closed: fucking azkaban

[george_goesboom]

Azkaban.

Fucking AzkabanIf there was one place he had never in a million years expected to find himself lining up to visit, this was most definitely it. Even with the Dementors gone, there was a lingering eeriness about the place, a soul-crushing sort of dampness that sank right into your bones and chilled your very soul, as if the prison's

Comments

[ccecilia]

The room was actually a perfect square. She knew that because after what might have been the tenth hour locked inside the small cell, she had walked the perimeter, counting each footstep to pass the time. She had messed up twice, having to go back and carefully watch her footsteps, the misstep due to her body trembling from the breeze coming in. They had only given her a thin robe to wear, dark gray, bleached within an inch of its life to rid it of Merlin knew what

[george_goesboom]

George hadn't thought that his heart could possibly feel any heavier or beat any more erratically than it had been in the past twenty four hours.

Yet as the groaning creak of the door being pulled open again echoed through the bare and dimly lit room and he whirled around to see her being shoved inside, it was as if a wrecking ball had properly slammed into his chest, the reality of the situation suddenly made all too clear and unavoidable and realCecilia. Red-eyed and frazzle-haired and dressed down in papery robes that barely passed as clothes and cuffed up like some common criminal

[ccecilia]

Before she could say a word, even if whatever explanation she had was caught lamely in her throat, a blaring sound filled the room and a robotic voice cut in- "No touching-She flinched, jerking from his embrace unsteadily, her eyes darting to where it could be coming from but finding nothing, the voice that alerted everyone to when they were supposed to wake up and go to sleep and eat lunch and basically do everything they were told while confined within these walls. Even in the short twenty-four since she had been here, she had grown so tired and weary of that voice

[george_goesboom]

It was Cecilia's own jerky retreat from his grasp that had him stepping back more so than the skin-chilling buzzing harshness of that metallic voice, the source of which he automatically glanced around in search of with no success.

George shook his head against her heaved apology, his hands clenching at his sides as the chains rattled conspicuously around Cecilia's wrists, the chairs' appearance interrupting him before he had had a chance to assure her that she owed no apologies.

He promptly took the seat opposite hers, perching on the very edge of the chair and propping his elbows against his knees, leaning in as closely as he could without their knees actually touching, without actually reaching out to grab her again despite the fact that every nerve in his body screamed for it, his muscles practically shaking with the desperate desire to pull her in and curl her up against him and take her away from this terrible place she had no business being in.

-But then, of course. Malfoy"That vile fucking treacherous little shit-" he

[ccecilia]

"It's not-"

She gripped at her fingers, her hands shaking slightly, though whether it was from the chill or the shame, she wasn't sure. It was likely a mixture of both, her whole body suffering from the consequences of her previous actions. Her eyes flitted down to her lap, staring at the threadbare fabric covering her legs. Regardless of the personal vindications behind Lucius Malfoy's confession, she had done what she was accused of.

"Everything they have against me-" she swallowed, throat sore and dry. "I did-"

She looked back to George with weary eyes, feeling suddenly so guilty, feeling foolish to think that she could just forgive herself for what had happened and not pay the price.

"I did all those things-" she told him, knowing that while he had always said her past didn't mean anything, that it was likely going to change now- wouldn't it? He couldn't still possibly think-

"And now I'm paying for them-" she said, wiping at the hot, sticky tears that clouded her eyes. "I'm so sorry, George-"

[george_goesboom]

"Don't- don't be- it doesn't matter- it was years ago, you were a different person then, things were different-"

Whatever she was being accused of, whatever she had or hadn't done, those things belonged in a different life. In this life, Cecilia was a person who gave life rather than took it, who had helped to save Lavender's life, who was a victim herself rather than any kind of perpetrator. The person who had fallen asleep next to him just days ago with a tiny snoring puppy cuddled against her chest wasn't the criminal they had dressed her up as, and he'd be damned if anyone or anything could convince him otherwise.

"They can't just throw you in here like this- it's been years, they can't just-"

He instinctively reached out to catch a tear she had missed as it streaked down her face, his thumb swiping lightly against her cheek as his fingers pushed a limply frazzled strand of hair behind her ear-

"No touching-"

"-oh, fuck off!" George snapped, shouting up at the ceiling and the invisible grating voice, but reluctantly pulling

[ccecilia]

His touch had been so brief, it was almost like torture, the way his hand grazed so gently against her skin. He always knew just how to make her feel better, everything about him giving her a peace she never really had before. He was her anchor, the one who could bring her back from anything. Well. Almost. Helping her with a panic attack was so much different than getting her out of jail. And yet, all she wanted to do was rid herself of these chains and curl up against him, have him take her home and just lay with her. Something, anything to get her away from here and back into his arms.

But that was no longer her reality. Her reality included rusty chains and ratty robes, slop food and little sunlight. The Auror had said that she could be in here for the rest of her life. Forever. And the worst part was that she understood, agreed that this was probably what she deserved

[george_goesboom]

George's hands hovered above hers, not touching (stupid senseless fucked rule, that was) but close enough to feel the chill radiating from her as he leaned in as much as he could, ghosting the movements of contact he so desperately wished to make, stopped only by the nagging fear of how she might end up being made to pay for his own insubordinations should he push any farther against the wailed orders of the robotic voice.

