FIC: By My Parole
Now that the time limit is over, here is my piece for the Severus/Lucius fest at
severus_lucius
Title: By My Parole
Author/Artist: K Denton
Characters: Lucius Malfoy/Severus Snape (implied)
Rating: Teen for implied slash relationship
Warnings :None
Summary : Prompt 1. Lucius is out of Azkaban after 15 years, and only Severus shows up to see him out of jail.
Author's notes: Inspired by a documentary on the history of prisons. The idea of the ‘silent lockdown’ was in actual use in Britain in the 1800s (see: http://www.pmnw.co.uk/history_prisons/ ). Word count: 2100ish. Beta thanks are due to GMTH (I didn’t take all of her advice, and any remaining issues are mine.) Lysa also looked it over, since it just barely meets the fest requirements and gave it her blessing. Thank you both.
The prisoner paused one last time in the doorway of what had been, until this moment, his cell. There was not much to see. A stone bench sat against one side wall; it was roughly chiseled from the same dark rock that made up the entire cell. A narrow barred window high up on the wall opposite the door allowed just a glimpse of the angry grey sky of the North Atlantic autumn.
There were a few touches that showed this particular prisoner was a bit more favored than some, or had at one time commanded the resources for a discreet bribe or two. There was a stub of a candle stuck to an out-jutting stone high up on one wall, the blankets were clean and mended, and there was even a tiny, light-weight wooden table that could be drawn up to the bed bench for meals - meager as the food was.
But the prisoner noticed none of these familiar sights. Instead his attention fell on the wall opposite the bench. Fifteen lines of sooty tick marks marched across the surface, one for each year of his sentence. The lowest, oldest one started out ragged, with an occasional gap or rubbed-out place. He didn’t like to remember his arrival here; even in those first few weeks he had gifted his horrific jailers with more that one banquet of stolen emotion. A few of those early marks had been daubed in his own blood.
Once the Dementors had gone and mortal guards had replaced them, the marks were straighter and more ordered. When he had first arrived, fifteen years had seemed like an eternity. He had set his mind to surviving just one day at a time. In a place where time had no meaning, placing a mark at each day’s ending had been a ritual, a charm for the keeping of one’s sanity.
“Prisoner 1422, step out of the cell,” a nasal voice commanded. Turning his back on those marks and memories, the man did so. His gait hitched a little from the bruising on his back and thighs. Last night, the guards on his wing had decided he needed a little ‘farewell’ gift, completed sentence or not.
There were two guards waiting for him in the corridor. The younger one was dressed in well-tailored robes, his hair bound back in a neat, blond plait that gave the prisoner a pang of regret. His own hair was shorn close to the scalp; it was shorter than he’d ever worn it in his adult life - the loss pricked the remains of his vanity. The older guard, by contrast, was almost slovenly; his robes strained over a paunch that was filthy with spilled food, and the ragged sleeves sported rusty smudges that might be from the cell doors or might (the prisoner shuddered) be from blood.
The young guard started off down the corridor with a ‘follow me’ gesture. The fat guard muttered, “Bones, don’t ever turn your back on a Death Eater,” and shoved the prisoner from behind. One of the scabs from the beating broke open, and a trickle of blood slid down the prisoner’s back, staining his threadbare robes.
The prisoner - the admission and admonition of ‘former Death Eater’ was trapped behind his clenched jaw - followed the younger guard down the bleak corridor. Guttering torches sprang to life ahead and smoldered out behind the tiny procession as they made their way through the maze that is the wizarding world’s high-security prison. There were no cat-calls from the other inmates; there were permanent silencing spells on the individual cells. Each convict was locked in a solitary world to contemplate his crime, his life - to despair alone without even the voices of his fellows to intrude on his meditations. It was not only the soul-sucking Dementors that drove men mad in this place.
In time, the trio passed from the cells to the public and administrative area of the island. There were more torches here, burning steadily, charmed against the occasional draft of chill sea air that found its way inside. There was even an animated memo zipping past like a self-guided paper airplane.
The prisoner found he had unplumbed regrets still to be discovered after all this time. The memo reminded him that once he had been a man of power who had an office suite in the Ministry of Magic itself. He had once employed a staff, including a pretty witch to write his correspondence and bring him tea (among other things). He had once had expensive mistresses and commanded courtesans from the most expensive brothels of Europe. He had once had a beautiful, pureblood trophy wife as well. All were gone now; staff, mistresses, wife - all had abandoned him in the disgrace of his imprisonment.
