sees normally clumsy hands making quills, their movements sure and slow, only so she can learn from it. There's a whole pile on the table, there are gifts as well. She can smell gingerbread and helps those hands put a quill for each gift. She can feel herself pouting because there isn't one for her; warm laugher floats over her and he says that hers is special and she won't get to see it until she opens her gift.
She doesn't touch the feather, afraid that it means something she won't like. Is this a gift from her lover? Snuck in like drugs and letters. Or simply a trick to make her tell? If it is a gift, she wonders what kind—one for coming or going.
She stares at it, clasping her hands so that they don't reach out to take it. But they are treacherous, and while one lets go, the other races to pick it up. And now that she has given into temptation, she doesn't look back; she studies it. She's in wonder of it. Of its weightlessness and frailty. The pearl grey shines and it brushes against her cheek, like the caress of a lover. A whisper of kisses trail along her jaw; she is overcome by the warmth that spreads through her.
Her chin trembles now; if this is a trick, there is only one way that they would know what this means to her. It involves him screaming on the ground, twitching and crying hot tears that he can't notice. They've always been convinced that she knows more—traitors generally do, after all. But she can't believe that he's here somewhere, being hurt and shouting out nonsense just to stop the pain. Oh, she knows it well.
But all spies—all people who are in the war—are instructed to erase their memories when caught. Get rid of as much as they can. But some don't have the time and, in any case, if one was considered to have information important enough, one was tortured until one's mind breaks along with the memory charm.
She presses her palms together, as if in prayer, the feather caught between them. She feels the softness of it and has to hope that this means something more than agony and death.
She looks again at her plate, lying straight again on its tray.
She takes a few bites and is startled at how quickly she finishes it.
----
Hope is hard thing to extinguish; it's always there somewhere.
But it is also easy to diminish; it's easier to fear for the worse than to be saddened when it happens.
She doesn't mind if they think her mad anymore; she talks to her ants, leaves more food for them now that the bite in the wind tells her that the leaves must be almost all gone from their branches. She sings with the birds now, making up words and notes, and when they stop singing, she continues, the volume rising as she no longer has to worry about not being able to hear her birds.
And when she doesn't sing, she dances. Her movements are wild and jerky, her arms sway over her head and by her sides. There is not much room for spinning, but she manages; she dances to songs that she half-remembers, a phantom partner sometimes joins her and she has to wrap her arms around her body to stop herself from shaking from the closeness of it. She dances to her birds when her voice, rusty from misuse, gives out and she can't sing with them.
She talks to ghosts, ones that talk back. The girl with sad, pale eyes, the mother whose lover was stolen by death before she could marry him, the boy whose brother can no longer speak, the woman who cries for the loss that she knows will soon come. And her lover, his face forever shadowed, but his voice clear as anything. She talks to them all, lets their words wash over her, their tone rich and real. They talk about each other, about books and history and fashion and the things that used to interest her before she was here. They discuss things until she has run out of responses and she has to hold her fingers tight to keep them from reaching out and trying to touch her ghosts.
And her feather, she worships her feather. Cradles it carefully while she sleep, when she dances she keeps it carefully on a specially constructed mound of her tattered blanket; when she talks to her ghosts, it stays in her hands, proof that there is something real and wonderful in the world. When the grief that comes with her ghosts becomes too much, she will close her eyes and feel nothing at all, her feather hidden in the blanket and the room perfectly still.
She shivers in the cold now, whatever protection she used to get from her blanket gone as it cannot be moved, lest the magic of her feather, the magic that has settled into its folds, get disturbed. She sneezes more often now; once, twice, thrice, the pattern interrupting whatever she is doing. On one occasion while feeding her ants, the food had gone flying. A cough seizes her chest, the action causing her ghosts to waver. Once, a particularity violent one almost made her break her feather; she doesn't hold it much anymore. And even when she does, she puts it down quickly when she feels something coming, won't hold it for long moments after.
She valiantly goes on, accommodating for the interruptions until she barely notices them. Her eyes start to water; she's sure they're red and they leak tears that dry up in a hard crust around them as she sleeps. It hurts to blink sometimes, but she can still see the dark line of her ants, hear the song of her birds and knows her cell so intimately that she can find her way around it blind. She can still make out the faces of her ghosts in her mind, can still feel the silkiness of her feather with her fingertips.
There is snow one morning; the pure whiteness shines through the crust in her eyes and she tentatively feels the window ledge. There is some there, wonderfully cold and wet, and she uses it to wash her eyes and face and hands. It makes her shudder but she feels so magnificently alert and alive that she sings a song just for that.
Soon there is snow at least once a week; she has started counting the days again. Her calendar is two weeks long, her life measured in plots of fourteen. One day she wakes up to see a brilliant red in the horizon; she takes her feather, now only used on special days, and hums a poem she used to sing as a child with the boy who never got to marry his sweetheart, never got to see his son.
The dawn is red over the hill
The rooster crows loud and shrill
There will be blood, there will be tears
There will be death to villains and to fears
----
The night has barely started before the shouts begin. She can hear them through the heavy wooden door, the guards running away without a thought for their prisoners. There are flashes of light from her window, greens and reds and blues that reflect off the snow. She can hear running and the sound of things breaking and people screaming.
It's the end of the world and she wraps the blanket around her shoulders; it's cold and a bit wet and she can't feel any magic in it. She hides her hand in it, keeping the feather hidden as well. She sits in the centre of her cell, huddled into the smallest bundle she can make. She can be killed by either side. Either, as a way of covering up what they've done, or because she had been mistaken as the enemy. She wonders whose enemy she is, who will want to be allied with her after this.
