I was a prisoner. I had no idea whether time passed, I could only guess whether it was day or night. In this basement, I only knew when it was daylight by the slim shaft of light that penetrated under the only door. It was thick oak, new and strong. It was out of place against the walls. They were crumbling. If I took the edge of my nail I could dig at the softening mortar between the distressed bricks. It was the damp that did it I thought. No matter the weather outside, the floor was always wet in here; probably an underground spring just outside the walls soaked the mud I slept on. I prayed constantly for this cube of brick to decay faster, a storm to knocked it down. But deep in my heart, I knew it was my body that will go first.
I was a prisoner of Voldemort and his servant Peter Pettigrew. At first they tried to control me, but I resisted. My whole being fought against their voices in my head. These were constant battles or struggles to break my will, they had already done it once. My whole existence had been gripped by the idea that I should not give up this time.
Then came the tortures. In the end, it wasn't dying that scared me but pain. My pain was an icy wind choking the breath from my lungs and making a noose around my neck. It cut right to my bones and gripped my brain in its freezing claws. My heart constricted in its wake as if not sure if it should go on beating. I screamed again and again, my screams echoing in the damn walls, ricocheting in them and coming back to me as if they could causing me more pain. Each time I prayed that it would all end faster, or that my heart would stop, or that they would get tired of torturing me. The only thought that remained in my mind, as the pain burned inside me, was my thought of Remus. I was clinging to wanting to see him again so strongly that everything seemed a little more bearable. In time, I even put up with the fact that the pain was not so strong anymore. I just had to hold out a little longer and I would see him. A thought bordering on insanity, but keeping me from losing my mind.
I didn't know why they kept me alive. They couldn't control me. It may have given them a pleasure to torture me, but I did not ask them to stop, I didn't beg, I screamed but I didn't cry. When they got tired of playing with me, they locked me back to the basement. Maybe they kept me alive because they fed the damn snake with my blood. For several days, Wormtail came and cut my arm to drain some of my blood. Then he gave me a potion, I suspected, to recover the lost amount of blood quickly.
I was not alone there in the basement. My boss, Barthemius Crouch, was also their prisoner. He seldom regained consciousness, often hallucinating and delusional. In the few chances I could talk to him, he repeated that it was all his fault. That his son would help Voldemort regain his body and full strength.
It must have been a few days since Wormtail had gone down here in the basement. I could determine the time only from the pain of my empty stomach. I could feel the ropes digging into my wrists and ankles; my left cheek lay firmly in the muddy dust that coated the cold floor. I was on the border between sleep, consciousness, and madness. I strained my ears for sounds, for voices, or for screams.
"Are you awake? "Crouch startled me.
"Yes, I think. I can no longer say for sure when I am dreaming and when I am awake. "I replied, trying to to sit down and leaning against the wall behind me.
"Me too. "he sighed. He approached me. My eyes were accustomed to the darkness, and I could look at him. His face looked even paler than before, his hair disheveled and dirty. But his eyes were not taken away as usual. They stared at me with burning clarity.
"Why aren't you tied up?" I asked him, trying to divert my thoughts from the pain in my stomach.
"They think I'm harmless now. Maybe I'm really is ... Come, let me try to untie you." and he began clumsily pulling the ropes with which I was tied. However, after a while he succeeded.
"Thanks," I replied, rubbing my free wrists and ankles.
"We need to come up with something to get out of here."
"Do you think I haven't tried? " I told him sharply, but I was rather angry to myself "While you were lying here hallucinating, I tried to run away several times."
"It's my fault. I released my son. He helps him. I don't know how or where he is. But I heard them talking about him. It's my fault. I got you involved in all this. " and he fell back to his knees and bowed his head. He began to shake.
I felt sorry for him. I know what he did, I didn't approve of what he did in the past, but he didn't deserve such a fate. It seemed unfair that no matter how much he strived to be the man his conscience wanted him to be, it would keep taunting him with his failures.
"Ni estas produktoj de nia pasinteco, sed ni ne devas esti kaptitoj de ĝi." I told him quietly.
"What?" He looked at me questioningly
"Doesn't Barthemius Crouch know Esperanto? " I winked at him. He shook his head, and I continued, "We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it."
