Azkaban Challenge
Title: Azkaban
Rating: PG
Characters: A Weasley, Someone seeking their forgiveness.
Challenge: The Azkaban Challenge
Time: 45 minutes
A/N: Well, I’m new and not so great at time restrictions but I suppose as well as being fun, it was good practise for English exams. I just thought I'd post so I don't end up simply lurking. Hope you like.
Azkaban.
I’ve always hated the place although I’d never actually visited or been there until now. The description does the place justice as did its protectors once upon a time. I remember that my last year at Hogwarts was the year Sirius Black escaped and Dementors were placed around the school for safety. I didn’t feel any safer knowing that there were those things so close. When I first felt the Dementors freezing power, I almost fainted, my head bursting with all the bad memories I’d had in the past seventeen years. Thank Merlin he was there to catch me.
Footsteps. Metal against metal. Moans of despair. Of pain. Of fright.
I am aware of everything that is going on around me as the guard leads me to where he is. To my left and right are cells filled with those found guilty in the cleanup after the War. Anybody that had had any connection with You-Know-Who, even if they insisted it was Imperius, unless someone could vouch their innocence they were in there. I give out a small shriek as a hand touches the hem of my robes, and I watch over my shoulder as it continues to grope the empty space I have left, as if to tell me that they need me.
There is so much despair.
Finally the guard stops at a cell. All of a sudden I wonder if I have done the right thing by coming. He might not want to see me. I feel sick. My heart is beating in my throat, my hands are clammy and my eyes watering. I’m just to say I’ve changed my mind when the guard steps aside, shows me through. The cells are much bigger than I expected but in no better condition. There is a small bed, a toilet, a washbasin and a small shelf filled with books. I suppose he’s earned it.
“I’m going to stand outside. He gives you any trouble and call me alright?”
I nod but my eyes are on the person in front of me.
His eyes are hard to read. I sense confusion, resentment, and a host of other emotions that come from the prolonged exposure to Azkaban. What have they done to him? He is thinner than I last saw him, not very flattering to his tall height. His face has paled but thankfully he hasn’t lost the spray of freckles across his nose. He has lost the carrot red hair he possessed that attracted him to me in the first place. It is now so dark, it’s almost brown. He doesn’t seem right.
“What are you doing here?” he finally croaks. He says it slowly as if he has not needed to use words for the past year and now that he does, it does not come naturally.
“I’m here to see you.”
“Why?”
“Why not?”
A frown appears over his face, and he pushes his glasses back from where they slid on the bottom of his nose onto the bridge. Blinking a few times, he seems to be coming to a conclusion whether he wants to believe me or whether I’m even real. I’ve heard so much time in solitude can damage the line separating reality and fiction.
“You broke up with me seven years ago. Why are you here?”
“To say sorry.”
“For what?” he asks irritably. I can see my appearance has unsettled him. He’s pacing, running a hand through his hair, straightening out the regulation greying black robes with the number sewn in. I’m making him nervous.
“I knew and I said nothing.”
“Knew what? For Merlin’s sake woman, if you have come here to take the mick out of me then please go away. I don’t need this.”
“I knew, I know, that you are innocent and I said nothing.”
The pacing stops and he turns to look at me hard. He doesn’t believe me. He thinks that I’ve come to simply make his life worse. His bleu eyes soften and he rubs his face with his hands, sighing defeat. He doesn’t know what to do. He was always like that. The only time he would sigh was when he was defeated. I step towards him, reaching out to feel him once again but he steps back.
“No,” he says shaking his head. “Get away from me. You, those people that call themselves my family, you all turned their backs on me! You left me to rot in here when you all knew I was innocent. Yes, I was ambitious but not to the point I would follow You-Know-Who!”
“And I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? Is your sorry going to get me out of here?”
Tears prick my eyes, wondering how I could have let him go through all off this. It had taken me four years to come and say this to him. I don’t know what I expected. I suppose it was forgiveness I wanted so that I could go to Hogsmeade and not remember our first date in the Three Broomsticks without feeling guilt ridden. He looks at me expectantly. He wants an answer.
“No,” I whisper, the tears escaping my eyes and onto my cheeks. “But it’s a start. Forgive me, and we’ll be able to start again. I’ll do everything I can to get you out of here. I’ll fight my whole life if it means that I get to be with you.”
He sits down and runs a hand through his hair, staring at the grey floor.
“Why though? After seven years, why now?”
I kneel down in front of him. This time he doesn’t flinch away, allowing me to take his hands in mine.
“One morning I woke up and found I could think of nothing but you. Everywhere I walked, I would see you- I would see us. It took me a year to realise that I love you Percy Weasley, and there is no one else out there for me.”
There is a moment of silence and I think this has all been in vain when he leans forward and kisses my forehead, catching a few strands of my blonde hair along with it. He stares into my eyes, a small smile forming on his lips, instantly brightening up his thinning features.
“I could never say mad at you Penelope. I love you too much, like I did since the first day I realised you were the girl I one day wanted to take home to my family.”
“That one day will come.”
