Inky Boundaries (to a tortured soul)

Cold. Not the kind that would have one trembling, one's lips and skin bluish, but the cold that seemed to intermingle itself with one's very flesh, every cell of one's body, sinking its sharp claws into one's soul. Cold that was essentially what made the atmosphere of Azkaban, the Wizarding Prison, with its stony walls, and the dark, narrow, endless corridors. In that dreadful, maddening place, dampness added to the small and sometimes tortured angry noises the inmates let out. The ones who could still talk loud enough to be heard outside their cells, of course. The ones who weren't reduced to the sorrowful, precarious state of mind consisting in hugging one's knees and rocking back and forth, murmuring meaningless sentences and occasionally letting out one pained scream when their hurtful, blood-thirsty, cruel hallucinations got particularly realistic. The sane ones who could hear them shrunk and gulped in fear. The threat of decay of the mind haunted each and every one of them until it became their reality, as it was bound to.
From there, it was one step to the frightful soulless-ness of the Kiss.

The Kissers strolled up and down; their approach was announced by the unnatural silence that would fall upon the hall that held one of those detestable creatures. Silently they approached, bringing with them an air of misery of their own along with the increase of the cold. Unmoving they stood, digging through one's mind in search of whatever pale reflection of happiness one might still possess. When done they walked off, leaving behind their prey, a skinny, sobbing excuse for a human being. The person in the next cell would whimper quietly, knowing that he or she was next, and that that would be routine until madness hit and the Kiss was in order.

Seemingly oblivious to all of it, enclosed in the private hell that had once been his mind, Lucius Malfoy stared.

It didn't really matter at what he stared, since he wasn't seeing it. His fingers played idly with it, but his mind didn't register the action. Or the object. Or anything for that matter.

He could have been there for hours for all he knew; he was, however, well beyond caring about the time. Or the action. Or the object.

Honestly, how could one expect him to focus? He already went through enough trouble just shutting down the pain. Moreover, it was rather hard to focus when one didn't see a point to it, didn't see a point to anything anymore.

An image flashed before his eyes as they shut themselves for a moment. Redness threatened to engulf him and Lucius found himself not fighting but anticipating it instead.

Redness was bound to be better than nothingness.

How ironic, he had thought some time not far in the past, that people believed that there was peace in nothingness. There wasn't. At least not for Lucius. Nothingness was the void, the gap left open, the absence of something. Or, in Lucius' case, someone. Someone whose lack ached to no end.

He felt a weak chill on his back, and it made it past the thick numbness that surrounded his mind at the moment. Something inside was warning him against the dark-clothed keepers of Azkaban that were coming his way. Lucius, however, doubted he could feel worse. Thus, he paid them little attention.

Later in life, he would be looked at with admiration and suspicion by many wizards for having been so indifferent to Dementors. When he wasn't actually indifferent to them, wasn't anything anymore. He could be credited with none of his actions; he was not performing them. He had shut himself away; what walked around was nothing but an empty shell. In fact, he was positive that the Dementor who tried to kiss him would end up most dissatisfied.
For a long time now, his soul hadn't been his own. It had belonged to another. To the sultry, precious redness he had learned to crave.

The object in his hands gleamed, reflecting the dim sunlight that entered the small, square window high on the back wall of his cell. As a Malfoy, Lucius had been graced with privileges, but he'd rather have been confined in absolute darkness: it was where red flashed brighter. In his current condition, though, he had to find other ways. For he so wanted to drown in it...

The shiny, cool object he was holding was smooth to the touch, weighted very little. In a past that now seemed distant it had been dear to him, for it had brought him relief and a new perspective, the blessed, ephemeral sensation of freedom as if just for a few moments he could escape everything that he had carefully trained himself to be.

Now he longed for those times to return, when the one to cause his dissatisfaction hadn't been but himself, when he hadn't been so miserably crushed by his hurtful dependence on someone else.

He hated it that another should have such power over him. Or at least he had hated it, in that not so distant past. Now he was numb to feelings and sensations alike.

Thus, he only acknowledged that he was bleeding when he saw the redness streaming down his arm, covering the creamy flesh with its sticky and warm moisture. Striking against his alabaster complexion, making him painfully aware of the lack of the inky symbol that should have been adorning his forearm. Whispering to him about the enormity of the gap left by the Mark and its maker. A Malfoy's body should not be marred or owned, even less his soul. And there stood Lucius, staring silently at the blood running down his immaculate arm, oblivious to the despair, sadness, fear and madness that surrounded him. Feeling nothing.

Nothing but cold, cold that not even his own blood could wash away to replace with the familiar warmth that Redness had always meant to him. Warmth was denied to him, as was the presence of the one to whom he had pledged his life and soul.

He hadn't told them a thing, though. He had carefully hidden his shattered heart from everyone's eyes. They weren't worthy of knowing. Even if they did, he doubted they could grasp or even scratch the surface of its essence.

Lucius himself could not name what tied him to Lord Voldemort.

Let alone begin to describe it to Aurors. He was confined in Azkaban, true, for he was as much of a suspect as anyone who was a pureblood and had been in Slytherin. But he hadn't told them a thing. He couldn't care less about their threats, their blows, their abuses of his body. Didn't give a damn about the bloody Dementors that infested the Prison where he was supposed to be locked up. None of them could get to him, for he had shut himself away.

He did have his own private hell to dwell into, after all.