Word Count: 367
Easter Egg: Day 10, Abstract: Antonin Dolohov
Warning: Passively suicidal.
A Relief
The cells of Azkaban were grimy. Tiny. Cold.
Antonin didn't care.
The Dementors were gone, but there was still a rattle in the air, almost like their presence remained despite their physical absence. There was still a chill, a feeling of hopelessness, that bore deep into him, until he just couldn't bring himself to care if he woke up everytime he went to sleep.
Despite his choices—to follow the Dark Lord, to use dark magic, to break countless laws—he'd never actually expected to find himself locked in a tiny cell.
He'd always believed that he'd be killed in battle if anything, lost between one moment and then next, gone down in a blaze of fire and glory.
He hadn't prepared himself for the opposite; stagnant in ice, with little to his name and even less pride.
He was never walking out of Azkaban. He knew that. He'd known that before they'd sentenced him, because he hadn't needed Veritaserum to admit his crimes. He'd done them; they were his.
He wasn't going to lose his ownership of them when they would have been forced from him regardless. He had done them. They were his.
They were all he had now. His legacy.
He wasn't sure what that meant. His legacy was filled with death and pain and hurt; some of it his, a lot of it dealt by him to other people.
When he died, he certainly didn't expect any kind of heaven to beckon him forward.
The bars clattered, drawing him from his thoughts, as a tray of grey… mush was pushed through the tiny opening on the ground. Antonin didn't rush to get it.
It tasted like nothing anyway, and he wasn't hungry. He hadn't been hungry in… it felt like forever, but he didn't know how long he'd been there so he couldn't say how much time had passed since he last felt real hunger.
He'd eat it eventually.
Probably.
Closing his eyes, he shifted on the threadbare square that masqueraded as a mattress. He could probably sleep for a while.
He'd eat when he woke up.
If he woke up.
Maybe this time, he'd finally know an endless sleep.
It would be…
A relief.