Azkaban
Flashback- August 7, 1992
Any hope Lucius had of defeating Arcturus's proxy vanished a few seconds after the doors to the Wizengamot opened and in walked Augustus Stevens.
The reason his hope lasted for those scant seconds was only that he didn't recognize the man at first. Arcturus had even called for the man before the doors had opened but his brain refused to match the image in his head to the man in front of him. If he had been introduced to Albus Dumbledore, wearing a muggle tuxedo, and his beard shaved, he probably wouldn't recognize the Chief Warlock either. It wasn't until the commoners and mudbloods at the entrance began to cheer that his brain forced the connection that it had been denying. Stevens had dispensed himself of any of his usual distractions or humor, clad in a uniform that signified death more than the mask he used to wear.
Lucius was screwed.
As his mind raced on how to settle the duel as quickly as possible, he immediately jumped to the killing curse. He knew that he could summon the hatred required to murder this man, and probably take out Arcturus as well in the shock that followed, but then he would be finished with either life in Azkaban or a date with a dementor awaiting him.
The next best thing would be another spell to instantly kill. Going through his knowledge of curses, he settled on an elemental spell that would almost completely drain him, which is what it was supposed to do, 'Eksos Lyn.' He had been taught the spell by Igor Karkaroff back in the war as a way of demolishing shields around homes, in a way that was easier than a Spell Shear. It was only useful when working with a team as once it was used, the caster wouldn't be able to participate in any further actions. It would also vaporize a body if hit without a shield. This would be the spell he'd use on Stevens.
They both assumed their stances with their wands pointed at each other and waited for Lucius to cast the first spell. When there was the tiniest bit of light at the end of his wand, his opponent was in motion. When the huge bolt of lightning had barely escaped Lucius's wand, the stone pillar that had erupted from the ground was already at Augustus's waist, and over his head by the time the lightning splashed onto it. Lucius didn't even see the iron pillars get conjured to siphon off the residual electricity.
As the pillar cracked and fell, he saw a red light in peripheral vision, to his right side and managed to get up a small shield to cover his torso and neck. He had guessed correctly the man's aim as a high-power stunner splashed on the shield, causing him to stagger, as he had nearly exhausted himself from the first spell. He saw the other stunner from his left side as he was trying to regain his footing, but couldn't turn in time to shield… and then the lights went out.
When he came to, he was chained to a chair that he had seen so many of his allies tied to at the end of the war. He tried to call out but was silenced. He listened to the charges and smiled. Fines, he was being fined. A wise man had once said, 'If the penalty for a crime is a fine, then that law only exists for the lower class.' Lucius fully believed that and he was certainly not lower class. He would gladly pay the fine and then seek his revenge.
Then he heard 'Two years incarceration in Azkaban prison,' and his world collapsed. He had lost his wife. He had as good as lost his left arm. He had lost control of the future of the Black family, and their seat in the Wizengamot. Now he would lose his life and his son for two years. At least he knew that he could trust Severus, Draco's godfather, to look after the boy.
As he was led out of the courtroom, the only Auror that would show his face was Mad-Eye Moody. He must have told the others to adhere to 'Death-Eater protocols' to protect themselves and their families. He could still find out who all of them were when he got out. Once he was out of the courtroom, a bag was dropped over his head and he felt the pull of a portkey as he was whisked off to somewhere else.
Without his eyes, he stumbled upon arrival at their destination. He could smell the sea and feel the cold wind blowing through the sleeves of his robes. A fist in his back forced him to trudge forward and he was guided with pokes and jabs onto a boat that he could feel rocking beneath his feet. It wasn't a small boat, and he was guided to a cabin where he heard some murmurs and a few people crying. Other prisoners... and if they were crying already, they wouldn't last a month. The engine on the boat groaned as it began to move toward the prison.
Azkaban was located somewhere in the North Sea. No one knew exactly where, due to the incredible protections placed on it by its founder, the Dark Lord Ekrizdis, and later by the British Ministry. There was just one route to and from the island along a ley line of magic that allowed passage only to vessels that were specifically keyed to it; any others would sink beneath the waves or out of the sky.
After about ten minutes the person next to him started crying a little more, and he yelled in their direction, "Would you shut the hell up? We're not even there yet. Save your tears for the dementors!"
There was silence, and then suddenly the hood was pulled off his head. A man in Auror robes stood in front of him with his hood down.
"I thought I heard the mighty Lucius Malfoy under there," he said. "Do you remember me?"
"You look like a mudblood," he sneered at the Auror. "Why would I remember trash like you?"
"You killed my mother," he said with venom in his voice.
Lucius just smirked back at him, "Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down?"
