Make Us An Example

If these guards thought they were going to see her screaming to be released, or trying to escape, they were dead wrong. If it were another situation, Jack would be fighting tooth and nail. But that was what they expected, it was what they wanted to see. And since when did Jack do anything they wanted her to do?

She had taken a swing at one of the men when he took her wand, just out of natural reaction. She got his chin to and ever since, the man had been holding her upper arm so hard she knew it would be bruised for a few weeks. She refused to show the pain on her face. She was still strong now. She intended on staying that way.

The door to the wizarding prison entered and the hands holding her between the two burly men tightened, as though expecting her to bolt. She had no such plans. They waved their wands and two small patronuses landed on either side. A dementor slid in front of them and Jack began to pale. The patronuses were big enough to protect her guards. Not her. Her punishment had begun.

They paraded her down the cells, and she heard terrible noises. Screaming. Crying. Sobbing. Murderous bellows. One man ran to the front of his cell and began saying terrible, unrepeatable things to her, licking the rusted bars of the cell, smiling a smile that was covered in fleck of rust and metal as his tongue bled. A woman reached a hand out, and sobbed, "Kill me!" One of Jack's guards kicked her hand and she retreated.

Jack shook, because she was coming to terms with the fact that this was her home for the next.. well, she had no idea how long she would be here. It could be an hour, a week, a month, a year, a decade, her life. Gindelwald was not picky about punishment, she knew that much. He may very well make an example of her, wait until she went insane, then parade her in front of everyone to make sure all resistance ended.

Her legs suddenly gave way and she dipped, but her resolve was stronger. Before the guards could react she stood straight and shook them off. She looked forward to see a dementor standing outside an open cell. She walked forward and stood in the doorway. She could do this, for everyone else, for her friends, to spite her enemies, and... for herself.

She took a deep breath but she felt an impact between her shoulder blades and she was flung forward. She stumbled and fell, her shoulder catching the wall. The memories began to descend now. Vito sending a killing curse at her. Chase telling her to choose. The way she felt all of seventh year. James finding her crying. The battle. Leaving her family behind for good. Finding out Elliot was murdered. Finding Chase tortured. Finding out she was responsible for all of Vito's murders.

She knew she could beat this. She needed a distraction. Something to force herself from denying these memories. Something to drown out these memories, blind her from these visions...

No such relief came.

Aaron would be lying if he said he was not a little nervous about what was about to happen to him. He had been talking himself into it all the days leading up to going to Azkaban and he had not been afraid when he was pitching the idea or even when the plan was accepted. It was not until he was actually staring at he prison that the nervousness began to overwhelm him. He knew it would come, he was just hanging on to the slim hope that maybe, just maybe it wouldn't.

As he was getting processed he could literally feel the fear being dragged out from inside of him. He held it back though and he did not speak as the guards searched and took everything away from him. He hated parting with his wand, but it was part of the process and there was nothing he could do about it. He did nothing but stare straight ahead.

He tried his hardest not to look around as he was being escorted to his cell. He could hear the screams and the pleas for mercy as he was marched. It was chilling all the way to his core. He could not imagine what it would be like to live day in and day out in this place. Just from being there for the few hours he had been had already been enough, but he had to push on.

Because of a little string pulling and knowing a few people, he knew exactly which cell he was being transported to and exactly who his cellmate was going to be. They had met before, once,and it had not been that long of a meeting. Jack was a saucy and confident one and that was why Aaron liked her so much. He believed that if one person believed in something they fought for it, through thick and thin, and Jack was the epitome of that.

He would have loved to try and bring her over to his side, but he knew it would never happen. She was a good guy and he was.... not. Aaron was sure that most people would, one day, view him as evil. At the root of it, maybe, but this was what HE believed in. He never understood why people tried to make things black and white. Aaron was not evil he just did everything in his power to do what he thought was right, and just because a lot of people did not agree with him, he was viewed as evil.

He looked up and he saw a dementor, the first time his eyes had set on one. Instantly he was infatuated with them. He felt his body grow cold and he knew as soon as he was in the presence of it exactly what it was about. He wanted to smirk, but it would not come, smiling would never come inside of this place.

He wanted to keep staring at the dementor but he could not. Images he hated began to conjure in his head. Hearing his fathers constant disappointment made him close his eyes. He felt his feet stop moving but the guards shoved him and he was brought back to. He was tossed into his cell and he stood there for a few moments before he made his next move.

