Taking Azakban

The rocky shore line lay below him as he retched over the cliff side and into the sea. The scent of burning flesh and wet ash filled his lungs as he fought to let clean air back into them. He gasped sharply and bright spots danced before his eyes. His feet beneath him were unsteady and he swayed this way and that like a willow in a breeze.

Beside him another aruor did the same but Dean had to wonder, did his mind fill with the same images when he shut his eyes against the pain in his head? Did he fear to close them for fear of repeating, replaying that same scene over and over again?

Behind them he knew that the heroes of the war like Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy were busy picking through the rubble and crying over lost friends. They were preparing themselves for the questions they would have to answer about the actions of their fellow Aurors and yet every one knew they'd come out of it looking like the big tough men that the world needed them to be. But it was a lie.

Here along these rocky cliff face were the real warriors. The men and women who had gone in first. Who had not once questioned their orders out loud but carried them out with silent tears. They were the ones who supported what ever was said and even what wasn't. They were the true heroes. The nameless and faceless.

Dean stumbled, almost falling down, down to his death. He reached out a hand to steady himself but the sight of that hand disgusted him and he jerked it back to his chest tripping backwards and away from the edge. He closed his eyes and suddenly, all semblance of reality, of the here and now, was lost to him as his memories assailed him.

That morning, in getting ready to take back the fort, they'd been given orders to kill anything within the walls of the prison. "If it lives, kill it," his commander's voice had said harshly. But Dean had caught the tightness of the clipped words. An edge of pain in the older man's voice. As if he'd been there too many times.

But not all present had been so perceptive. "But, sir," Harry Potter had spoken up. "What about.... Sir, those are our friends in there. Surely you don't mean for us to kill them as well."

The older man sighed. At his innocence and other things. "Mr. Potter, these people have been prisoners on that island for six years. God only knows what they have been subjected to. You heard me right the first time, Potter. Kill anything that moves."

They'd all heard the stories of what went on there. And we all knew we were only hearing the nicer parts of it. Things that had marked the Holocaust in World War Two and so much more. Tying the legs of a pregnant woman together when she gives birth killing them both in the most horrible pain. Skinning a person slowly to see how long they can survive it. Peeling the skin from a person's head and then putting them in the coldest of cells to see if the brain would freeze before they died. The list went on an on. No end to the tasks of the wicked. And they moved out with out a sound.

Once on the island the warriors found things in a heavy disarray. A fire had begun in one of the cell houses signaling that all in it were dead or almost there. Potter froze at the sight of it while the rest of them pressed onwards. Their house to clear out was the main cell house at the top of the hill. Dean prayed that he would have the strength to look his friends in the eye and kill them.

With some man he did not know, Dean charged up the hill with his comrades. Up the stone stairs carved into the steep hillside they ran. At the top he could see the outline of his destination. Upon reaching it and slamming his hands into the wall to catch his breath he realized that the stones were already warm from the fires below.

Screams greeted his entrance. It was an erie sound. Voices shouting for release, freedom, death, pity, safety. But then it was silent. Dean and the others stood still as could be. The silence threatened to overwhelm them. But a scream cut the thick air like a sword through wood, lodging its self in their minds.

Dean barged into the first cell on his right. On the ground at his feet lay a corpse not yet dead. It was then that he truly understood what was expected of them. Muttering the painless death spell they had learned as part of their training he hurried out into the hall.

People ran here and there and Dean raced down the corridor and found another cell. In each he found much of the same as in the one before. A few worse, a few better. Once man had had no skin on his feet but was chained standing upright so that his skin had grown back connected to the floor. He thanked whatever god really existed that he'd yet to find a friend among the dead and dying.

With each cell, it became alarmingly easier to kill them. Soon the heat had reached a point that was almost as unbearable as the realization that he had become the monster who'd done this in the first place.

Tom rushed by him yelling at him to hurry. "I've got one more," Dean said. "I'll be right there."

Ducking into he last cell he felt almost relieved at the cool dampness the reigned in there. It was silent in here too. Nothing like the mob outside.

The poor creature lying on a pile of rags in the corner turned her face to him. Her eyes were screwed shut as if reality was worse than her imagination. But there was something about that nose. The tilt of the chin. It was so familiar to the Gryffindor. Her knew that face. "Lavender..." he breathed. It almost hurt to say her name out loud in a place like this.

She fluttered her eye lids but they could not stay open. "Dean?"

"Oh, God, Lav." He felt tears prick at his eyes. "How.." But she shook her head in a motion that took too much effort from her frail frame.

"Oh, God, Dean..." Her voice shook and rasped out. And now he understood.

Even if he did get her out, even if he could save her, she'd live forever with the memory of what had happened here. That was something he couldn't live with.

Her eyes were open now. They were empty of any feeling or even life. They did not judge him. And then he knew what he had to do.

Walking to her in one stride he knelt down to kiss her gently before closing her eyes and murmuring the spell into her paper thin lips. Then he'd swept out of the cell like a great beast from a nightmare out into the hallway. He kept his face a mask of indifference until he'd given his report to the commanding officer.

Then he too joined the crowd at the cliff side as the scent of burning flesh and lost hopes filled his soul until all he could see was the rocky shore line below... coming up to catch him.