(no subject)
Title: Marking Time
Rating: PG
Prompt: 1-Calendar
Word count: 923
Summary: It's hard to keep track of time in Azkaban. Vague hints of Sirius/Remus
He tries to keep track of the time at first. All new prisoners do. The lucky ones count the days until their release, until they’ve served the time for some minor offense. The unlucky ones count the time until their execution or until they receive the Dementor’s Kiss--worse than death, the prisoners whisper.
The other prisoners just count, and envy those who have an end, any end, in sight.
The walls and floor of his cell are covered in long, thin scratches from past occupants. Here they are neat, straight and close together, grouped by fives. A few inches away they become ragged and disorderly, as Azkaban takes its toll. There are one hundred twenty-eight scratches in the corner near the floor, and three hundred six halfway up the wall next to the door. A mere nineteen above the pile of rags that passes for his bed, and three thousand four hundred eleven on the opposite wall. He wonders if the scratches stopped because the prisoners died or were freed or sank too deeply into despair and madness to notice the passage of time. He wonders what they were counting.
At first he counts days, watching the sky outside the small window lighten and scratching a line into the floor next to his pillow. After five lines that feel like so much more, he realizes the perpetual fog and frequent storms block the sun too often to depend on it.
He tries to count the times he sleeps, but he dreams of pacing his cell and wakes to see James with his eyes glassy and skin pale, and the difference between asleep and awake blur and vanish.
He counts meals next, but a rare stretch of good weather makes him realize there’s no schedule. Sometimes there’s food twice a day, and sometimes there isn’t. By then he’s too far gone to wonder if the lack of food is a punishment or if he was just forgotten, and too weak to complain.
Still, he scratches the floor with his spoon, the only utensil allowed to him. He’s not tracking anything anymore, just making marks when it occurs to him. Months pass without a single scratch, then twenty scratches added in a day. Sometimes he rubs his fingers over the scratches and thinks about what they represent. How old must Harry be? By now he must be talking, reading. He tries to imagine Harry growing up, but all he can see is the messy haired toddler who used to spit strained peas at him.
A new prisoner is brought in. He doesn’t see her, but he hears her. She curses and shrieks, threatening to kill the Aurors dragging her down the hall, threatens to rip out their throats and feast on their flesh. Her first day, and she’s already insane, he thinks, and remembers how he’d laughed until he cried when they brought him in, and kept laughing and crying for days until finally he could think again, too late to convince anyone of his innocence, and wonders if the new prisoner will regain her sanity only to have it sucked away by the Dementors, or if she’s already lost.
He forgets her after that, her screams blending with the other prisoners’. Forgets, until her screams change from rage and fear and despair to pain, and her voice strangles and twists into a long howl.
He looks at the window, and thinks the familiar darkness is lighter, silvery tonight, and when another howl echoes down the cold stone hallway he changes and howls back, not caring if anyone comes to investigate. All night they howl, and as he curls up to sleep in the early morning, his dreams are full of the traitor-rat and dead-stag and lost-wolf, and the pain and loss and guilt twist his memories into something bitter, but he embraces them, rejoicing to remember even tainted happiness. The Dementors flock closely around his cell, drawn by the new emotion, and it fades too soon. But he clings to the memories, letting the taint pervade them until they are only reminders of all he’s lost, and the grief they bring makes them his to keep.
He finds a clear patch of wall and counts the moons. He doesn’t know what the werewolf did to be sent here, but he’s glad of it. She has given him back time and lost memories, and he may howl with her, but not to her. He’s howling to his one friend left, and he wonders if the wolf hates him as the man must, or if the wolf simply misses his friends and freedom, or if he even remembers that once he ran through the woods with a rat and stag and dog.
He howls and remembers, and counts. And when he sees a picture of the traitor-rat, alive as the stag is not and free as he is not and well as the wolf cannot be without his friends, he stops counting. There is a date above the picture; he knows, now, how much time has passed. The wolf howls alone that night as the dog swims towards shore.
He starts to count again when he sees his first sunrise in twelve years. But now he is not marking time until he dies or is too lost to count at all. He counts the time until he sees his godson, until he finds the traitor and avenges his friend and himself, until he can howl with his wolf again.