And that’s a promise.
Rating: PG
Characters: A Weasley, Someone seeking their forgiveness.
Challenge: The Azkaban Challenge
Time: 45 minutes
A/N: Well, I’m new and not so great at time restrictions but I suppose as well as being fun, it was good practise for English exams. I just thought I'd post so I don't end up simply lurking. Hope you like.
Azkaban.
I’ve always hated the place although I’d never actually visited or been there until now. The description does the place justice as did its protectors once upon a time. I remember that my last year at Hogwarts was the year Sirius Black escaped and Dementors were placed around the school for safety. I didn’t feel any safer knowing that there were those things so close. When I first felt the Dementors freezing power, I almost fainted, my head bursting with all the bad memories I’d had in the past seventeen years. Thank Merlin he was there to catch me.
Footsteps. Metal against metal. Moans of despair. Of pain. Of fright.
I am aware of everything that is going on around me as the guard leads me to where he is. To my left and right are cells filled with those found guilty in the cleanup after the War. Anybody that had had any connection with You-Know-Who, even if they insisted it was Imperius, unless someone could vouch their innocence they were in there. I give out a small shriek as a hand touches the hem of my robes, and I watch over my shoulder as it continues to grope the empty space I have left, as if to tell me that they need me.
There is so much despair.
Finally the guard stops at a cell. All of a sudden I wonder if I have done the right thing by coming. He might not want to see me. I feel sick. My heart is beating in my throat, my hands are clammy and my eyes watering. I’m just to say I’ve changed my mind when the guard steps aside, shows me through. The cells are much bigger than I expected but in no better condition. There is a small bed, a toilet, a washbasin and a small shelf filled with books. I suppose he’s earned it.
“I’m going to stand outside. He gives you any trouble and call me alright?”
I nod but my eyes are on the person in front of me.
His eyes are hard to read. I sense confusion, resentment, and a host of other emotions that come from the prolonged exposure to Azkaban. What have they done to him? He is thinner than I last saw him, not very flattering to his tall height. His face has paled but thankfully he hasn’t lost the spray of freckles across his nose. He has lost the carrot red hair he possessed that attracted him to me in the first place. It is now so dark, it’s almost brown. He doesn’t seem right.
“What are you doing here?” he finally croaks. He says it slowly as if he has not needed to use words for the past year and now that he does, it does not come naturally.
“I’m here to see you.”
“Why?”
“Why not?”
A frown appears over his face, and he pushes his glasses back from where they slid on the bottom of his nose onto the bridge. Blinking a few times, he seems to be coming to a conclusion whether he wants to believe me or whether I’m even real. I’ve heard so much time in solitude can damage the line separating reality and fiction.
“You broke up with me seven years ago. Why are you here?”
“To say sorry.”
“For what?” he asks irritably. I can see my appearance has unsettled him. He’s pacing, running a hand through his hair, straightening out the regulation greying black robes with the number sewn in. I’m making him nervous.
“I knew and I said nothing.”
“Knew what? For Merlin’s sake woman, if you have come here to take the mick out of me then please go away. I don’t need this.”
“I knew, I know, that you are innocent and I said nothing.”
The pacing stops and he turns to look at me hard. He doesn’t believe me. He thinks that I’ve come to simply make his life worse. His bleu eyes soften and he rubs his face with his hands, sighing defeat. He doesn’t know what to do. He was always like that. The only time he would sigh was when he was defeated. I step towards him, reaching out to feel him once again but he steps back.
“No,” he says shaking his head. “Get away from me. You, those people that call themselves my family, you all turned their backs on me! You left me to rot in here when you all knew I was innocent. Yes, I was ambitious but not to the point I would follow You-Know-Who!”
“And I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? Is your sorry going to get me out of here?”
Tears prick my eyes, wondering how I could have let him go through all off this. It had taken me four years to come and say this to him. I don’t know what I expected. I suppose it was forgiveness I wanted so that I could go to Hogsmeade and not remember our first date in the Three Broomsticks without feeling guilt ridden. He looks at me expectantly. He wants an answer.
“No,” I whisper, the tears escaping my eyes and onto my cheeks. “But it’s a start. Forgive me, and we’ll be able to start again. I’ll do everything I can to get you out of here. I’ll fight my whole life if it means that I get to be with you.”
He sits down and runs a hand through his hair, staring at the grey floor.
“Why though? After seven years, why now?”
I kneel down in front of him. This time he doesn’t flinch away, allowing me to take his hands in mine.
“One morning I woke up and found I could think of nothing but you. Everywhere I walked, I would see you- I would see us. It took me a year to realise that I love you Percy Weasley, and there is no one else out there for me.”
There is a moment of silence and I think this has all been in vain when he leans forward and kisses my forehead, catching a few strands of my blonde hair along with it. He stares into my eyes, a small smile forming on his lips, instantly brightening up his thinning features.
“I could never say mad at you Penelope. I love you too much, like I did since the first day I realised you were the girl I one day wanted to take home to my family.”
“That one day will come.”
And that’s a promise.