“Prisoner 1422, proceed to the property office.” They had arrived outside a barred grate with an opening about the size of a shoe box. Inside he could see shelves stacked with boxes large and small. Candles floated, giving the most abundant light he had seen in over a decade. There was a goblin (even uglier than most of his kind) perched on high stool, frowning at him over a ledger. Another pang surprised the prisoner as he was reminded of his material assets seized by the Wizengamot. Once beings like this had bowed and scraped their way across the entry hall of Gringott’s Wizarding Bank as they led him to his vaults stuffed full of gold, jewels and Dark Arts artifacts. All that wealth was gone now, though he assumed Narcissa had reclaimed her dowry before she and Draco fled to South America.
“You don’t have much,” the goblin snapped, his spidery finger tracing across the parchment page. “Your outer robes were evidence, of course, and were confiscated as being proscribed Death Eater regalia in any case.” He jumped down from his perch and disappeared from sight for a moment. When the goblin returned, he carried a bundle of cloth and a small oblong box. He handed the bundle through the opening in the grate. “You can change over there.” He gestured to a small, screened-off area.
As the prisoner hurried to the changing area, anxious to rid himself of the coarse rags of his prison uniform, he heard the goblin ask, “Guard, which one of you will be taking charge of his wand?”
The prisoner discarded the scratchy woolen robe as soon as he was out of sight behind the curtain. The ragged, grey undergarments followed quickly, a quick swipe to be sure that the trickle of blood on his backside was scabbed over again. The feel of silk against his skin for the first time in fifteen years almost tore a sigh of pleasure from the man. The cloth had yellowed over the ensuing decade and a half; the under-robe hung loosely on his now more slender frame, but the clothes were still a crisp whisper of half-remembered luxury. They also provided next to no warmth, he quickly discovered. His boots, on the other hand, still fit and he gladly abandoned the rags that had wrapped his chilled feet.
He was just a bit startled, though, to hear his boot-heels ringing on the stone pavement of the inner courtyard as his escorts proceeded to the gate. There the outer guards, armed with wands, checked his picture and magical signature against a printed list.
“Prisoner 1422, aka Malfoy, L.,” announced the fat guard in a bored drawl.
“Check. Sentenced October 25, 1996 for crimes committed prior to and including June 1996.
Those crimes were confirmed Death Eater membership, suspected use of the Unforgivable Curses, breaking and entering at the Department of Mysteries, attempted murder reduced to assault and battery by wand and hand, bribery of a Ministry of Magic employee.” The gate guard looked up and scowled. “And only fifteen years, now served.” He muttered, “Should have been the Kiss.”
But whatever the guard’s private opinion, he signed the paperwork and held out the quill still scowling. “Sign here that you’ve received your property back, and will abide by the terms of your parole now that you are released.”
With the tattered remnants of his former courtesy, Malfoy took the Ever-Inked Quill and signed where the guard indicated. “My wand?” He knew it was a long shot, but he had been a fully qualified adult when he was sentenced, not like that oaf, Hagrid, and the breaking of his wand had not been mandated during his sentencing. And the goblin had mentioned it.
“Will be returned to you when you reach the mainland.” In the prisoner’s gut, a coil of tension unwound, a spark of hope kindled.
At the dock, his two guard-dogs were joined by a thin, scraggly bearded boatman who reminded him eerily of Argus Filch. But this man was no squib; he had cast a covering charm over the craft and passengers that kept the spray and wind to a minimum. The charm was, Malfoy was sure, not for his comfort, but it was appreciated nevertheless.
He had only had a tiny slice of sky before, now the ocean seemed limitless. He had only allowed himself to look one day into the future, now his life stretched ahead of him. A hundred half-formed plans rushed through his mind as the boat sped toward the mainland, thoughts he’d shoved down into his subconscious to emerge only in dreams of warmth, memories of desire. He was free now, and somehow the loss of the boundaries of his cell was both exhilarating and terrifying.
The late October seas were choppy, but the sun was shining as the boat drew up to the long dock. As the tide was just turned from its lowest ebb, the boat was below the level of the dock’s surface and it took two tries for Malfoy to catch hold of the ladder and pull himself up. Outside the sailor’s careful spellwork, the chill wind off the ocean struck him full face, nearly driving the breath from his thin body.
