NEMESIS

This story is for Rane

He felt the approach of that day like a deep ache in his bones. All other days were blurred into a long train of bright blue and dark blue: there was a tiny window in his cell, more like a slit under the ceiling, and he could see a piece of the sky through it: light by day and dark by night. So, it was possible to count. But he never did.

He didn't need to; the only day that mattered was that one - and he wouldn't miss it.

There were other signs warning about it drawing near. Food was coming rarer; sometimes his stomach felt as if it was a burning black hole. The guards - human ones - regained their interest in him. Sometimes it was almost like it had been in the beginning, when there were hordes of them coming to visit him - staring at him, cursing him; or coming in - and then there were boots under his ribs and in his belly, and hands slamming his head into the wall.

Later they had stopped coming; he was an old entertainment, too little fun. Perhaps they even started forgetting why he was there, recalled it again only once a year.

He never forgot. He had very little left, of what he'd been - and he used to be considered beautiful, and smart, and witty, and desirable; all of that was gone but his memory never failed him. And he knew it would be the last thing that would leave him. Even with his hands going cold and his heart stopping, he still would be remembering. His guilt. His mistake. His crime.

Because he was a criminal, exactly as those people scorning and hitting him called him. And if he still lived, it was not because he hoped for absolution. He lived because there was only one thing still possible for him - revenge. And it didn't let him go - even when he spat blood and knocked out teeth on the floor; even when in winters the walls coated in a thin layer of slippery ice and he burned in fever and felt he was coughing his lungs out; even when that day came.

He heard their steps in the corridor, and his hearing, sharpened with solitude, recognized them unmistakably. The guard's steps were brisk and comfortable; the others treaded more carefully - two heavy walks and a lighter one. They stopped in front of his cell, the lock clanking tiredly. He didn't raise his face from the filthy mat at the wall that was his bed as the guard looked in, checking if everything was all right.

Through the tangled, dirty web of his hair he watched it, motionless but vibrating in tension minutely.

"You can come in, sir." The voice was diffident, as always.

Three figures that entered blurred a little, two bulky and one slight, very straight, pale hair like a halo around the head.

"I'll be around, sir. If anything happens."

"No need."

The door slammed shut, the lock clanked again. Very expensive boots, silver buckles gathering all the light in the cell, padded closer and stopped.

"Tut, tut. You look worse with every year. You'll waste away like that. One day I'll come and you're just not here. Disappeared."

He bared his teeth, stifling a low growl rising in his throat. The boots made one step closer - and then he whipped up. Untwined like a spring, jumped, transforming in the air - the dog's teeth, dripping saliva, clenched in less than an inch from the laced collar at the man's throat. The man jerked back, pale eyes flashing in anger and fear, pointed face distorting.

"Animagum Restoro! Petrificus Totalus!"

He hit the floor as a man, in a flash of blue light, the impact jarring through his back. Above him, there was dirty, web-covered ceiling. He looked there and wished he could be faster, and willed the pain away.

Pale face in the frame of blond hair appeared above him. The end of the cane, touching his skin through a rent in his threadbare clothes, was cold and sharp. He felt the weight leaning on it, the end pressing on his ribcage, his ribs slowly giving way. His breathing was harsh and ragged and the weight grew some more.

"You've surprised me, cousin. I thought there is no more fight left in you."

His rib cracked, with a short, dry sound. He gasped in pain that exploded in the left part of his chest.

"I'm glad you aren't disappointing me."

His body, forcedly immobile, was trembling inside. He wanted to jump - and to bite and claw, flaying the pale-eyed face, tearing out the white throat. The spell held him, turning his muscles into stones and his nerves into something alien.

The cane finally moved away from his ribs - traced his sternum - then pushed a strand of hair away from his face. Silvery eyes studied him, then met his gaze.

"As much as I love animals, you're more attractive in your human form. Although not by much, I have to admit. Not any more."

A sound, a screech caught in his throat as he looked at this face, feeling hatred like hot lava leak from his eyes. The man sighed reproachfully, stepping away. Instead of him, two bigger shadows came to his sides.

"Finite Incantatem. Hold him."

He tried to fight, with desperation that made him dangerous, even in his state. But those two were stronger, were not starving. His knees hit the stone, arms jerked up behind his back, to the point of dislocating his shoulders. He cried out hoarsely, feeling sweat bead on his face. A hand buried in his hair, yanking his head back, making him face the blond man standing in front of him, smiling.