The Auror glowered at him and then put the hood back on his head. Lucius just grinned to himself for a moment before a fist crashed into the side of his face through the hood and knocked him into the prisoner next to him. He reached up with his manacled hands to protect his face from another blow, but none came. The other prisoner he fell on grunted and pushed him back into his spot.
The ride was silent for the rest of their journey as the boat started to slow down, and an unnatural cold started to seep into his bones. He could feel the trickle of blood from where he was hit in the cheek start to freeze. Then, as soon as the dreadful feeling was there, it was gone and replaced by a feeling of warmth, protection, and happiness. The blood continued its journey to trickle down his face onto his neck.
He could hear shouting from somewhere outside as the boat came to a stop, then someone called out from inside their room, "Inmates! On your feet!"
Lucius stood up slowly. He could hear the jangling of chains as someone approached the group. There were a series of clicks to his right, and then someone wrapped a chain around his waist. He struggled for a moment before getting punched in the stomach. While he was wheezing and recovering his breath, the chain was secured around his waist and it clicked into place. He heard several more clicks from his left side as he regained his footing and stood back up.
The voice again told them, "Follow the person in front of you!" After a few seconds, Lucius could feel the pull of the chain attached to him, forcing him to shuffle forward in a series of half steps.
Once he could feel the wind blowing up his sleeves, the voice called out again, "Ramp in front of you!" The group inched forwards, testing the ground before them for the ramp until they found it, then crept slowly forward to avoid falling and taking the whole group with them.
At the bottom of the ramp, they continued along a long wooden walkway, probably a pier, as water could be heard splashing beneath them. When Lucius felt land underneath his feet, he was moved by someone pulling on his chain until he could feel the other prisoner's elbow to his left, then shortly after another to his right. They all stood in silence for what felt like an eternity, waiting for whatever was coming next.
Quick as lighting, all of their hoods were yanked off and Lucius felt terrified at the sight before him. The fortress prison of Azkaban stood above him.
Solid black, so dark that it appeared to absorb what little light there was on the dreary island, a solid monolith reaching up hundreds of feet into the sky. So high that he had to tilt his head back to see the top. As he stared at the zenith of the tower, a solitary dementor circled the pinnacle of the fortress, not paying any attention to the prisoners below it.
One of the prisoners screamed and tried to run back towards the boat causing most of the line to be pulled over with him. Three aurors called out, "Stupify!" and the man fell unconscious as the red blasts knocked into him. One of the three approached the fallen man and incanted, "Moblicorpus!" causing his stunned form to levitate a few inches off the ground.
Lucius looked around at the aurors, all except one had face-concealing hoods and no insignia of any kind on their uniforms. That one exception being Mad-Eye, of course. He gave a harsh grin. Many of the other aurors had their Patronus animals patrolling the area, which explained why he felt warm and safe at the moment.
Mad-Eye pointed to their right and began walking, the chain gang following him. They walked halfway around the prison, which seemed to have three sides to it until they reached a large building at the ground level. Three gondola lines ran out of the building, each to a different level of the prison. They were all taken inside, to a receiving area of some kind, and sat down on uncomfortable stone benches with no backs. One by one, their names were called and they were taken into the next room. It must have had a silencing charm on it because they heard no interaction after the door shut again.
After nearly two hours, Mad-Eye came out of the room, and with a smile, said, "Hey Lucy, it's your turn now." Lucius didn't move and just sneered at the grizzled old Auror. Moody raised his wand, and said, "You can go on your own power or I'll have you dance the waltz through the door."
He reluctantly stood up and walked through the door, spitting in the real eye of the man on the way. That action got him a punch in the kidney. Then when he stood up, he got a punch in the other from someone on the other side.
The other Auror who hit him gruffly whispered in his ear, "I'll be sharing that memory with my family later. Now move!"
He climbed to his feet and was pushed forward to a desk where another face-concealed Auror stood. It was a woman's voice that said, "Strip, put everything in the box."
He looked back and forth between Mad-Eye and the other who had sucker-punched him. The second one reached two extremely hairy hands out of his robes and cracked all the knuckles on both hands. As dignified as he could, he removed his shoes, socks, outer robe, inner robe, shirt, and slacks; and slower than before, he removed his briefs and put everything in the box.
As he stood as regally as possible, the hairy-knuckled Auror commented, "I'm guessing that's the reason you have only one son." The woman behind the desk chuckled.
Mad-Eye smiled and told her, "Give him the full treatment."
She waved her wand and his clothing levitated the clothing out of the box, and said, "One pair of men's briefs, white. One pair of men's socks, black. One pair of leather shoes, black."
Lucius interrupted her, "Those are Hebridean-black dragon hide."
He could tell the woman behind the hood was glaring at him. She took his shoes and threw them behind her, and picked out a pair of hideous sandals from under the desk.