"If you thought I'd let you rot in here without even at least dropping in to say hello, then you need to do some serious reevaluating of our relationship," he said, managing to work at least some semblance of humor into his tone, weighed down as it was by the dreary heaviness that seemed to have settled at the pit of his stomach since Susan had burst into his shop with news he hadn't quite been able to immediately process or to even fully accept until moments ago when he had seen her being harshly shoved into the damp, somber room.

"They'll understand, alright? They have to understand. There's enough people that'

[ccecilia]

She had been weak when she was younger, so determined to please her parents that she fell into this blind ideology and did whatever was asked of her. She wanted them to love her the way she thought parents were supposed to, to feel proud of her. It never dawned on her that she was just a solider born for their war, for their own cause. It wasn't until she realized what was being asked of her, that even when she was training with Bellatrix Lestrange, even when she was helping Draco to fix the Vanishing Cabinet that nothing changed

[george_goesboom]

"Don't. Don't do that. Nothing about this is right. I don't care what you got away with when you were a kid, the person you're now doesn't deserve to waste away in some grimy cell because of what you were raised around-"

He expected and anticipated the sharp mechanical cry of 'no touching' as he closed that barely-there distance to give her hands a quick proper squeeze, because he couldn't not, every inch of him was leaning forward and desperate to hold her and cold and itchy from the lack of contact when all he was apparently meant to be able to do was sit here and watch as the person he loved more than anything, more than he had ever thought he was capable of loving, sank into herself, pulled back by the haunts of her past that had been summoned up to rip her away

[ccecilia]

His words brought on a terribly bittersweet realization, Cecilia's lips parting slightly as they sunk in, the lump forming in her throat growing tighter as her tears flowed freely now, Cecilia wanting to desperately reach back for George, that grip on her hand not long enough, no matter how loudly the voice screamed at them. This wasn't supposed to be like this. Not when everything had just settled down, when the two of them had finally fallen into a groove where they were happy and carefree and there wasn't anything black and dark haunting them anymore.

She had spent her whole life looking for someone to love her this way. Something uncomplicated and clear and honest- things she was never given the grace to have before she met George.

He was, without a doubt, the greatest (and only true) love of her life. He made her better. He was the only person who could ever cut through her anxieties, the only one to ever make her see clearly

[george_goesboom]

The anguish that twisted him up as he watched that shudder run through her, saw the tears streaking her face as he sat powerless and unable to do or say anything to stop them, went beyond even the sharpest of physical pains he could have imagined

[ccecilia]

Cecilia only nodded her head, blond waves of hair falling into her face as she tried to swallow. She couldn't fight the twisted feeling sitting in the pit of her stomach. It was the guilt tangling in her heart with the desperate want to leave. No matter what she felt about her past, Azkaban terrified her. She didn't want to pay her penance in this way. She didn't want to sit here in this dark room like this, not being able to touch George or hold him or tell him that everything was going to be fine

[george_goesboom]

George was more than aware that, all things considered, just about anyone and everyone he might be able to call upon for help would only be doing so (that is, if they did so, though if ever there was a time in which George would have been more inclined to be relentlessly convincing, he sure as hell couldn't remember it now) for his sake rather than hers.

While his alliances might run deep, most of them rooted to his family's history and their role in both wars, he couldn't fool himself into thinking the same was true for her. The list of people who would both instinctively take her side and actually have trustworthy pull in the face of such grave accusations was a dreadfully short one.

But he hadn't gotten where he had by being easily detered. When it mattered (and this, Cecilia, mattered, more than anything else had ever mattered before), when he made up his mind, there was no stopping him, however unlikely the chance of success

[ccecilia]

"I'll understand if you can't-"

She said it softly, pressing her lips together as she chewed roughly on the inside of her mouth, pressing down harshly on her skin to prevent herself from crying any further, already so tired of the way she felt while she was here.

"Honestly, George- if you can't- it's okay, I don't want you to-"

But a slight and quiet beeping noise filled the space, something so light that Cecilia barely heard it at first. But then, suddenly, it grew louder and then the voice popped in again with a blaring "TEN MINUTES-" and she jerked in her seat. That was too soon and she panicked slightly, her eyes widening as she realized that he'd be taken from her all over again and she'd be alone in her cell.

"I don't want you to go-" she said, a sob choking in her throat. "Don't make him go-" she said, to whatever voice was watching over them.

[george_goesboom]

Ten minutes-George's eyes widened at that entirely unwelcome robotically shrieked announcement, a whole new surge of panic and dread and desperation flaring up under his skin as he glanced back at Cecilia, once again curling his fingers into his palms to keep from reacting to that heart wrenching sob with an instinctive grab, the sound and sight of her shaking shoulders once more twisting at that knife that had casually settled itself in the pit of his stomach