“Catch,” the fat guard sneered as Malfoy gained an unsteady footing on the worn and salt-slick planks. The box containing his wand hit his chest, fell to the dock, and skittered frighteningly close to a plunge into the rapidly returning tide. Malfoy lunged after it, falling to his knees, heedless of the sound of ripping silk. His fingers clenched around the precious package as the sound of the boat motor pulling away startled him into looking up. The craft and its three uncaring passengers were already yards away and none of them looked back at the kneeling figure, hunched over and already shivering.
With increasingly trembling fingers, Malfoy fumbled with the box, unwilling to be without his wand for one second more. That wand was the key to a warming charm, to clothes transfigured into more seasonable cloth, for transportation by Apparition or Knight Bus. So the sight of the ebony shards that filled the box would have driven Malfoy to his knees had he not already been kneeling. The anguished howl of despair echoed off the uncaring cliffs. For long, agony-filled moments, he felt as if he could not breathe. Alone, hardly clothed, abandoned in the Scottish Highlands in late October as night approached - this was a death sentence scarcely kinder than the Dementor’s Kiss.
The ‘pop’ of Apparition behind him startled Malfoy from his fugue. He was unarmed, helpless against even a Muggle. His head came up and a feral snarl etched its way over the once aristocratic features.
A long shadow fell down the length of the dock; the form outlined by the setting sun was as lean as Malfoy himself, dark cloak, dark hair, pale face with a beak of a nose, harsh lines outlining a thin mouth. The figure approached, footsteps hurrying, cloak sweeping behind like the wings of a bird of prey. Malfoy forced himself to his feet, hand still clenched around the remains of his wand, and those wings surrounded him.
Warmth, shelter, the scent of incense, vinegar, and camphor enfolded him. The soft murmur of “Lucius” caressed his ear as the strong familiar arms came around his back. These were the arms that had supported him after the Dark Lord’s displeasure fell and which had been supported in turn. These were the arms that had held his infant son as godfather. These were the arms that had not been dreamed of in that place of despair now behind him lest the memory break him entire.
Lucius laid his head on the gabardine-clad shoulder, and then finally, the healing tears came.
severus_lucius
Title: By My Parole
Author/Artist: K Denton
Characters: Lucius Malfoy/Severus Snape (implied)
Rating: Teen for implied slash relationship
Warnings :None
Summary : Prompt 1. Lucius is out of Azkaban after 15 years, and only Severus shows up to see him out of jail.
Author's notes: Inspired by a documentary on the history of prisons. The idea of the ‘silent lockdown’ was in actual use in Britain in the 1800s (see: http://www.pmnw.co.uk/history_prisons/ ). Word count: 2100ish. Beta thanks are due to GMTH (I didn’t take all of her advice, and any remaining issues are mine.) Lysa also looked it over, since it just barely meets the fest requirements and gave it her blessing. Thank you both.
The prisoner paused one last time in the doorway of what had been, until this moment, his cell. There was not much to see. A stone bench sat against one side wall; it was roughly chiseled from the same dark rock that made up the entire cell. A narrow barred window high up on the wall opposite the door allowed just a glimpse of the angry grey sky of the North Atlantic autumn.
There were a few touches that showed this particular prisoner was a bit more favored than some, or had at one time commanded the resources for a discreet bribe or two. There was a stub of a candle stuck to an out-jutting stone high up on one wall, the blankets were clean and mended, and there was even a tiny, light-weight wooden table that could be drawn up to the bed bench for meals - meager as the food was.
But the prisoner noticed none of these familiar sights. Instead his attention fell on the wall opposite the bench. Fifteen lines of sooty tick marks marched across the surface, one for each year of his sentence. The lowest, oldest one started out ragged, with an occasional gap or rubbed-out place. He didn’t like to remember his arrival here; even in those first few weeks he had gifted his horrific jailers with more that one banquet of stolen emotion. A few of those early marks had been daubed in his own blood.
Once the Dementors had gone and mortal guards had replaced them, the marks were straighter and more ordered. When he had first arrived, fifteen years had seemed like an eternity. He had set his mind to surviving just one day at a time. In a place where time had no meaning, placing a mark at each day’s ending had been a ritual, a charm for the keeping of one’s sanity.