"One pair of muggle sandals, orange. One pair of slacks, black. One button shirt, green. One set of ordinary black robes."
He would find this woman when he was out and torture her within an inch of her life and then kill her. Those robes were of the highest quality acromantula silk. He was never going to get them back. A plain set of robes floated forward and dropped into the box. The woman then performed several diagnostic spells on his clothes.
"Interesting…" she muttered as a small green patch glowed on his outer robes. With a swish of her wand, the patch was ripped from them and a pile of galleons poured out on the desk. "That's quite a bit of money you are bringing into a place you'll not need it. Maybe you'd like to donate it to charity instead. May I suggest the Hogwarts Muggleborn Education Fund?"
He was just about to yell at her when he was slapped with a silencing charm. "Why Mr. Malfoy," she continued, "I had always heard of your generosity, but it really knows no bounds. I'll put the name of the donation under Lucy Van Pelt." Mr. Hairy Knuckles next to him let out a giggle unfitting for a man his size.
The woman picked up a pair of what were essentially striped pajamas and placed them on the counter. On the front and back, as well as one leg of the pants was written - ᛒᚨ521. The first rune was Berkano which looked like the letter B made of two triangles, the second was Ansuz which looked like the letter F if the two lines sticking out were angled slightly down. Berkano symbolized nurturing, which meant that he was there for a shorter sentence and that this incarceration was supposed to teach him something. Ansuz was the rune for communication, meaning he would be allowed correspondence with the outside world. The number that followed meant he was going to be in cell #521.
Just as he was about to reach for the clothes, Moody stopped him and held a black baton in front of him, and said, "First it's time for the probity probe." Then with his spare hand, he grabbed Lucious by the hair and held it in his fist at the base of his skull. He tried to struggle out of the grip, but Mr. Hair Knuckles hit him with a body-bind spell and a mobilicorpus to keep him from falling over. Moody waved the baton up and down his naked body, but nothing reacted. He then ran it over the man's twisted and darkened left arm and it lit up red.
He leaned Lucius up against the wall and said, "Hmmm, haven't seen red in a while, that's the sign of a corrupted dark ritual. We all know how your arm got corrupted, but if there was a dark ritual on your arm before your run-in with your daughter and Mr. Potter, that would be news to us. Anything you want to tell us? Blink once for yes, two for no. If you feel like being cheeky, you can blink three times to tell us to bugger ourselves."
Lucius really wanted to do the final option but knew it would probably come with another kidney shot, so he just blinked twice.
"Oh well, since there's magic in that arm, we'll need to put cuffs on it." The woman behind the desk, tossed out two manacles made of stone and Moody clipped them onto Lucius's wrist and elbow.
Mr. Hairy Knuckles gave an extra deep chuckle and asked, "What if there's magic in his hair? You didn't scan the probity probe there."
"You're right!" Moody said, "Aren't I the one who is always preaching 'Constant Vigilance?'"
Lucius was panicking. His hair was his Trump card, and as Moody ran the probity probe over the man's hair, it lit up in yellow.
"Yellow? You've got a wand core somewhere in there? Sneaky… very sneaky there Lucy." Moody brandished his wand and cast a balding hex at the platinum-blonde man, causing all his hair, including his eyebrows and eyelashes to fall to the floor. Then pointed his wand at it and cast, "Evanesco!" All the hair on the ground vanished except for three silvery strands.
"Unicorn hair," the woman behind the desk said and summoned the strands to her. "I think these can also be donated to the H.M.E.F. You just keep surprising us with your altruistic nature, Mr. Malfoy."
He was frozen there, naked, with no hair anywhere on his head. Stripped of all his dignity, his possessions stolen from him, everything donated to filthy mudbloods, and stone manacles that would be weighing down his arm as soon as he became unfrozen.
The three aurors just stared at him, and even though he could only see the sadistic smile on Mad-Eye's face, he could feel them coming from the two hooded Aurors as well. After another moment or two, he was unfrozen and told to put on the prison uniform. The process was particularly difficult doing it one-handed and his other arm weighing extra from the stone manacles. In the end, Mad-Eye just cut the left sleeve off completely to get his arm through.
"Your name for the next two years is Number 521. Do you understand?" Lucius just glared at the woman behind the desk with hatred in his eyes. "Good enough, I can see that you do. Take him away, Moody."
"Come on, 521, time to go home." He gestured to a side door and Mr. Hairy Knuckles pushed him in the back, hard enough that he slammed into the door frame before he could walk through.
When he got outside the door, they were standing in front of three gondola cars leading up to the prison. Moody pushed Lucius into the middle car and hit him with a body bind so he couldn't move around in the enclosed space with him. Mr. Hairy Knuckles pulled on a lever outside the car and it started to head upwards toward the prison. It took nearly three minutes for the non-magical gondola to reach the prison. Halfway there, the feeling of the Patroni below them started to fade away and Mad-Eye cast a large silver Patronus sphere around the car to ward off the cold and despair.