He did not show his face to Jack, not that he assumed she was paying attention, instead he watched as the guards vanished into the darkness of the prison. All of his life he wondered what this place was like and why people hated it so much, and now he knew. He shuddered as the cold and the horrible thoughts overtook him. He had a job to do, and he could not stop now. Quickly, he turned around and he proceeded to where Jack was. He was not sure if she could see him or not, but he decided to speak anyways.

"And so we meet again." Again he wanted to smirk at the revelation that they were both in the cell together, but it would not come. "Last time seemed a bit more cozy but this will do for the time being. For now we have business to discuss."

Jack felt small pebbles in her hands- they littered the floor and she had raised her arms to protect herself as she fell into the cell. Her shoulder was throbbing now, from the impact against the wall, and her hands stung. She concentrated for a moment on this pain- so very dull, barely a blip on her pain radar. This was a girl who had been crucio-d, stabbed, and in fist fights her whole life. She knew how to handle pain. But she had a long time on her own and she needed something to do. Thinking about petty injuries was a start.

She rotated and fell onto her arse, leaning her back against the wall as she turned her hands over and stared at her palms. She squeezed a pebble out of her right hand with her left thumb and index finger, and a small prick of blood formed where the pebble was removed. She continued on like this with each pebble, forcing her mind from throughts that the dementors provoked and onto thoughts about how to handle her hands.

When they were free of pebbles, she wiped her hands on her pants, and then sucked her palms, drawing out any dirt and stopping the blood flow. She wiped her mouth with her arm and sighed, failing to realize how quiet her mind had temporarily gotten. She leaned her head back and the second she forgot about her hands, the memories attacked again.

With a groan, she rolled over. She would never get out of here. She would never escape all the terrible things she had done. She would fail Chase and all the others who had been wronger by her. Vito.. she did not know how Vito would continue on. She did not know if being full of these fears and terrible thoughts would break him down or fuel him with more bad feelings and send him into a frenzy. She only knew that she would not survive this, and his survival depended on hers.

She sat up. She had not come this far, she had not put so much of herself into making up for all Vito had done, for them to die without any real progress to be made. He would come back, worse, and who knew what depressed maniac would be his creator. She wasn’t saying she was better than anyone. But she could control her actions and at least put her whole being into fixing what was wrong with them. She could not give up now.

She pushed her hands down, grinding them into the ground, pushing pebbles into her palms again. The memories stopped as the pain became more real. She twisted her palms, closing her eyes, succumbing to pain and, in turn, fleeing the power of the dementors. She stayed like this for a long time. Longer than she knew. Because when she was stirred from this stupor, she saw someone being shoved into her cell.

Uh, had she ordered a roommate?

“What the…” she managed. The memories flooded her and she pushed down hard. She focused on the face… It was familiar. “I didn’t request a roommate. I need to alert room service,” she joked dully. A fog invaded her mind and she twisted her right hand- the fog retreated. Pain was sunshine, clearing away the fog of the past.

She realized who this was. That Aaron bloke. She squinted at him, but she was adjusting to the pain in her hands. She felt her mind’s defenses weakening. There was a silence between his last sentence and her own words, as she brushed the rocks from her hands, doing it roughly, dragging them through her skin. She wiped her hands again and absentmindedly began bending back her left pinkie as she turned to look at him. After almost a full minute of silence, she managed to say, “Business?”

She looked like she had been there for awhile. The company seemed unnatural to her and he grimaced at the thought of him being in that state before long. As strong willed as he was, he knew he would not be able to handle it long. No one ever came into Azkaban and breezed through it like it was nothing. It was going to be a long few days, but he was ready for it, he hoped at least.

She tried to make a joke, but in the current situation, it seemed a bit less funny than it would have been anywhere else. It shocked him to see a person who was usually standing so much bolder and taller being in such a low place. He did not want to waste much time though, so he went to work with his words. That was the one thing the prison could not take from him, his ability to talk well.

"Yes, business." He said as casually as he could. He took a seat against he wall, propping his head against it and trying his hardest not to lose himself in his mind. "As you can tell this whole Grindlewald thing is not exactly working out." He shook his head and continued on, keeping his mind as focused as it could be. "Lets get right to it, I know you are in the Order so you should know I am a Death Eater. Though, it is not entirely my thing, it is what it is."

He was not sure if the revelation would be anything at all. He hated saying he was in the Death Eaters because, honestly, he hated them. He was only a member so that he could get the information he needed and he also believed them to harbor the stronger wizards. "Both of us are struggling, that much is clear. You can be as bold and brave as you want to be, the fact is, you are here and so am I. That being said, something must be done."