“Prisoner 1422, step out of the cell,” a nasal voice commanded. Turning his back on those marks and memories, the man did so. His gait hitched a little from the bruising on his back and thighs. Last night, the guards on his wing had decided he needed a little ‘farewell’ gift, completed sentence or not.
There were two guards waiting for him in the corridor. The younger one was dressed in well-tailored robes, his hair bound back in a neat, blond plait that gave the prisoner a pang of regret. His own hair was shorn close to the scalp; it was shorter than he’d ever worn it in his adult life - the loss pricked the remains of his vanity. The older guard, by contrast, was almost slovenly; his robes strained over a paunch that was filthy with spilled food, and the ragged sleeves sported rusty smudges that might be from the cell doors or might (the prisoner shuddered) be from blood.
The young guard started off down the corridor with a ‘follow me’ gesture. The fat guard muttered, “Bones, don’t ever turn your back on a Death Eater,” and shoved the prisoner from behind. One of the scabs from the beating broke open, and a trickle of blood slid down the prisoner’s back, staining his threadbare robes.
The prisoner - the admission and admonition of ‘former Death Eater’ was trapped behind his clenched jaw - followed the younger guard down the bleak corridor. Guttering torches sprang to life ahead and smoldered out behind the tiny procession as they made their way through the maze that is the wizarding world’s high-security prison. There were no cat-calls from the other inmates; there were permanent silencing spells on the individual cells. Each convict was locked in a solitary world to contemplate his crime, his life - to despair alone without even the voices of his fellows to intrude on his meditations. It was not only the soul-sucking Dementors that drove men mad in this place.
In time, the trio passed from the cells to the public and administrative area of the island. There were more torches here, burning steadily, charmed against the occasional draft of chill sea air that found its way inside. There was even an animated memo zipping past like a self-guided paper airplane.
The prisoner found he had unplumbed regrets still to be discovered after all this time. The memo reminded him that once he had been a man of power who had an office suite in the Ministry of Magic itself. He had once employed a staff, including a pretty witch to write his correspondence and bring him tea (among other things). He had once had expensive mistresses and commanded courtesans from the most expensive brothels of Europe. He had once had a beautiful, pureblood trophy wife as well. All were gone now; staff, mistresses, wife - all had abandoned him in the disgrace of his imprisonment.
“Prisoner 1422, proceed to the property office.” They had arrived outside a barred grate with an opening about the size of a shoe box. Inside he could see shelves stacked with boxes large and small. Candles floated, giving the most abundant light he had seen in over a decade. There was a goblin (even uglier than most of his kind) perched on high stool, frowning at him over a ledger. Another pang surprised the prisoner as he was reminded of his material assets seized by the Wizengamot. Once beings like this had bowed and scraped their way across the entry hall of Gringott’s Wizarding Bank as they led him to his vaults stuffed full of gold, jewels and Dark Arts artifacts. All that wealth was gone now, though he assumed Narcissa had reclaimed her dowry before she and Draco fled to South America.
“You don’t have much,” the goblin snapped, his spidery finger tracing across the parchment page. “Your outer robes were evidence, of course, and were confiscated as being proscribed Death Eater regalia in any case.” He jumped down from his perch and disappeared from sight for a moment. When the goblin returned, he carried a bundle of cloth and a small oblong box. He handed the bundle through the opening in the grate. “You can change over there.” He gestured to a small, screened-off area.
As the prisoner hurried to the changing area, anxious to rid himself of the coarse rags of his prison uniform, he heard the goblin ask, “Guard, which one of you will be taking charge of his wand?”
The prisoner discarded the scratchy woolen robe as soon as he was out of sight behind the curtain. The ragged, grey undergarments followed quickly, a quick swipe to be sure that the trickle of blood on his backside was scabbed over again. The feel of silk against his skin for the first time in fifteen years almost tore a sigh of pleasure from the man. The cloth had yellowed over the ensuing decade and a half; the under-robe hung loosely on his now more slender frame, but the clothes were still a crisp whisper of half-remembered luxury. They also provided next to no warmth, he quickly discovered. His boots, on the other hand, still fit and he gladly abandoned the rags that had wrapped his chilled feet.
He was just a bit startled, though, to hear his boot-heels ringing on the stone pavement of the inner courtyard as his escorts proceeded to the gate. There the outer guards, armed with wands, checked his picture and magical signature against a printed list.