When they got to the end of the line, another Auror was waiting with a Patronus of a dolphin swimming around in the air. Moody canceled his shield and stepped out of the car, then unfroze Lucius.
"521! Out of the car!" he ordered. Lucius trudged out and the two of them marched him down the hallway.
They reached an open cell door in the black rock and he walked in. The cell was larger and nicer than he expected it would be. It was nearly twenty feet in a square with a barred window looking out over the water. There was a rusted iron bed with an old mattress on it, two pillows, and two blankets. It had a stone toilet built into the wall with a showerhead next to it and a rusted grate on the floor. Aside from the grate, the floor was covered with a light amount of straw, which made Lucius feel like he was in an animal stall. A chair was bolted to the floor in front of a stone table that jutted out from the wall, across from the bed. The table had a copy of last weekend's The Daily Prophet sitting on it. As he stared at his new accommodations, the barred door slid shut behind him with a loud clang echoing through the hallway. He spun around to glare at Mad-Eye and the Dolphin-Man.
Moody turned to the other auror and told him, "Dismiss your Patronus. I want to watch him get used to his new home."
The Auror hesitated for a moment and then canceled the charm, eliminating all the light except the little that came in the barred window from outside and the bluish glow from Moody's fake eye. The old Auror pulled out a large bar of chocolate and snapped it in half, passing one piece to the guard. They both bit into the chocolate and watched as 521 slowly started to shiver and glance around himself.
The chill in his bones started immediately as he felt a breeze coming from the sides of the room where there couldn't be wind. It took nearly five minutes before something flashed before his eyes. He couldn't tell what it was at first, but after the fourth or fifth time, he could tell - It was fire. Fire in the eyes of his daughter as she unleashed that hell-storm that he plunged his arms into. Then it was light, pure light coming from the eyes of the Potter brat.
Then he felt his left arm burning, but when he looked down at it, the manacles were still there, and it was still twisted and dark. But he could feel the pain, he could feel it burning, twisting, and breaking… and it wouldn't stop. He looked out at the two men standing there and into Moody's eyes. For the first time, he believed a story he heard long ago.
During the war, an older Death Eater, one of the originals, had told him to always keep away from Mad-Eyes Moody. That the man had the eyes of the devil. Towards the middle of the war, he had lost one eye and it was replaced with that infuriating blue one that could see everything. More people started calling him Mad-Eye at that time, and very few people were left alive that remembered his nickname came from before the grizzled auror received his magical eye. Lucius had never actually seen the madness that was in his real eye, he had always been afraid of the fake one. But now as the memory of the pain that cursed his left arm continued to flow through him, he could see the madness in his remaining real eye. That was Mad-Eye Moody.
Then Lucius screamed into the darkness.
Before he returned down the gondola, Alastor gave a large stack of chocolate to the Auror guarding that level and cast the Patronus shield around the car as it went back down. As he arrived, he saw Mr. Hairy Knuckles heading up to the minimum security level with another prisoner.
He walked into the intake room and cast a locking charm on the door to the waiting room. After quite a few privacy and secrecy charms, he turned to the cloaked woman at the desk.
"I think I'm getting old, Amy," he said to her. "I almost missed the wand cores in 521's hair."
The woman behind the desk lowered her hood and revealed her face. She looked similar to Minerva McGonagall, except younger, with fading auburn hair, tough eyes, and a face that looked like it was carved out of wood.
"Well, Alastor, It's good we have fresh blood coming up the ranks. And you could always take over my job if you would like."
"At a desk, with my name on it? Where I can predictably be every day? That is what will kill me," he told her.
"You could always be a teacher, you know, for younger students. If anyone could destroy the curse on the DADA position, it would be you."
"I only have the energy for one student at a time," he said with a frown. "Maybe we can start giving the job to some of the inmates here, just so the curse kills them off. Give them the option between their last five years or teaching DADA at Hogwarts."
She chuckled, "I doubt Dumbles would go for it, but it would be interesting to see how many prisoners would risk it."
"Speaking of fresh blood though," he started, "was that who I think it was, in the room with us?"
"If you're thinking it was Cadet Tonks, then you are correct."
"How the bloody hell did you let a Cadet in on an Azkaban shift?"
"Three reasons: The first is she can already cast a corporeal Patronus and a strong one at that. The second is that 521 tried to kill her mother, which I can relate to. And the third is that she begged me and offered me a favor which I've already cashed with something quite embarrassing."
"I approve. What was the favor?"