"Yes. I like you better this way."

He thrashed, despite flaring pain in his arms, trying to get to the man, spitting at him. It was too far, of course, his spittle landed on the dirty floor, in inches from the polished boot.

"What a crude creature you are. No wonder your family rejected you."

"Fuck you... damn you." His throat was rusty of not speaking - and his mind blurred with hatred. He knew he was playing into the hands of the man but couldn't help it.

"Bad words, cousin. Should make you wash you mouth with soap."

A move of the wand - and a moment later his mouth was filling with sickeningly tasting, soapy water, a lot of it. He sputtered and choked and coughed and heard them laughing, and felt his shoulders twisting out of the joints as he struggled. The water filled his throat and lungs and his vision blackened - and then everything was gone.

He sagged, coughing out trickles of water.

"You're so filthy you should be washed inside out," the man said. "But maybe next time."

The wand in his hand moved again, white threads shooting from it, binding his arms, a noose around his throat. He felt dizzy and tried to break free - but the ties held too well. Two goons let him drop on the floor, on his side.

"That's good." The man was pacing in front of him, oblivious to his hateful gaze. He tried to swear, and it only brought a Silencing Charm onto him. "I want to talk to you, not to listen to the filth that comes out of your mouth. Mind you, I'm your only male relative now, even if in-law, so it's my responsibility to teach you a lesson."

So it was that? A lesson? He felt a smile curve his lips. A kick in his groin was so quick he hadn't had time to curl.

"Is there something funny in what I say? No? I hope not. Do you know why they allow me to come to you every year? Because I am a decent member of society - and who wouldn't understand my anger at having such a disaster as you in my family? A traitor. A murderer. A monster."

All those words and worse he told himself, on those long nights when he couldn't sleep and those long days when there seemed to be nothing in his brain apart from hollow, singeing agony, his soul drained out of him, replaced with unceasing cold. He knew he deserved what was happening to him.

This man thought he could judge him; hardly. He judged himself harsher than anyone else could.

"Why did you do it? How could you betray your friend and his beautiful wife and bring them to death? Didn't you at least feel sorry for the little baby?"

The baby was alive... it was a child now, a big boy. At first he found some joy in this thought but too soon this joy had been sucked out of him too.

The voice of the blond man was scornful; he really meant nothing of what he said.

"A scum like you shouldn't be allowed to live. But since you are allowed - who can take my little entertainment away from me?"

His gloved hand flickered in the air, making a sign. Two bulky figures stepped closer again - and this time he couldn't even struggle. He clenched his teeth and tried not to let even a groan escape him as their boots caught him, heavy and well aimed. Those two were quite professional, they knew how to beat.

He ended up crying out and then sobbing when it felt like there was no single whole bone in his body. It was wrong, of course, they hadn't broken all that much. His kidneys burned, the pain flaring in them; they had damaged them years ago - and every year the pain resumed. He tried to protect his belly and his groin but couldn't - and shrieked when they got him there. Blood clots fell from his mouth when he coughed; his eye was swollen and bleeding, lips split and swollen too.

They rolled him on his back when they finished, someone's foot pressing his shoulder to the floor. His vision was colored red with blood filling his eye - and the other one was swollen shut - as he looked at the man approaching him.

"Not so haughty any more, cousin?" The words came as if from afar. He moved his lips trying to answer and wasn't sure if there was still the Silencing Charm or if he just didn't have any voice left. "I like you this way so much more, little shit. If you only knew how long I wanted to see you like this. Since the time I saw you at Hogwarts for the first time. So smug that you did Gryffindor, so proud of your new friends."

He cried out and wheezed at another kick under his ribs.

"You were a handsome little prick, you know that? And so proud of your good looks. Not any more, are you?"

Another sign - he saw it as if through the mist. And there were hands on him again, turning him, forcing him on his knees, forehead pressed to the floor. He felt hands yank on his pants and knew what would happen - but there was no way he could prevent it. The cold of the air on his backside was very harsh - and then there was heat of another's body, and rough fingers tearing his buttocks apart, and blunt pressure violently pushing into him.

He wasn't stretched - and over the year he got out of habit - so, the tearing feeling was new every time - and inability to escape it as the other pressed his face to the floor - and the thing was tearing into him, pushing mercilessly, spreading him. He gnawed on his lip not to cry out but couldn't prevent a harsh gasp when, with a splash of hot pain and rending feeling, it slipped inside him.