“Prisoner 1422, aka Malfoy, L.,” announced the fat guard in a bored drawl.
“Check. Sentenced October 25, 1996 for crimes committed prior to and including June 1996.
Those crimes were confirmed Death Eater membership, suspected use of the Unforgivable Curses, breaking and entering at the Department of Mysteries, attempted murder reduced to assault and battery by wand and hand, bribery of a Ministry of Magic employee.” The gate guard looked up and scowled. “And only fifteen years, now served.” He muttered, “Should have been the Kiss.”
But whatever the guard’s private opinion, he signed the paperwork and held out the quill still scowling. “Sign here that you’ve received your property back, and will abide by the terms of your parole now that you are released.”
With the tattered remnants of his former courtesy, Malfoy took the Ever-Inked Quill and signed where the guard indicated. “My wand?” He knew it was a long shot, but he had been a fully qualified adult when he was sentenced, not like that oaf, Hagrid, and the breaking of his wand had not been mandated during his sentencing. And the goblin had mentioned it.
“Will be returned to you when you reach the mainland.” In the prisoner’s gut, a coil of tension unwound, a spark of hope kindled.
At the dock, his two guard-dogs were joined by a thin, scraggly bearded boatman who reminded him eerily of Argus Filch. But this man was no squib; he had cast a covering charm over the craft and passengers that kept the spray and wind to a minimum. The charm was, Malfoy was sure, not for his comfort, but it was appreciated nevertheless.
He had only had a tiny slice of sky before, now the ocean seemed limitless. He had only allowed himself to look one day into the future, now his life stretched ahead of him. A hundred half-formed plans rushed through his mind as the boat sped toward the mainland, thoughts he’d shoved down into his subconscious to emerge only in dreams of warmth, memories of desire. He was free now, and somehow the loss of the boundaries of his cell was both exhilarating and terrifying.
The late October seas were choppy, but the sun was shining as the boat drew up to the long dock. As the tide was just turned from its lowest ebb, the boat was below the level of the dock’s surface and it took two tries for Malfoy to catch hold of the ladder and pull himself up. Outside the sailor’s careful spellwork, the chill wind off the ocean struck him full face, nearly driving the breath from his thin body.
“Catch,” the fat guard sneered as Malfoy gained an unsteady footing on the worn and salt-slick planks. The box containing his wand hit his chest, fell to the dock, and skittered frighteningly close to a plunge into the rapidly returning tide. Malfoy lunged after it, falling to his knees, heedless of the sound of ripping silk. His fingers clenched around the precious package as the sound of the boat motor pulling away startled him into looking up. The craft and its three uncaring passengers were already yards away and none of them looked back at the kneeling figure, hunched over and already shivering.
With increasingly trembling fingers, Malfoy fumbled with the box, unwilling to be without his wand for one second more. That wand was the key to a warming charm, to clothes transfigured into more seasonable cloth, for transportation by Apparition or Knight Bus. So the sight of the ebony shards that filled the box would have driven Malfoy to his knees had he not already been kneeling. The anguished howl of despair echoed off the uncaring cliffs. For long, agony-filled moments, he felt as if he could not breathe. Alone, hardly clothed, abandoned in the Scottish Highlands in late October as night approached - this was a death sentence scarcely kinder than the Dementor’s Kiss.
The ‘pop’ of Apparition behind him startled Malfoy from his fugue. He was unarmed, helpless against even a Muggle. His head came up and a feral snarl etched its way over the once aristocratic features.
A long shadow fell down the length of the dock; the form outlined by the setting sun was as lean as Malfoy himself, dark cloak, dark hair, pale face with a beak of a nose, harsh lines outlining a thin mouth. The figure approached, footsteps hurrying, cloak sweeping behind like the wings of a bird of prey. Malfoy forced himself to his feet, hand still clenched around the remains of his wand, and those wings surrounded him.
Warmth, shelter, the scent of incense, vinegar, and camphor enfolded him. The soft murmur of “Lucius” caressed his ear as the strong familiar arms came around his back. These were the arms that had supported him after the Dark Lord’s displeasure fell and which had been supported in turn. These were the arms that had held his infant son as godfather. These were the arms that had not been dreamed of in that place of despair now behind him lest the memory break him entire.
Lucius laid his head on the gabardine-clad shoulder, and then finally, the healing tears came.