"I have a friend who is throwing an Albus Dumbledore-themed birthday party for his six-year-old. Ugh, I know. He had an actor all lined up, but I thought he could use a much better one than that, and Miss Tonks could play the role to a T."
"That should be fun for her. I'll be keeping both eyes on her. Tell her to keep better control over her laughter. She let out a very girlish giggle and then tried to overcorrect with a deep chuckle later."
"I will inform her of her blunder, anything else?"
"For catching my mistake, twenty points to Hufflepuff?"
"We'll make a professor out of you yet," Amy told him as he walked out into the waiting room.
For Lucius, the first night was not the worst, it was the third.
After Moody had left, he wasn't even sure what time it was, though he assumed it to be the late afternoon. It was probably later because no one came by for food before he grew too tired to stay awake. Even under two blankets, the cold and dread still soaked deep into his bones. His head was freezing without any hair and he ended up wrapping a pillowcase around it to try to keep his scalp warm.
He didn't know when, but at some point, he managed to fall asleep. He was awoken in the morning by a metallic squeaking noise. Along with the noise came the feeling of warmth and protection. An Auror was coming.
Keeping himself wrapped in his blanket, he stood near the door as he watched a spectral giraffe walk past the door. It was followed closely by a metal cart that had a steaming pot on top of it. Pushing the cart was a slightly overweight blonde woman with a much too small Auror coat hanging off her shoulders, like a cape, and wearing a white apron.
"Good morning 521! I heard we got a new resident for the presidential suite. Let me explain to you how things work here. I am The Lunchlady. You may call me The Lunchlady. If you call me by anything else, you get half rations for the meal in question. If you call me by something other than that twice, you don't get anything. If you decide to throw your food away, you don't get anything for the rest of the day. Refills will cost you 100 galleons, paid by a money order with a drop of freely given blood. Post mail out of Azkaban will cost 500 galleons."
Lucius stared at this woman and asked, "Do you know who I am?"
She squinted at him, "I don't, and I don't care either. You could be the Minister of Magic or Princess Diana, and it would make no difference to me. But you know what, 521? I'll do you a favor. I'm not going to call you 521. With that pillowcase on your head and wrapped in a blanket, you look like The Pope. So from now on, you are no longer 521, you are now Pope John Paul II. Do you like your new name Johnny?"
Lucius was no idiot, this woman was not a house-elf, and the first rule about unbound servants is you don't piss off the people that bring your food.
So he just replied, "It is an adequate name for the time I am here."
"Huh, I expected a little more kickback from someone as high and mighty as The Pope, himself. Now for the remaining rules." She conjured a bowl and a spoon, then picked the ladle out of the pot and poured in a generous helping of snot. "The bowl and the spoon are conjured to last only an hour before they fade away. I suggest you eat at the stone table. When they disappear, I will be able to vanish any remaining food that is on the table. If you get the food anywhere else, you can wait for the rats to come and get it. They are not fun rats either, they are vermin that have managed to survive on an island of dementors and have been here since the time of Ekrizdis."
Lucius shivered at the thought of such creatures.
"Finally, if you get any ideas of trying to make a break for it by stealing my wand," she spun it around so he saw a small marking on the base. "The wand is secured by a blood-bound curse. If anyone else uses it, it will explode, and take their hand with it. It seems to me that you're already short on one hand, it would be a shame for you to lose the other. Now, do you have any questions?"
"Yes, how does the shower work? There are no knobs."
"You spotted that, did ya? You're a clever boy. Most of the others had to figure it out on their own. To make your life easier, I'll tell you the procedure. Saturday morning, take off your clothes and place them on the desk. They will be replaced with a bar of soap and a towel. At noon, the shower will turn on for 15 minutes. When the shower turns off, dry yourself and place the towel and soap on the desk and it will be replaced with a clean uniform. I'm hoping you'll reward my kindness with various requests to be paid for in lumps of gold. Now, do you have any other questions?"
"No."
"No, what?"
"No, Lunchlady."
"Excellent!" she exclaimed happily. Then she passed the bowl of snot through the bars and placed it on the ground. Then she walked off, the cart squeaking as it went.
Hesitantly, Lucius picked up the bowl off the floor and placed it on the table. He squeezed his way into the chair that was bolted to the floor.
He stared at the liquid in the bowl and scooped up some of the mess with the spoon, letting it drip slowly back in. Taking the plunge, he put a spoonful in his mouth and was surprised to find that it didn't taste bad. It also didn't taste good. There was absolutely no taste at all. The texture was disgusting though. He managed to finish the whole bowl without gagging on the warm, tasteless, and lumpy snot.
When he could no longer hear the squeaking of the cart, someone in another cell called out, "Hey everyone, did you hear who's in 521? We've got the bloody Pope on our wing!"