It is easy, now, to count the days.
Rating: PG
Prompt: 1-Calendar
Word count: 923
Summary: It's hard to keep track of time in Azkaban. Vague hints of Sirius/Remus
He tries to keep track of the time at first. All new prisoners do. The lucky ones count the days until their release, until they’ve served the time for some minor offense. The unlucky ones count the time until their execution or until they receive the Dementor’s Kiss--worse than death, the prisoners whisper.
The other prisoners just count, and envy those who have an end, any end, in sight.
The walls and floor of his cell are covered in long, thin scratches from past occupants. Here they are neat, straight and close together, grouped by fives. A few inches away they become ragged and disorderly, as Azkaban takes its toll. There are one hundred twenty-eight scratches in the corner near the floor, and three hundred six halfway up the wall next to the door. A mere nineteen above the pile of rags that passes for his bed, and three thousand four hundred eleven on the opposite wall. He wonders if the scratches stopped because the prisoners died or were freed or sank too deeply into despair and madness to notice the passage of time. He wonders what they were counting.
At first he counts days, watching the sky outside the small window lighten and scratching a line into the floor next to his pillow. After five lines that feel like so much more, he realizes the perpetual fog and frequent storms block the sun too often to depend on it.
He tries to count the times he sleeps, but he dreams of pacing his cell and wakes to see James with his eyes glassy and skin pale, and the difference between asleep and awake blur and vanish.
He counts meals next, but a rare stretch of good weather makes him realize there’s no schedule. Sometimes there’s food twice a day, and sometimes there isn’t. By then he’s too far gone to wonder if the lack of food is a punishment or if he was just forgotten, and too weak to complain.
Still, he scratches the floor with his spoon, the only utensil allowed to him. He’s not tracking anything anymore, just making marks when it occurs to him. Months pass without a single scratch, then twenty scratches added in a day. Sometimes he rubs his fingers over the scratches and thinks about what they represent. How old must Harry be? By now he must be talking, reading. He tries to imagine Harry growing up, but all he can see is the messy haired toddler who used to spit strained peas at him.
A new prisoner is brought in. He doesn’t see her, but he hears her. She curses and shrieks, threatening to kill the Aurors dragging her down the hall, threatens to rip out their throats and feast on their flesh. Her first day, and she’s already insane, he thinks, and remembers how he’d laughed until he cried when they brought him in, and kept laughing and crying for days until finally he could think again, too late to convince anyone of his innocence, and wonders if the new prisoner will regain her sanity only to have it sucked away by the Dementors, or if she’s already lost.
He forgets her after that, her screams blending with the other prisoners’. Forgets, until her screams change from rage and fear and despair to pain, and her voice strangles and twists into a long howl.
He looks at the window, and thinks the familiar darkness is lighter, silvery tonight, and when another howl echoes down the cold stone hallway he changes and howls back, not caring if anyone comes to investigate. All night they howl, and as he curls up to sleep in the early morning, his dreams are full of the traitor-rat and dead-stag and lost-wolf, and the pain and loss and guilt twist his memories into something bitter, but he embraces them, rejoicing to remember even tainted happiness. The Dementors flock closely around his cell, drawn by the new emotion, and it fades too soon. But he clings to the memories, letting the taint pervade them until they are only reminders of all he’s lost, and the grief they bring makes them his to keep.
He finds a clear patch of wall and counts the moons. He doesn’t know what the werewolf did to be sent here, but he’s glad of it. She has given him back time and lost memories, and he may howl with her, but not to her. He’s howling to his one friend left, and he wonders if the wolf hates him as the man must, or if the wolf simply misses his friends and freedom, or if he even remembers that once he ran through the woods with a rat and stag and dog.
He howls and remembers, and counts. And when he sees a picture of the traitor-rat, alive as the stag is not and free as he is not and well as the wolf cannot be without his friends, he stops counting. There is a date above the picture; he knows, now, how much time has passed. The wolf howls alone that night as the dog swims towards shore.
He starts to count again when he sees his first sunrise in twelve years. But now he is not marking time until he dies or is too lost to count at all. He counts the time until he sees his godson, until he finds the traitor and avenges his friend and himself, until he can howl with his wolf again.
It is easy, now, to count the days.