Joker wobbled away from the completely wrecked Batmobile, humming as he heard something. 'Here we goooo...'
"Cedric had been so kind", a voice whispered at the edge of his mind. It sounded sedated, full of a deranged happiness that could only be the cover for extreme grief.
'Who's Cedric?' Joker tilted his head, abruptly losing any interest in the ongoing "bring-down-the-Bat" attack Croc, Bane and Harley had come up with.
Harley was currently glaring at him, hands gripping her oversized mallet tightly.
Joker pressed the base of his hand against his head, focusing on the little voice. Far off in the distance. Whispers. Like when he had seen the injured boy.
Harley charged him and swung at him, fully intending to knock his head off his shoulders.
Joker avoided it easily enough, looking around when the lights flickered. 'What the…'
The street lights, the lights from the buildings all flickered, somehow going unnoticed by the others.
The Clown Prince of Crime took a few steps backwards as if to better hear and avoid another mallet swing, trying to tune into barely audible voices.
-drag him to Azkaban, have him killed….worse, leave him with the Dursleys-
'Azkaban?' He muttered, mentally reaching for the chattering, wanting to know just what was going on. He caught the mallet and pushed it away, making Harley spin around with a loud shriek.
He recognized it as a thought-stream of some kind. 'Dursleys?'
-Vernon. Ugly, screaming "boy" at him. Dislocates his shoulder when he drags in down the hallway. They won't feed him for a week...-
This time Joker caught the mallet and flicked each and every one of Harley's fingers off the handle.
'What are-ow! Stop that! Why aren't you saying anything?!' Harley shrieked and lost her grip on her weapon. 'Stop being quiet! I don't like it!'
Joker pulled the mallet away from her and sat it down next to him where it promptly tilted over and clacked on the asphalt.
'What are you doing!?' Harley raged, looking at the mallet and then to him.
Several light bulbs exploded and something in the airshifted hard enough to make him wobble.
The minute hand on the clocktower's clock moved and so did the bells. Bells that haven't worked ages. Even when Gotham tore itself to pieces the bells had remained silent.
Harley was screaming at him, but he couldn't hear it anymore as he caught the thought-stream, images flashing in his mind.
-poor Cedric…graveyard, themlaughing-
'What?' Joker frowned, seeing the dead boy on the ground.
'What do you meaaaan, "What"?!' Harley's voice was sharp but drowning in a stream of voices and memories.
-'Seven Cruciatus Curses! Prove your loyalty!' An ugly ass man demanded to his hooded followers, pointing to an already deeply traumatized and wounded teenager bound to a gravestone-
It's the boy. Joker noted the boy already looked like he had taken massive beating.
'The hell…?' Joker shook his head, catching the bird boy's foot and tossed him at Harley without much care. 'What are they-'
-'Crucio!'-
Joker screamed, feeling so, so, so muchpain that went well beyond even his threshold. Somebody had just slammed his pain receptors and weren't stopping.
-hecouldn't move,hecouldn't break free,hisbinds were too strong, they were laughing and wouldn'tstop-
He was the boy, the boy was him, the pain was his and so was the wrath.
More images flashed in Joker's mind. Teenagers glaring at him, whispering nastily. People he had known for 4 years turned their backs on himin an instant.
"You justhadto be the center of attention again, didn't you?"
"JUST admit you did it."
"You're an embarrassment to Gryffindor!"
"Why do you have to embarrass Gryffindor like this?"
"Who'd want to killyou?"
It's such a stupid question that he almost considers buying 20 history books and bombarding the classmate with a new one each day.
"Nobody is out to get you!"
"Can't we just have a normal year where you don't cause trouble?"
"Of course you didn't put your name in…of course. Riiight."
"Attention seeking bastard."
"Attention whore."
-Ron didn't believe him either and goddid it hurt.-
-A nasty, pale boy sniggered, holding a badge that said "Potter stinks!". The Slytherins were all wearing them. So were some of his ownhousemates.-
-Pain, so much pain, they wouldn't stop and they wouldn't stop laughing until he started laughing himself.Then they shut the fuck up hahahahahahahaha inbred wizards
-Reality startled as something cut into it, breaking its consecrate laws-
3 men, faces hidden by masks took turns to torture the boy before he broke free.
A boy with a broken leg.
Tied to a gravestone.
Unable to fight back.
That boy.
His boy.
Batman blinked, blood almost freezing in his veins at the screaming. 'Joker?'
The inhumane screaming from Joker made everybody freeze and could be heard several blocks away. It had shifted from extreme pain to unbridled rage and was quite possibly the angriest anybody had ever heard him.
Croc dropped Batman on the ground in shock and started backing away, eyes fixed on Joker.
'Joker?' Harley asked quietly, stepping towards the thrashing clown while Robin tried to hold her back. 'What's wrong? Joker?'
'Robin! What did you do?!' Batman yelled, getting up from the ground.
Joker got control of his flailing limbs and shot up with an enraged snarl, careening wildly for the first 3 steps.
'Wasn't me! I didn't even get to land a hit on him!' Robin yelled back, stopping Harley from going after the clown.
'Unforgivable…unforgivable…unforgivable…' Batman heard Joker gasp as he moved to intercept the clown.
'What?' He tried to grab Joker, but Bane had other ideas, catching his cape and flung him into a nearby sign for the nearby Bat Burger.
Joker stumbled, gasping for breath and tore down the street blindly, screaming 'UNFORGIVABLE!' at the top of his lungs.