Another voice called out, "Well I'm not Catholic, so unless he can change piss into wine, he better keep his mouth shut."
A third voice called out, "I'm fine with The Pope on our wing, it's one less person to compete with me. You all know that The Lunchlady is going to marry me one day."
The second voice called out again, "You and your dreams, the day you fuck The Lunchlady is the day I get a blowjob from a dementor."
Even Lucius gave a little chuckle at that.
The first voice continued the insults, "You think your soul would fit through your tiny cock?"
The second voice answered, "I'm not sure, but at this point, I'd be willing to let one of them give it a shot."
Laughter was heard up and down the hall. This wasn't going to be so bad, Lucius thought, as he stayed silent. For a large part of the morning, and through the afternoon, the residents of his wing just called out insults and stories of all the women they had been with or would be with when they got out. Without a wife, Lucius didn't have one to go home to, but for a man of means, that presented no issue.
The Lunchlady never returned for lunch, and only came back in the evening with another bowl of snot to eat for dinner. With the evening, came the cold of the dementors. As the light grew darker, the dreams of fire and light returned, and he covered his head with a pillow to try to force himself to sleep and drown out the occasional crying and screaming from the other inmates.
In the morning, warmth and protection in the form of The Lunchlady's giraffe returned. She called out to the wing as she entered, "It's Sunday! You know what that means! Newspapers for everyone!"
Everyone on the wing cheered at the announcement.
She stopped in front of his door and placed his bowl of snot on the ground, with The Daily Prophet next to it.
On the front cover was his name:
LUCIUS MALFOY IMPRISONED!
That's when his situation hit home. He slapped the bowl of snot across the room, causing it to splash across the floor and soak into the straw that was there. He screamed as loud as he could and started to curse everything and everyone he could think of.
One of his neighbors called out, "Bloody hell, The Pope is pissed!"
"You'll never become a saint when you curse like a sailor!" called another.
They all were laughing at him. And he cursed them more, vowed to disembowel their families when he was out, and told them about the endless horrors he would visit upon them if they didn't shut up, but they just laughed more.
After a few hours, one of the voices called out to another, "He did you assholes see the paper? Narcissa Malfoy is single again! You all can keep The Lunchlady, I'm taking that piebald hottie for myself. I've been keeping all her pictures from the society section just for a day like today. In just six months, I'll be out and I'm sure she's already trolling Knockturn Alley for someone new. I'm going to head there as soon as I'm free."
There was nothing he could do. All of these felons would be out before he would be, and while he would be sure to destroy oh so many lives when he got out, for now, he was stuck here, all by himself, surrounded by commoners, thieves, and mudbloods. All he could do now is plot his revenge.
Then the night came again. Just as he was about to fall asleep, he heard scratching on the floor of his room. He peeked over the side of his bed to see two ferocious-looking rats eating the straw on the floor of his room. They were each about the size of a small dog with glowing red eyes. They were pure black and his mind made them out to be small grims looking him in the eyes.
Feeling brave, he jumped up and yelled at them. They both slowly turned towards him and roared... like lions… even though they were rats. Trying to scare them off, he waved one of his pillows at them only for one to pull it out of his hands and tear it to pieces in front of him. From that point, he pressed himself against the wall on his mattress and let them finish their business eating whatever his discarded food had touched.
They left the room sometime in the middle of the night. Just as he was finally about to fall asleep, he heard a girlish voice calling to him from the base of the tower, outside his window.
"Loooosie, Loooooosie!" the voice called. He knew that voice, it was scary before she probably went insane in this place, but now it was more bone-chilling than a dementor.
"Looooosie? Are you up there?" Bellatrix Lestrange called out. "I'm glad you finally joined us. You will be honored when he returns, now that you've rejoined the faithful behind these walls."
Lucius didn't say a word, he just curled into his blanket and his one remaining pillow and cried.
In the morning he bought a new pillow for 300 galleons from The Lunchlady.
Two weeks later, he asked for post mail to be sent to Goyle Sr. He negotiated the price down to 400 for just one sentence. His letter said, "Get me out of here."
A week later, he got a response, "I serve House Black."
He paid another four hundred for the same message to Crabbe. The reply came back, "I'm already working on it."
Before his breakfast spoon faded into nothingness each day, he used the handle to make a mark on the wall to count the days he had been in this cell.
He was starting to get a little hair back and would rub the stubble to pass the time. Other than that, he just listened to the other inmates' chatter about everything they were going to do when they got out of the prison. They occasionally tried to engage him in conversation, but it got less and less frequent. So far he had only opened his mouth to speak to The Lunchlady.
At the end of the first month, he bought a pair of foam earplugs from The Lunchlady for 800 galleons. He regretted that decision two days later when a rat came into his room before he went to sleep and ate them.