He gave another moment for his words to process. He knew things were not so easy to comprehend or understand in here, so he let it all sink in. "I am here to try and arrange a.... truce if you will. Alone we are fighting a losing battle. If both groups have to worry about each other while also worrying about Grindlewald.... well.... neither of us are going to win. He has more power at his disposal than either of us can handle. So, we have talked it out, and the best possible scenario is to pursue this mutual understanding. That understanding being, Grindlewald needs to be eliminated."

She released her finger and set her hands back on the ground. Jack could only sit and listen, continuing to grind her hands into the ground. She knew that by the end of this, her hands would be reduced to hunks of raw meat. She would rather have damaged hands over a damaged mind though. She idily thought of her future career in Quidditch, the one promised to her by the recruiters. The thought of it made her cringe- if she was unable to heal her hands in time, who knew how she would be able to handle a Beating bat. But she would rather have the brain capacity to raise a bat over the strength to swing it.

She leaned her head forward and then let it wobble back, painfully hitting the back wall. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. The shooting pains that spread over her head offered her a bright, sharp clarity that dispersed all of the fog, which bested all of the memories. The cold air rattled in her lungs, stinging her throat. But it made her ears open completely to Aaron’s words, beckoning the ideas inside a mind that was able to easily and clearly process all of it.

Aaron introduced himself as a Death Eater. She supposed he was used to people typically taking this heavily into account. Jack was not very typical though. There were plent of Order members she did not trust, as well as many Death Eaters she liked. Jack did not exactly trust anyone, but there was people she relied on more than others to act a certain way. “That changes little, roomie,” she said drily, her head plesantly pounding.

He continued on and she marvelled at fate’s way of bringing her to like-minded people- or, in this case, delivering them to her, She had brought this idea up to the Order.. how long ago? Not long, surely. But she could not tell if she had been in prison for a minute or a year. Her thinking was clear but her senses were blurred.

Still, the fact remained that her idea was now more of a reality. She took in a few sharp, cold breaths, slowly, in and out, in and out as he wrapped up his proposal. Finally she said, “I’ve already convinced the Order that this is our only option.” Release finger, shake, grab pinkie and continue. “Naturally, they fear betrayal, but I’m sure you guys have considered the same from us. Personally, I think both factions are too beauracratic to pull off a double-crossing. But we really don’thave many options, do we? Team up, or fall apart.”

She leaned her head back, sliding her hands forward and blinked. “So. What’s the plan from here? How do we get people who hate each other to shut the hell up and play nice?”

He glanced around his prison and he quickly realized just how Azkaban worked. It was a wicked place and he hoped this was the only time he ever visited. The thoughts that ran through his head were those he thought he would never think of again. That of long lost friends, his parents, the angst he felt as a teenager, everything. He began to question himself and his motives, what was he truly doing everything for.

He grabbed his leg tightly to make sure he was still there. He refused to lose himself in this hell he was in. He had intentionally locked those thoughts away and he did not plan on returning to them. They were just that, nothing but thoughts. He had to live his life in the now, and the now was exactly where he was. He opened his eyes and looked around, he was in Azkaban. For the first time a smile stretched over his face. It was not a smile of pleasure, but instead, one of irony.

"People, when they are backed in a corner, are easily persuadable." That much was true. He truly did not know exactly how bad off the Death Eaters truly were until he stood among them all. He had demanded more respect from them than their leader and had actually received it. They were weak minded fools and that was why they were apart of the group. Protection, fear, power, whatever it was it all ended the same.

"The truth is, we will betray you...." He said it with such actuality that there was no denying it. He fully planned on convincing the Death Eaters to betray the order. It was all part of his little ruse. "The colder truth is this: Without this alliance we will all demise. That is why you are lucky to have me." HE twitched his head as an image of someone he had not seen in years flashed through his head. He shook his head and continued. "I have no interest in the Death Eaters but, as fate would have it, they have a small one in me. I can be an informant of such so that your Order is not blind sided by an attack. I can tell the Death Eaters that a truce has been formed and I doubt they will question it. A foolish bunch they are..."

Jack picked up her hands, brushing them off, wiping blood and rubble from them and reaching up to gnaw on one of her fingernails. She was not a nail biter, but she had never had long nails- she was too active, she worked with her hands too much for them to get long, and she was not the type to use magic to adjust her appearance. And nail biting seemed like a good enough distraction for now.

At his words, she nodded. Backs against the wall. That accurately described the Order in her opinion. Of course, the Lupins were all still operating like the big guys on campus, when really, no one in the order had any power. Jack got frustrated because they all acted so entitled, and yet none of them had any affect on anything... Who were they to act better than anyone.

