Letter From Home

I have all the time in the world here, encased in these three walls. Four, if the barred, guarded, spelled, lockpick-proof, bullet-resistant door counts as a wall. The screams don't bother me as much as they used to- I have the screams in my head to drown them out. I seldom dream, but when I dare it, my dreams are of simple things. Feeling the wind caress my cheek and tousle my hair as I soar through the clouds like a falling star. The time the chocolate frog jumped down your shirt and Ron thought it was some kind of bloodsucking gremlin and tackled you and started smashing your chest with his fist.

The Dementors can't affect me. I think you'd be proud. I have no positive thoughts left for them to suck out, no passion at all, no revenge- not even apathy. As far as they know. I've become very good at walling myself inside a place they can't touch, no matter how hard they try. And when I'm there, I practice self-mutilation, which is a way of life in places like this. I cut myself to shreds and watch with satisfaction as I bleed- the pain means I can still feel. No, I don't injure myself physically- they'd catch on to that, and they don't want you to ever have an easy way of escape. But I bleed, nonetheless- I think of you. I wonder, sometimes, how things might have been if you had taken my hand all those years ago, if Ron hadn't been such a prick and we hadn't been ignorant prats. First impressions are often wrong. Would you be here with me, melting the ice I have wrapped around myself? They tell me I am slowly going insane. God, how I wish that were the case. Yet I remain in my right mind, not that it really matters anymore. I believe I'm famous on the outside world- I wouldn't really know. I've stopped requesting the papers. I was all they would talk about- and all they would avoid. No one wants to acknowledge that hope has fled and innocence has been massacred. You were their last-ditch attempt to salvage their lives from the ninth circle of hell the Dark Lord intended to make of our world.

And I torment myself by remembering how you pleaded with me with your sparkling emerald eyes that spoke of everything living- such a contrast to your pale, gaunt face. No twenty year old should look like death, especially not you, when you were joy and courage and stupidity and impulsivity and stubbornness and love all compacted into a Seeker's frame that could never be still. You told me that you didn't want to be their savior or their sacrifice, and you were sick of living for everyone else. You knew you wouldn't survive what they would do to you. I understood. Believe me, I understood what it felt like to be someone else's pretty puppet with jerking strings incessantly tugging at your skin from an indifferent god or master who could care less if you shattered or broke. My heart bled for you when you told me I was the only one you trusted, because we had never trusted each other. As enemies, we understood each other better than we knew ourselves, I think. You asked me to grant you release. You listed off all the reasons why I should- the glory I would be given by "my" side, the fame and notoriety of being the assassin of the Boy Who Lived, the recognition and status I would receive when the Dark Lord came to rescue me from Azkaban, as he surely would. He always rewards his own, you said. I shook my head no. I suddenly saw the futility of all we did, and the desolation of what was to come. But I would set you free- for you. My killing curse was the thing I never told you, and I know you heard the three fatal words silently whispered behind the blessed embrace of the words that killed your parents.

I look forward to the Dark Lord's return for me. I committed treason, you see, by helping escape the one he most wanted for himself. I tasted of the forbidden fruit. Indeed. I hear the war will be over soon. The last vestiges of resistance are tattered and falling to shreds. People are tired of fighting an army that shows no mercy, has endless reserves and immeasurable power with a name behind it that strikes fear and trembling into the heart of every wizard worth his wand. So my death sentence draws ever nearer. I will be with you soon, and perhaps in death we may utter the things never spoken in life. Perhaps then we will be free.

It is too painful to say your name, for fear that my walls would come crashing down and all I feel for you would be swept away by a Dementor's caress. They think I am crazy, as I lay here and whisper to the ears of the dead what no one can understand except you. "Avada Kedavra, my love. Avada Kedavra."

~Fin