A few days later, the Sunday paper came and he saw a headline about the new Hogwarts house, founded by his daughter and Newton Scamander. He knew he had made a mistake with the girl, he had no idea how he had done it, but she had magic and it was powerful. Now, her entire legacy was tied to that damnable Arcturus Black. Black… and Harry Bloody Potter. How in the world had she gone from being stuffed in a shipping container to receiving a magical education with Dumbledore's golden boy?
Arcturus had been correct during the trial about the significance of his left arm being twisted. That had to be Potter's magic that had attacked his Dark Mark, faded as it was. He had been distraught after the Dark Lord fell, as with all his boasting and bravado about being immortal, he had fallen to an infant.
Lucius had spent just under 1,000,000 galleons in bribes, donations, and threats to have the charges against him dropped. Many of his other friends and allies used the same excuse of being under the Imperius Curse and were forced to commit crimes against their will, using the precedent he had set. He had called in debts on them for their freedom many times over the last ten years to replenish his coffers and become more powerful and prominent in society than he had been during the Dark Lord's rise to power. Life was good in peacetime.
And then Black ripped it all away in less than an hour.
He gazed at his left arm, twisted and black, with a renewed sense of hope. If Potter's magic had attacked it, that meant the mark wasn't just faded, it was still active. Before his incarceration, he had been planning to sell off that blank leather book that the Dark Lord had asked him to keep safe, to keep it from Weasley's raids. It was hilariously dark in nature, yet he could find nothing about it from diagnostic spells to figure out why. It was just a beacon that would alert anyone looking to its presence... but now, he would want to investigate it more and see if it contained any secrets. The only thing he had found on the pages was inside the front cover where it was written, "I am Property of Lord Voldemort."
At the end of the second month, he finally gave in to the questions of his neighbors, when one of them called out, "Hey Pope! What are you going to do when you get out?"
He had just gone too long without human interaction. He could be silent for only so long. So he responded in the same way the others did, but with a bit of added venom, "I'm going to shag every one of your mothers, then shave their heads and give free polyjuice to all the whores of Knockturn Alley so the rest of the country can join in on the fun."
There was silence in the halls of his wing of the prison as he added in a whisper to himself, "and then I'm going to kill Harry Potter."
The silence ended as a voice down the hall called out, "You're going to need a shovel for mine, good luck!"
Then the laughter returned.
His days now were a little improved as he traded insults with the other inmates, though they were always impressed at the level of hatred and vitriol he inserted into them. For him it wasn't just playful, it was a brainstorming process of what he would do to those who had put him in here.
But no matter how good the days were, the nighttime brought the terrors. Even during the day, there were chills and shakes from the dementors who nested somewhere at the base of the tower. At least once a day, one would wind its way around the outside of the tower, feeding on them through the windows. You could hear one coming from the screams of the other inmates close by or below. Lucius would do his best to keep as far away from the window as possible and hoped that lessened the effect of his worst memories flashing before his eyes and plunging him into despair.
At night everything was worse. According to one of his neighbors, who said that he used to be an Auror; as soon as the light from the sun had totally vanished from the sky, they would float up from the pit, up into the night sky, and just drift around above the prison as if they were feeding on the darkness. On nights with no moon or the clouds were too thick to see, the terrors were even worse. When he was asleep in bed, he would often awake to the screaming of a neighbor and see a dementor appear right outside his window making a sucking noise as it fed on his nightmares and despair.
Other times he'd wake up to screaming only to realize that the shrieking was coming from himself.
He didn't know how bad it was for the inmates at the bottom of the tower, but occasionally he would envy them as they didn't have brighter days followed by terrible nights. It was just terrible for them all the time. They didn't get warmth and occasional laughter ripped away from them after dinner each night. He almost found The Lunchlady pleasant at times and knew that she couldn't work the entire tower, so there could be someone much worse on the other floors.
Halfway through November, they received an extra-thick special newspaper for Sunday. The extra thickness was due to the Society section. Dumbledore had just had his 111th birthday. The old fool had done it at Hogwarts of all places.
Thinking about it, Lucius had no idea if Dumbledore had a manor. He just used Hogwarts as his residence, like it was his own personal castle. That was only one of the reasons people thought the old man was such a colossal ass. He had wealth, and he had power, but he didn't do anything with it except preach right and wrong and run a school. Anyone else would have taken over Britain, or at the very least become Minister of Magic. He chuckled as he thought that the reason he could never trust the man was primarily based on the fact that he wasn't corrupt or hungry for power.
Then he came to all the photos. The first one he was drawn to was that of his ex-wife and Draco. Both of them looked regal and proud. He felt a swell of pride that Draco was still a Malfoy, even with him behind bars.
