'Sirius!' Lupin yelled, before tackling him to the ground and away from the open window.
'Remus! Let. Go. Of me!' The irate man responded, trying to break free of his friend's grip.
'Sirius, this is madness! You can't go! They'll take you right back in!'
'You've heard Tonks, Remus. Harry is dying in this hell hole. I should never have trusted Dumbledore,' he spat, 'he's abandoned Harry. He's left him to rot in this cursed place. I let him rot in this place.' He finished, his voice breaking, and his body falling limp.
'No. No Sirius, how can you say that.' Remus denied firmly. 'You can't take the blame for any of this.' He tried to squeeze some comfort into his friend, but the festering crack of Harry's situation was running deep under both their skins.
He was the sensible one, he'd always been. It lay on him to keep his head despite the horror of the situation and keep Sirius from breaking. Or doing something rash.
'Escaping Azkaban was a stroke of luck Sirius. If you set a foot back there, they will lock you right back in. You probably won't even catch a glimpse of him, and the Order would have to find a way to get both of you out…' He finished, griping Sirius forearms to try and have him look into his eyes.
'I… Remus, I just feel like I can't live with myself if I don't even try. It's awful there.' Sirius added, shivering. 'It eats you ups like ants cleaning a bone. To think Harry is between those stones, with those people. Voldemort's people. Our Harry, locked up with those murdering psychos…'
'I know, Sirius. I know. But think about it. Harry has sacrificed so much so that you'd be free. It would break him if he knew you'd been caught again. He cares about you. Deeply.' Lupin tried to reason.
Sirius gave him a dark look.
'Pray that by the end of it, he even remembers who we are. Or who he is.' He answered ominously.
'Harry…' Bellatrix cooed, 'Harryyyy! You need to eat now. Chocolate helps.'
A gentle, crooked hand helped his head up, and through the hazy daze of his half nightmare, he could feel a chunk being pressed to his lips. He took a bit and let himself fall back, heavy lidded.
'Atta boy. One little piece at a time.' The voice soothed, combing his hair.
He could feel the little snake coil around his neck reassuringly.
The cell did not feel so cold, and neither the dementors so close.
It was one of those dreams.
He moved against the cold, dark floor, his body a powerful knot of coiled energy. He had no doubt he would conduct his master's bidding. Soon, soon his master would get the object of his desire.
The dark colours were vibrant to his eye, the flames of the sparse torches bathing the long corridor in scalding light. The air smelled of old dust and centuries…
A noise to his right had him coiling into a dark nook. The man passed him, unaware and alone. She wanted to strike, to feel the blood of this enemy pumping under her fangs… But he recoiled. He remembered, remembered.
Horror dawned on him, and confusion.
Harry's breathing was laboured in his dream, but Bellatrix wouldn't wake him up. She wouldn't, because her beloved mark was so dark, so deliciously burning against her skin, so alive. She hummed a pleasant, soothing tune as the teen twisted and turned, combing his hair delicately and holding him so he wouldn't hurt himself.
Harry was precious, a precious little boy she'd take care for, for her master. Until he came for them. And then he would see. He would see Harry was precious. She grinned widely.
Harry's nightmare seemed to culminate, and he jolted awake, widely grasping onto her like a lifeline.
'Huuusssh now little Harry. You're with Aunt Bella, nothing will get to you. I'm taking care of you,' she said, holding onto him and rocking him slightly.
Harry seemed to regain a moment of clarity, his eyes still a little lost.
'It's the same nightmare. Again, and again. I am crawling a dark, dark corridor and I am looking for something… Something he wants.' He breathed out.
'Who?' She asked, a little breathless, hugging him a little closer, 'who is looking for what, Harry?'
'I…' he looked into her wide, hopeful eyes and hated to disappoint her, 'I don't know,' he breathed.
The little mardröm peeked from under his robes' collar.
'Are you alright, young ss-speaker?' It asked, booping Harry's nose in a show of concern.
Harry could feel the woman's ravenous attention on their interaction, but his energy was already slipping away, and he couldn't muster the energy to worry about it.
'I didn't mean to jolt you. I am right, just a silly nightmare.' He finished, petting the snakes' tiny head with a finger.
'No dreams-ss, speaker. No nightmare. I would know,' the little snake finished in a somewhat grumpy manner before coiling back on its favoured spot.
Voldemort drummed his fingers against the windowsill, feeling the growing cold of winter catching against his fingertips.
The situation was… tangled in the most inexplicable way. He had started to formulate a hypothesis, that he'd devolved a lot of energy to disprove, given the tremendous implications of it. But it seemed every passing day was set on proving him a fool for doing so.
And a right fool he'd be to ignore the facts any longer.
The connection, in dreams or in moment of need. When his mind was stretched to Nagini's or when Potter was close to breaking. He'd even possessed the boy, for a few short seconds, as he was being tortured and his mind cried for relief.
It felt familiar to what he had with Nagini, but in a more broken and jagged shape.
The thought twisted his guts.
Harry Potter was one of his horcruxes. A bearer of one piece of his very soul.
The boy was, in a very profound way, his. A gift from Magic itself, bestowed upon him. And he'd learned bitterly on several occasion it never paid to disregard Magic.
Frost bit around his pressed fingers to the glass.
