My first piece for the 'Rubik's Cube Challenge' - prison!AU.
He knew he shouldn't have done it.
Green eyes peered out through the grimy metal bars of his cell, taking in the similar sight of the grey landscape. Grey sand, grey sky, grey waves. The outside of his residence was just as gloomy as the inside.
He scraped back his dirt-clumped, scraggly hair from his face, turning away from the morose view to slump down on the lumpy bed.
He sighed. He really shouldn't have done it.
It had been a normal day in the normal neighbourhood of his normal, average, mediocre relatives. He had been young and naive, still trusting in the power of Albus Dumbledore to save him from every hardship.
Sirius was dead though, so nothing had been normal. Nothing would ever be normal again.
Green eyes glazed over in regret as he remembered the rage, the grief he felt at the loss of his only possible family, his only escape. It had been his mistake. If he'd had known- well, things would have gone very different.
He couldn't say it had been worth it in the end; in a week he would hit his eight year anniversary of being in this hellhole. Eight years which would become the rest of his life. He shouldn't have done it, but he supposed if anything could be worth this it would have been that.
They had been taunting him about his loss, about his nightmares. It had been going on for weeks since he had returned from school, devastated by the loss of his Godfather and shaking in thought at the fear of the prophecy.
Not much of a prophecy now though, as stuck as he was in this prison. He couldn't kill anyone from in here; which is exactly why he was placed here in the first place.
For the first two and a half years- more or less, they allowed no calendars in Azkaban- he got no word from anyone. No visitors, no newspapers, no gossip or news or anything other than the cold, the lonely. Nothing but the grey.
For the first time in years footsteps echoed through the hallway, the first since he was thrust into this cell and left to rot for his sins. Lucius Malfoy had appeared from around the corner, sneering as he eyed the grimy, undernourished figure that was portrayed in front of him.
"We have won, you are alone, you will forever be alone. Your trial has been had and your ten year sentence has been extended for crimes against the public. You can apply for another trial to be held for review at the point where your confinement has reached ten years. I shall see you then."
His first and last visitor. He was not sure if hearing another voice was worth the news that the man had brought, though it was long past the point where he expected release- lawful or not. That point marked the start of his receiving news though.
Newspapers came once a month in bulk. The first month as the worst.
His godfather- his hope, his dream, his nightmare- had been alive. He had been retrieved from the veil of death by Dumbledore within a day of falling into it's traps.
Lies, lies, lies.
The next newspaper was artfully picked. From a newspaper written two years after the first was a article describing the brutal death of his godfather at the hands of death eaters.
Two years after being tossed into this pit, and his godfather had done nothing for him.
Yes, things would have turned out much more differently had he known.
The Dursley's deserved to die- they were the scum of the earth, and had proved it many a time. They deserved to die, but he shouldn't have done it.
Perhaps the Dursley's would not be dead. Harry himself might not have been out in prison. The dark lord might not be ruling Magical Britain, and maybe- just maybe- everyone he ever knew or loved would still be alive.
He shifted and closed his eyes, shutting off his haunted thoughts.
Yes, he really shouldn't have done it.