The caption for the photo was, "Draco Malfoy, standing along with his recently divorced mother, Narcissa Black."
The writer had obviously written that to highlight that his ex was now able to court new suitors, and Lucius smiled at the thought. Not that she would be seeing other men, but that either she or Arcturus would soon be breaking every bone in that writer's hands for daring to write such a thing in the newspaper.
He skimmed through the other photos and came across one from the Black Family table; and there sat Arcturus, very alive, and looking healthy. Sitting with him was that damned Stevens, his shield - Goyle, the Steward, and his daughter, along with Harry Potter. All of them were enjoying their evenings, without a thought that they were there because he was suffering behind bars. Flipping through more of the pictures, he came across a posed shot of Dumbledore shaking hands with Arcturus and nearly choked at the sight. They had definitely conspired together to arrange his incarceration. Well, it's not like he didn't want to kill Dumbledore someday anyways.
Finally, on the last page was a picture of his daughter, standing with Harry Potter. Both were holding those damned staves in their hands. But what confused the hell out of him was there was a medium-sized demiguise standing between them.
After the first week of December, he received a letter from Crabbe, it was only in runic script.
Þ
XPϞ
It took him a minute to remember the translation:
Breakthrough
Joy, Gifts, Success
But then he smiled when he understood that he would be getting out on Christmas.
On Christmas day, he awoke with a light in his heart that didn't come from that bloody giraffe Patronus. He tried to flatten down the hair that had grown back over the past few months. He didn't have a mirror but imagined that his hair resembled his first and second year at Hogwarts. He smelled horrible as he wouldn't get his weekly shower until tomorrow.
Then he waited.
The Lunchlady didn't bother to stop at his room for breakfast and just skipped him completely. That was fine, he could miss a meal today. Her attitude just confirmed that he would be released today.
When it was almost midday, he felt the warmth of a Patronus and heard the sound of boots approaching his cell. He stood before the door and put on his best smile. Two hooded aurors approached his cell and one of them stunned him immediately.
He was awoken by a spell that felt like, and probably was lightning coursing through his body. Looking around, he could see that he was back in the intake room at the base of the tower. In front of him stood Mad-Eye, Mr. Hairy Knuckles, and probably the same woman that had been behind the desk before, but he couldn't tell at first.
Mad-Eye didn't waste any time and just punched him in the stomach, hard. "I don't know what favors you had to exchange to get out, but I will see you back inside as soon as possible."
He gasped and wheezed from the blow on the floor, and probably would have vomited if he had received breakfast that morning. As soon as he had stood back up, Mr. Hairy Knuckles grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and, with an incredible feat of strength, lifted him until his head hit the ceiling with force.
"If you go anywhere near Miss Black or Mr. Potter, I will put you in the ground before you have a chance to return here," the man threatened him. Then he just let go and Lucius fell several feet to the floor.
The woman behind the desk growled, "If you two are done, I need to give him back his things."
They stood back and she pulled a box from the room behind her. "One set of ordinary black robes. One shirt, green. One pair of pants, black. One pair of socks, black. One pair of briefs, white. One pair of muggle sandals, orange."
She flourished her wand and the stone manacles around his left arm snapped off and flew back to her waiting hand. There were markings and extra pale tan lines from the spot on his upper arm after being covered for so long. He could also finally lift his arm easily, though from his elbow to his fingertips remained petrified and darkened. The clothes were then thrown at him to change.
He was given no help this time changing with one arm, and after a long time it took to complete the task, he smiled as he folded his prison uniform, then gave the disgusting garment back to the woman behind the counter. They could beat and threaten him, but he was still leaving today and there was nothing they could do about it. He could break the bones of those who hurt him, he could remove the tongues of those who threatened him, all things were possible on the outside.
As soon as he handed back the folded uniform, he was stunned again, and he fell into darkness.
When he awoke again, he was starting to get annoyed. Now though, he was back on dry land, though a hood was over his head. A piece of rope was thrust into his hands and he heard someone say, "Activate."
The pull of a portkey yanked him off his feet and after a few seconds, he crashed into the ground. Rolling to his feet, he yanked the hood off his head and saw up the hill, Malfoy Manor. He was home, and more importantly, he could start working on his revenge.
Author's Note: This chapter was fun to write, really, so much fun.
Author's Note #2: I tried to figure out what the runes on Sirius Black's wanted poster could mean. They were a Perthro (ᛈ) and Algiz (ᛉ) rune. Perthro is the rune for Fate, and Algiz is for Protection. I'm interpreting Perthro as being in Azkaban as his fate, and he is there for life; then Algiz meaning he is in the most secure level of the prison.
Dream Casting:
Amelia (Amy) Bones - Carrie-Anne Moss