Perhaps having to deal with their enemies would humble both groups. That was one reason Jack had suggested it, honestly. That and... well, she wanted her life back and she knew she was not the only one who had seen her livelihood crumble with Grindelwald's ascention to power began. They had to get up and do something!

She did not reveal any surprise when he told her they would be betrayed. She knew the Death Eaters well enough. "Of course," she said, "Just as the Order will be preparing to be betrayed, and may even attempt to take the offense." Her eyebrows did raise when he said he would warn her. She could not helpt the word to force it's way out. "Why?"

What did he have to gain from warning the Order. If he was so quick to betray the Death Eaters a little, obviously he was in it for himself. So what did he gain from helping the Order? "I mean, I get working independently from them, but why associate yourself at all with the other group?"

((Can you send me a PM when a good time arises for me to initiate the meeting between heads?))

He had thought about it long and hard before, the question as to why he was offering his alliance openly to the Order. When both groups went at each other, he needed at least one of them to still be on is side. He really did not care which, hopefully the one with less casualties, and if he was a betting man he would have picked the Order. The problem was, he was not a betting man, and anything could go wrong and the side he picked could leave him in a tempting situation.

The way he looked at it, the Order was more forgiving. He could more easily make them believe that he was protecting his cover if any of them saw him aiding the Death Eaters than vice versa. They were, after all, supposed to be the optimistic "good" guys. Still, he had no contact with any of them so he was not sure how to take them. The only Order member he knew was Jack, and she was so far from trusting that she made even Aaron look like a gullable fellow.

She made the statement about he Order even preparing to go on the offense. This confirmed the Death Eaters number one fear and it made Aaron want to smile, but then he remembered where he was, and he smacked his head roughly against the wall. He could feel a small bruise forming on the back of his head, and he had to admit, it felt great to have something there. Any feeling, any at all, was better than what he was feeling in this place.

"Why do you align yourself with the Order when you would clearly be better suited alone?" He shrugged his shoulders and bumped his head again, enjoying the pain it sent through his body. "We all need something to hang on to. What I thought was best, the Death Eaters, turned out to be a mistake. I am only trying to make up for my decisions by doing this and helping out." The lie came out flawlessly. She was hard to convince, but given the circumstances, she would have no other choice but to believe him.

"I have no other motives but survival. I wish to live and that is why I am putting myself through this grief to bring down Grindlewald. At the end of it all, I feel I would be better suited aiding the Order than the Death Eaters." He shrugged his shoulders yet again, realizing now that his hands had been clutching his legs rather tightly. "There is nothing more to it than that, Jack."

Jack was on to something, with this hand thing. Her hands and nails were taking a beating but her mind was the clearest it had been in this place. She felt the cold sweat that had bee prone to gether at her temple subsiding and her clammy body felt less tremors and began to feel less like jelly and more like a solid. Grindelwald would not beat her here. She was becoming more confident that she would leave this place relatively unchanged.

Just a little angry.

She was focusing on controlling her breathing when she lost all she had gained- a cold chill gripped her, the fog began to creep into her mind, and she saw visions of a pair of floating, depthless brown eyes and in the eyes she saw images of deaths and murders. Jack forced her eyes up to see a dementor peering into their cell, and she sucked in her lips. The terrible being stared for a moment, lifting a hand that wrapped around the bars, before it turned and floated off.

Jack felt her tight body loosen and she slumped slightly. The sweat had returned, she was clammy again, and her hands were shaking. She rubbed her hands up and down against her thighs, light layers of dirt rolling off of them, before she cracked her knuckles again, bending each finger precariously until it made a terrible cracking noise before she shook them out.

She slipped her hands under her thighs to keep them still and then Aaron began to speak again. His question was a good one and one not many people understood. She was in the Order because she had to be. She had to balance the world out when she through it out of whack when she created Vito. When he zigged, she had to zag. He was a Death Eater, she had to be in the Order. He took lives, she had to try to save them. She did not get to make those choices.

But he was also right. When she had joined the Order, it gave her something to cling to, to be a part of, rather than just being suspended in awkward limbo from not having any purpose, no common ground, no base. The more he talked, the more she realized he was like her, and the less she wanted to be near him. She liked normal people who did stupid things because their sense of right and wrong was skewed- not damaged, but not traditional.

But he understood her mind, it seemed, and she knew this had to be done. She nodded to him and said, "You don't happen to have pen or paper, do you? I'm sure I'll be in here longer than you, Death Eaters still have a small level of preference in Grindelwald's opinion. I need you to somehow let the Order know that I have knowledge of this. Just in case I don't exactly get out in a reasonable time to kickstart this plan."