Bitter Empty Shell

Passing glimpses of clarity in the ashen black charcoal on grey canvas world in which I live. The saviour of the wizarding world is only the saviour as long as there’s something to save. While Voldemort existed I held importance in the hearts and minds of the community. With his death my power too waned. Today’s big hit, tomorrow’s old news.

My world painted this way by all that I have seen and done. Too many friends hurt or killed too much suffering. All brought back by Azkaban, all the good memories have a companion black memory to tarnish them now. Held back in the bitter, fomenting cess-pit of my heart. Why can I never forget the bad, the good seems easy to forget and much of what I have done now seems as trivial to me as to the papers who at one time brandished the-boy-who-lived as a weapon against the darkness treat me. Azkaban was not for me, I knew that the day I fled from the gates.

I lost most of what I care for, now I don’t even know if I still care. I cannot say I suffered the most for doing so would be selfish and vain. What I can say is that my memories of the suffering are still fresh and give me no respite. Seeing friends die in front of me, class-mates but nineteen years old falling in a war that was not of their making. My own lovers hair floating in a pool of his blood sparkling torch-light reflecting off the white-blonde hair turning brown in the sticky drying fluid.

Following wherever my stream of consciousness goes, that is my life these days. Trapped for two years in the muggle world. Then to be rescued from an apparent assassination attempt by the one man who stands for law and order the most. Paranoid to the utmost Alastor Moody. Confusion reigns supreme in the abyss of my brain. It would be easier to know just what I had done to deserve this treatment.


* * * * * * * * * *


In the drawing room at the cedar wood desk sits a lady with dark circles under her eyes and bushy hair down to her shoulders. The untapped long cylinder of ash hanging from the cigarette in her hand as the smoke creates a small pall in the air. Papers on the desk in front of her with freshly broken seals, seals from 2 years ago. She herself had sealed these papers. Harry would never understand why she was doing as she did. But the evidence had been clear and incontravertible. Concise proof of his guilt. But how could anything of this nature be deemed concise?

A house elf dressed in finest livery appeared with a loud pop and deposited a cup of dark Jamaican coffee with a scent about it of rum and roasting wood in front of her. She had not changed all that much. In those years since she became Fudge’s second he had allowed her some reign in the Ministry. She had passed a mandatory ruling on the treatment of house-elfs; now they wore livery, received time off and were paid for their service. They were paid a miserable pittance.

She placed her hand over her forehead and gently massaged her brow, dropping her elbow onto the desk surface and finally taking a sip of the steaming cup. She felt more guilty than she was ever sure Harry had been for what she had inflicted on her best friend. What had she inflicted; however? He had escaped, but what was his state of mind? She remembered seeing him in St. Mungo’s seeing his face as he barely recognized anyone around him. Wondering when he’d ever pull through. Worrying about him. Then that wonderful year after the liberation of the world as they knew it. Herself, himself, Ron, Draco all the rising stars of the new world. Fashionable parties, glamorous dresses, access to the best libraries and facilities in the country. What had happened to change him so much?


* * * * * * * * * *


Two furtive black clad figures touched down on brooms, signalling to each other with fluid hand gestures as they landed on the flinty escarpment under the cover of darkness. Wands out, the two moved like assassins, keeping low as they passed along the lines of bushes, never breaking the lines of the inky pools of darkness they followed, sticking to the shadows. One looked up and nodded to the other, in a snapshot of moonlight you could just make out the scars on the face of the second as they carefully wended their way towards a cleft in the landscape.

The first motioning for silence they moved on deftly into the entrance of the crack. The second muttered a charm as he pointed his wand first at his own face andn atn at his partners. Their pupils grew wide and dark to cater for the low-light conditions within. Moving into the winding caves with the utmost of care they continued. A wickedly curved knife visible on the belt of the first in the last of the moonlight before they turned a corner into the pitch-blackness.


* * * * * * * * * *


Draco watched as auror hit squad members patrolled the outside of his property. He stood in the window wrapped in a black dressing-gown the cuts on his arms hidden by it’s long sleeves. He knew he must do something to warn Harry.

The aurors had arrived about two hours earlier and surrounded the perimeter of the property, leaving teams of three on each entrance. Somehow they even knew about the secret ways of coming and going from Malfoy Manor; Draco himself had been placed under house arrest for his own safety.

“Safety” he snorted, he knew Harry would never harm him. The papers could paint whatever picture they chose but it seemed that most of the time the papers chose to ignore this news. Which must mean it is important. He had a warm feeling in his heart that he may again see his lover, but also deep down the fear, worry, tension and anxiety that he may lose him just as quickly. ‘To Merlin with it!’. He thought as he strolled out to take a walk in the grounds, a patrol of three aurors shocked to attention following him as he made his way out of the door and across the gardens towards the gates.


* * * * * * * * * *


A figure crept stealthily from the darkness, a shadow creeping between two stalagmites. It moved slowly across the cave towards the black-clad form curled up on the cold stone floor. Signalling behind it in the shadows with a beckoning finger. Another wraith-like figure moved from the hiding place near the entrance to this cavern. The pair flitted across the floor, wands in their hands pointed as if to be ready for anything.

The figure on the floor sat up, spun on his heel and drew his wand ready for battle.