There is a fire—she can see the smoke faintly, black against the sky that still holds faded traces of orange from the sunset. She can smell burning wood and is grateful that wood is the only thing that is burning. She prays for the safety of her ants and her birds and the beautiful moths that stopped coming as the cold did. She prays for her own safety.
Then, for one moment, the ground shakes and there is silence. It's broken by someone yelling that Voldemort is gone—there are those who surrender, others who fight in earnest, for they have nothing to lose. Finally someone has won, and the only spells that are used are stunners to catch the runners.
There are hollers of 'where are they?', of people calling for those they love, of anguish as people are found dead. Of laughter that it is over, that they are alive. She listens to it and wishes that someone were happy that she was still living, that someone would hug her close and never want to let go.
There are footsteps in the corridor; there are doors opened and someone screams once, high and happy. The person beside her cell had never talked and now he laughs as if he will never stop. He cries as if everything is all right again. She can't even begin to envy him because then her cell door opens and there is a man holding a lit wand, the light startling her.
He lowers his wand and she can see his face. She doesn't know him, there will be no joyous reunion for her. But he looks at her sympathetically and she thinks that maybe she will find someone later on. She gets up and is about to leave when suddenly his eyes change, his recognition startles her. He yells out a name she doesn't hear and another man fills the doorway. She sees his face, everything about it dark, and suddenly he lets out a strangled gasp and rushes to her.
His arms wrap around her and he says her name over and over again as if it's some wonderful prayer. But he can't be real, she had finally gone mad and she could not give into this. He feels so warm and safe; he can't be real.
But he's crying now, the wetness going onto her neck as he buries his face in it. And his body shakes and she shakes with him. Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no. This is some magnificent lie and it takes all her will not to get lost in it. She pulls away and he lets her, though his hands stay on her arms. His eyes finally take her all in, her thin frame and her clouded eyes and her breath that wheezes in her chest.
"Pansy, what did they do to you?" He touches her face and the tenderness of it makes her fly back, her spine hitting the wall and her blanket getting half-pulled off, her body exposed to his eyes. Eyes full of hurt and love and relief. And rage, anger that someone has hurt her.
"You're not here, you're not real. This is all in my head. No, no, no, no." She whispers it over and over, as if the words can make him go away and leave her alone. His eyes are now full of sadness, he stays his distance and his voice is soft. She tries to cross her arms, to distance herself from him and this proof of her insanity. He's hurt and she can't help it; he sees what she's holding, her last anchor to anything resembling the normalcy she has created in these long months.
"That feather is real. It's the only thing I managed to get in, even when they said you were dead, I wouldn't believe it. Do you remember what it means? I never did manage to give you your Christmas gift." She feels her hands sweating as he says it. The feather sticks to her palms; suddenly it's deceitful, leaving her all alone in the world.
"You didn't give it to me. He did, my lover. The one who loves me so much that he can't bear to live without me." She needs to believe this, to disprove his lies so he can leave her to her cell and her ghosts.
"I sent it to you. I was your lover, Pansy, I was with you when they told you about your family. You were there when they told me about mine. You have to remember." And oh he's so earnest, his face falls so far when she accuses him of being false.
"What's your name?" It's simple, she will know if he's true by his name. In all the conversations with her ghosts, she has never come up with names; she has picked so many and none of them seemed real. None of them rang true. He will be real or not because of what he is called.
His heart seems to break at the question. For even though he is a liar, he believes his lies; she is sorry for having to do this to him. "My name… Neville. Neville Longbottom. You'd never call me Neville until you told me you loved me. You would…" His voice cracks and she can feel herself unravel.
This is another trick; in all the names she's dreamed up, this one hits a chord somewhere. This is another trick, this cannot be him. No, no, no. He had looked for her and done all he could, no, no, no, no. He looks at her so pleadingly; as if she can grant him everything he has ever wanted. But she can't, she can't live up to the expectations that he has for her. He looks so kind and gentle and he doesn't love her. He just thinks he does, as he thinks that she can love him back. And somewhere in her rebellious mind, she is starting to think the same; the thought keeps growing and she tries desperately to get rid of it.
She wants to be left alone, to be shut away until her hair goes silver and she dies in this cell. But when she finally gets the courage to look at him she knows that he will not force her. He will leave her should she wish it, even if he believes he will never get over losing her as he found her again (no, no, no, no, no).
Flashes of memory assault her, and all of this new knowledge makes feel faint. She crumbles to the ground, and in her dizziness, she can feel him catch her. Feel him hold her so close, that even as he trembles with the fear that she will not recognize him, he will still keep her safe. And knowing that he will do that decides it for her.
Neville… it seems so astonishingly right. She can suddenly hear herself saying it over and over, in a whisper and a gasp, in laughter and now, she repeats it through her tears and for the first time, she can feel solid flesh as she touches her ghosts. She lets the feather drop between them as she lifts herself up and wraps her arms around his neck. He tells her that he will never let her stray again. She promises that she never will.
And the world is suddenly so much bigger than her cell, and her heart overflows with the size of it all. They stretch forever, and she can feel magic everywhere. It radiates from her ants and her birds and the feather and most of all from him. It goes in all directions and fills this newly huge world and everything is bathed in its luminance; he is crying and laughing with her. And suddenly there are more people, more of her ghosts, and they surround her and hold her, even the ones she knows are dead; there is so much love that she thinks she will burst.
The sky rises in a brilliant orange and it looks beautiful against the snow.
She is free.