A faint noise signalled the arrival of his follower, and their kneeling.
'Ah, Lucius.' He started idly, watching the frost patterning the window in long, reaching curls. Curving and coiling, tangling into each other. 'Recent information calls for a change of agenda.'
'My Lord?' Lucius called softly.
Voldemort turned toward the kneeled man who was watching him with a schooled and determined look.
'Yes, my friend. Breaking into Azkaban is now our priority.' He finished calmly.
He needed to get his hand on Potter. Everything ought to be made clear when he got the boy.
'You need to take another chunk, Harry. You need to be strong for when our master comes.' Bellatrix chirped with contented enthusiasm.
Harry took the proffered chunk with a bitter smile, not wanting to offend Bella's mood but at the same time weary of her statement.
'I am not sure your master would be too pleased to see me about and running.' He murmured, biting into the salvatory chocolate.
He was still weak, but had overall recovered in spectacular strides, under Bella's attentive care. She had nursed him back to the living, making sure he ate food and chocolate. Protecting him from the dementors.
Often when the shades passed their cell, she would cage his body with hers. Shielding him from their gaze and providing a thin, grounding warmth. Thanks to her presence, her lulling tunes and contact, it'd started to be easier to tell nightmare, daydream and reality apart.
She was always whispering dark promises that their master would come to get them out. That Harry only needed to be patient. To hang on a little more. It had been a sweet lullaby to Harry's tired and muddled brain, and he had started to hang on to her words.
He had made her hopes his.
Only recently did the meaning of such hope properly sink in.
That the people he had been locked up with were Death Eaters. People who worshipped Voldemort and had committed horrendous atrocities in his name.
Those were the people the Wizarding world had seemed fit to lock him up along. The knowledge felt like a weight of lead tugging at his heart. Him, that tried to not bother about the slanders sowed by Skeeter during the Triwizard tournament suddenly couldn't bear the idea to be thought so ill of by people he knew not. Being ridiculed was one thing, being thought a murderer another. It made his stomach twist thinking how Sirius must have felt all those years.
Sometimes he dreamt of being doused in blood, with a metallic taste upon his tong and flesh giving way under his jaws. But his mind seemed to always shut down upon the terror of it. He always woke up drenched in sweat and retching, unable and unwilling to consider the vivacity of the image.
'He wants me dead,' he finished softly.
The thought was not as unpleasant as it had been. He didn't think he would mind a well placed Avada so much anymore. Bella seemed rather fond of him, perhaps she could convince Voldemort not to torture him too much before he finally would get rid of him.
If Voldemort was anything like he remembered from the graveyard, he doubted he would pass on the entertainment… But still, one could always hope.
She cooed his concern away, passing a soothing thumb over the reddened and raw edges of his scars. The not-dreams had redoubled in intensity, and more often than not, he would wake up to blood reddening his vision, as his scar kept bursting open. Bella swore it was not Harry clawing it in his sleep, that it happened on its own. That it looked beautiful against his pale skin.
Every moment, but even more so after each dream, it felt like something was pulling at the back of his head, stretching his mind. Like a rope he could not make the end of kept being tugged on by an invisible force. It frightened him. But he was loath to admit it fascinated him also. It felt like his scare, his curse, and Voldemort were all that was left to him. His friends, his schoolmates, Hogwarts, Sirius… Everything had been taken from him.
He was only Harry now, the cursed child. Nothing was left between himself and Voldemort, but a thin veil of nightmare. And it felt like this disgusting link they had, that twisted and intertwined their fates in chocking coils, defined him more with each passing day. That his self, his being was burned down to it.
Harry Potter. The boy-who-lived.
A charred amber, smouldering in the dark.
Ready to burn away and die. Ready to burst into flame again.
The same dream unfolded before his fluttering eyelids. The same, dark corridor. Harry wanted to push forward, a stirring curiosity and anticipation driving him restlessly.
Tonight. Tonight…
Displeasure crashed onto him. A man was in his way, blocking the path. Dozing. She wanted to strike, but she knew the need not to raise alarm, for her master plan required secrecy. She tried to pass him, quietly…
"But the man was stirring... a silver Cloak fell from his legs as he jumped to his feet; and Harry saw his vibrant, blurred outline towering above him, saw a wand withdrawn from a belt... he had no choice... he reared high from the floor and struck once, twice, three times, plunging his fangs deeply into the man's flesh, feeling his ribs splinter beneath his jaws, feeling the warm gush of blood... The man was yelling in pain... then he fell silent... he slumped backwards against the wall... blood was splattering on to the floor..."
Harry woke up, screaming his throat raw. Screaming and screaming again, clawing his arms and face, Bellatrix too far to restrain him.
'HELP!' He called into the corridor, half running, half crawling the short distance of his cell to fling himself against the bars. 'HELP!' He yelled, sobbing in despair.
He'd recognised the man in his dream. The red-haired man he had grown to love, in what felt like another life. Azkaban had stolen him like so many others, but he knew him.
'Mr. Weasley as been attacked!' He screamed, 'he is dying,' he sobbed, slowly slumping onto himself, exhaustion taking its toll. 'Please, someone. Help…'
But only the hollows echo of Azkaban answered his plea. Only the shifting shadows of the other cells, listened. And they listened hungrily, waiting in the dark.