He smiled slightly as the smile reached his eyes. Then he sat down next to me. "When the guilt comes it takes me down the old familiar path. I want to refuse to walk it, pretend that I am the person I demand that I be. I want to erase my mistakes from my head, but if I did I'd never learn from what happened. And it's true what they say, "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it." And I couldn't bear that. " Then he turned to me and looked me in the eyes. "I need to get at least you out of what's going on. I got you involved in this. "
We both stood in silence for a while. All that could be heard from somewhere was water running and dripping on the floor. Everyone was lost in thought. The sound of the stairs caught our attention. Someone was coming. The door opened and for a moment the light coming from there blinded me. It took me seconds to get used to it. Wormtail. He was an extremely short man with grubby skin, small watery eyes, and a pointed nose, all of which were lingering attributes of his animagus rat form. I was sick only by his presence in the room, I hated him from the bottom of my soul. And the main reason was not that he was torturing me and keeping me locked up here. I hated him for his betrayal of Lily and James Potter. I hated him for Sirius. My uncle was imprisoned in Azkaban for 12 years unfairly because of him.
"Some volunteer for today's playtime," he asked in a greasy voice and approached us, pointing his wand.
I shuddered. Crouch took a step forward.
"Take me," he said in a clear, firm voice.
"How heartfelt ... But the master wants to be the girl today. " Said Wormtail, waving his wand at me.
I had to gather all my strength to take the next steps. I called Remus's face before my eyes. That was the only thing that gave me courage in moments like that. The memory of his soft amber eyes warmed my frozen limbs. His smile helped me endure the excruciating pain a little longer.
We went upstairs. The room was gloomy, the light coming only from the fire and from a few candles hanging from the ceiling. An armchair was placed with its back to me by the fireplace. I shuddered at the thought of what was sitting in it. At least the snake was out of sight.
"Bring her to me, WormTail," Voldemort's hissing voice came from the chair. As Peter Pettigrew pushed me to stand in front of the fireplace, I noticed that my wand and Crouch's were in the inside pocket of his robe.
Then came the pain. My old friend. It wasn't sharp like a needle or a knife, it burnt around my innards better than boiling water. Everything felt scolded and, move or not, I was in more pain than I could have ever imagined was possible. The death would be mercy right now.
I didn't remember how much time had passed, I didn't know when I ended up in the basement again. When I regained consciousness, someone's hands felt my pulse carefully.
"Are you okay? " Crouch asked me.
"Yes now. "I answered. "Look, while I was upstairs, I saw that Wormtail holds our wands in him. We can try to get them the next time he comes. I think I will have enough strength to transform into my Animagus form. I'll push him away, and you try to get them. Then apparated us from here. You are the owner of this home, you will have no problem with that. "
"All right," he said. In his eyes, I saw the shadow of the man of years ago, who instilled fear in the Death Eaters. "At least it's a plan."
"If you have a better one, I'm ready to listen."
"No no. We will try. "
We were both eager to try. We paced the room nervously and listened to every sound coming from behind the door. In fact, it wasn't long before we heard someone coming down the stairs. I nodded to Crouch to be ready. He clung to the wall by the door, ready to seize the moment. When Wormtail opened the door, there was something that made me nervous. It could have been a tincture of the wrong aroma, or the temperature was too cold. But I didn't have time to think about it.
Еverything happened so fast, I transformed into the familiar black wolf. As soon as I saw Wormtail on the doorstep, I rushed to him and knocked him down. As I held him stunned to the ground, Crouch searched him but managed to find only his own wand. Mine was missing. For a moment the wonderful thought crossed my mind that we would succeed. With the last of my strength, I transformed into a human again and extended my hand to Crouch. He squeezed it, ready to apparate us at any moment. Suddenly I felt some sharp teeth sink into my ankle. The snake. Nagini.
"Go! " I managed to scream at Crouch and let him go. "Run!"
"I'll find some help," he whispered before watching him disappeared.
Nagini was an extremely venomous snake, so a single bite could, therefore, result in a wound that was slow to heal. I understood that her venom was not always fatal, but it made it difficult for wounds to close. I had no chance to fight. I hadn't eaten in days. The constant torture, my last transformation, had exhausted all my strength. I could feel the venom in my body, I could feel the wound that did not heal. I was expecting death. He held me with a cold caress. A face I was taught to fear brought me comfort. I didn't fear him. I feared not knowing, what he might do and where he might take me. I feared knowing that I will never see Remus again. With that last thought and his face in front of me, I closed my eyes.