He breathed with open mouth, trying to do it soundlessly but knowing it didn't help. The man slammed into him, deeper and deeper, boring with all his force, fingernails sticking into his thighs, pulling him closer. And then yanked out, which was almost worse than in, and thrust in again, and there was more blood and scalding heat. He felt dizzy but couldn't pass out.

It went on and on, and sometimes he felt he almost wasn't in this body any more, could watch it from aside - the filthy, skeletal, pathetic thing writhing on the floor under the bulky figure slamming into it - and knew there was pain but it seemed distant. But sometimes he knew with stunning clarity that the agony was his - because he deserved it.

He deserved it; there was time when he hadn't minded being taken harshly, in this position, even liked it a little rough. And as he had been doing it, he always thought about one man, one face - disheveled dark hair falling over the myopic eyes behind round glasses, a boyish smile. He knew he would never have this man, knew that telling him what he wanted would be losing him - and that was why he was ready to keep his mouth shut about it for all his life.

Just to stay with him, in his life, even as the man married - and he was his best man and stood next to him as he was kissing his lovely bride. And he became the godfather of their cute little son and held him on his lap, and the baby laughed and prattled happily as he bounced it a little - and the baby's mother looked at him with smiling green eyes.

Sometimes he wanted her dead; but it was a silly, wild thought, he knew it wouldn't change anything. And he didn't want it this way, never this way.

And yet it was his fault that they were dead now, his friend and the lovely woman, the baby orphaned - and he would never see them again. Apart from the dreams that made him wake with his face wet and a burning wish to die in his chest.

If only he could die.

He felt warm fluid spurted into him - and the cock withdrawing - and a few moments later the other one slammed in.

This one was so huge, it felt like tearing him apart, like shredding his insides into bloody rags - and he knew he bled but no one cared. He didn't care either, he deserved it.

"You enjoy it, don't you, little shit? Like a bitch on your fours, thrusting back in heat. I should make pictures of you like this next time. Oh, there's something missing, though."

He saw another wave of the wand and gritted his teeth, knowing what was happening. He didn't feel pleasure at all but the appearance was such, an erection without excitement and without release.

"Take care of your partner, Crabbe, why don't you?"

A beefy hand clasped on his cock, pulling and twisting it. It was pain, not pleasure, but it was all the same for him. He knew he just had to go through it, to the end.

And it would end, in a few minutes, it always did.

Finally the man, panting, came - and rose, wrenching his still half-hard cock out of him. He fell on his side, trying to pull his legs up, curling slightly. It felt like there was a gaping hole inside him, like there was something torn open in him. Hot blood ran over his legs, pooling under him on the floor.

"How do you feel, cousin?" The silver-buckled boots were next to him again, the voice almost concerned. "Tell you something, you look like shit."

"Why don't you..." He could talk again, and the erection was gone - the man probably used 'Finite Incantatem'. He struggled to raise his head from the floor. "Why don't you do anything yourself? Can't you?"

The shiny cane-knob - a head of a snake - flew into his mouth with shattering force. He felt his teeth crash and blood spill out of his mouth. He coughed, small bits of broken teeth falling out with spatters of blood.

"You talk." The voice was cold. "Have you forgotten what you are now? Nothing. Worse than nothing. A criminal and a whore. You are where you deserve to be. And your friend is dead."

He shivered as if he suddenly felt how cold it was.

"Because of you," the voice added. Through the tangle of hair he saw the disdainful face lowering to him slightly, thin mouth working. "I aim better than you," the man said landing a spit on his face.

The boots turned and walked to the door - and he lay, jerking in his bonds, trying to break them for one, last attack. But the door unlocked - and locked again - leaving him alone; and only then the bounds gave in, falling off his arms and neck. The man always timed his spells perfectly.

He could only sit up, bare legs smeared in blood and come pulled under him, and wrap his arms around himself. There were shivers running through his body, so violent his teeth chattered - and his bloodied mouth formed one shaky word, again and again.

"James. James."

He raised his numb hand to his mouth, wiping blood, and reached to the wall, wrote below the other notes, brown barely visible on the dark stone: "October 31, 1991."

The little piece of the sky behind the window was velvety black, with a small dot of a single star there.

In two weeks, his eleventh year in Azkaban would start.

THE END