Chapter Text
Epilogue
Ginny curled into a ball on her bed and shook, her hands scratching restlessly at her scalp as her weeping echoed through the prison.
No-one responded, no-one called out to her, not even Dolohov. He, like her other comrades-in-arms, had given up trying to calm her after their first few weeks of imprisonment.
Azkaban was nothing like she'd expected. She'd had ages to think about what it would be like. S
After all, she'd done little else during her time awaiting trial in St Mungo's.
She'd imagined that she would at least be able to somehow see her friends, her compatriots who had been, like her, imprisoned there.
She couldn't. Most of the high-security cells were empty, the vast majority of the Dark Lord's best having been killed throughout the war. The Ministry had chosen to fill them in such a way that none of them was facing another occupied cell.
They could still talk, of course, but it was hard to hold a conversation. The stone walls seemed to muffle sounds, replacing them with a menacing silence.
The only people who could even hear her were the others in the high-security cellblock; Dolohov, Rookwood, Wormtail, and Yaxley.
The others had been placed in the normal cells. Most of them hadn't even got life-sentences, and those that had still weren't deemed as high a risk as she and the few others in the more secure cells. Even Wormtail, she thought, wouldn't have gotten one of those cells except for the fact that he was an Animagus.
It was an honour, in a way, for her to be treated as such an object of fear.
Well, she tried to tell herself that it was an honour, but frankly, it was difficult to make herself believe it.
The ever-present cold bit into her, the totality of her failures weighing heavily on her already despondent mind.
Even with all the Ministry's improvements to it, even without the Dementors, Azkaban was every bit as terrible as she'd imagined it would be.
She'd noticed it already when she visited with the Dark Lord; how the prison itself imparted a Dementor-like sense of hopelessness and despair. She'd noticed it then, but she'd never really realized just how terrible it would be on a long-term basis.
It was worse than she could have possibly imagined.
Dolohov could say all he liked about how much better it was than when he'd last been imprisoned there, but it had no impact on her.
During her first few weeks there, she'd kept herself sane and entertained by imagining what she would do; how she would somehow escape and master Soul Magic, and how she would use that to restore the Dark Lord to life.
It hadn't taken her long to acknowledge those ideas for what they were; nothing more than the fantasies of a stupid girl who couldn't accept the totality of her defeat.
She'd need to escape to be able to do anything. And no matter how badly she wanted it, escape was beyond her capabilities.
Azkaban was simply too secure, too impenetrable. The guards patrolled regularly, and none of them came near enough to the cells for Ginny to reach through the bars and seize one of them. Even if, somehow, she would manage to grab one, it wouldn't help her.
They always patrolled in groups of at least two. And even if she managed to get a wand and get out of her cell, there were still dozens of security checks before even leaving the prison itself, and all of them manned.
No, escape wasn't a possibility outside of her wild dreams. She was trapped here, doomed to spend the rest of her life inside this shitty cell.
In truth, it wasn't as bad as what she'd seen during her visit with the Dark Lord.
A large part of the changes the Ministry had affected after the war had taken place at Azkaban. Ginny didn't see much of them, being as she was in the high-security cells, but she saw some nonetheless.
Instead of the buckets that had been in each cell, they now had actual toilets. There was a showerhead in the cell as well, set into the stone roof directly above a small drainpipe in the floor.
There was no privacy when using these facilities, of course, but it was better than nothing.
According to Dolohov, the food had improved too. They were also allowed one copy of the Daily Prophet every day, and there was discussion about allowing them, like the lower security prisoners, to leave their cells for a break period outdoors.
None of this improved Ginny's mood in the least. She was still trapped there, forced to confront her despondent thoughts and feelings for hours on end.
Azkaban had much the same effect on her as the presence of Dementors did; causing all of her worst memories and feelings of despair to rise to the surface.
Dreams of her family began to haunt her once more, wistful memories of the time when she had loved them and been loved by them. She saw them every night, her parents, her brothers, Luna.
They came to her every night and cried, berating her for betraying them so completely, for casting them aside when they would have done anything to help her, when they loved her with every fibre of their being.
It was as if being in Azkaban had torn apart all the progress she'd made in the last several years; once again, the thought of what she'd done to her family and Luna filled her with pain. She'd thought that she'd moved past that weakness. Azkaban, it seemed, was determined to prove her wrong.
It hurt again, just as badly as when she'd first decided that she wanted to serve the Dark Lord. Hell, it hurt worse than when she'd first actually killed her family. It wasn't that surprising, to be honest. Back then, she'd had something to look forward to, or been too caught up in the heat of the moment to think about it.
Now, she had nothing but time and regret.
Thoughts of the Dark Lord and Bellatrix still plagued her, of course. But for some reason, as her time in Azkaban grew longer, it was thoughts of her family and Luna which hurt the most.
Outside, the moon rose, its silvery light streaming through the tiny, barred window and bathing her in the glow.
She could hear the waves crashing up against the shore outside, could smell their salty tang.
That was the closest she would come to actually being outside, the closest she would come to being able to swim in the ocean.
From further down the block of cells, she could dimly make out Yaxley and Dolohov having a murmured conversation. She couldn't hear what they were saying, only that they were speaking and that neither of them sounded like they were drowning in their sorrows as she was.
She wanted to scream at them; to jump up and hurl herself at the bars, screaming obscenities and berating them for their disloyalty. How dare they go on with their lives, how dare they be able to think and talk merrily while the Dark Lord had died and taken all of Ginny's dreams with him?
She wanted to scream, but she couldn't drag up the energy to do so.
'You should be like them. Biding your time, waiting for the guards to grow indolent and lazy. You should be keeping your spirits up, so that when the time comes you can strike!'
The voice, as always, was entirely correct.
But what it asked was impossible. She couldn't simply carry on, couldn't just fight her way through the rest of her life.
It was all over for her.
She ran her hand along the cool stone wall, feeling the ridges and scratches, her left arm reaching beneath her shift and dragging down along her chest, her nails cutting into the skin.
Usually, it gave her some encouragement to look at the marking on the walls.
Whoever had been in this cell before her, they'd tried to carve messages into the walls. None of them were readable anymore if ever they had been. Still, the illegible scratches showed something, something important; someone else had been in this cell.
They'd had to have been a Death Eater, to have been kept in one of the high-security cells.
Which meant that whoever it had been, they'd survived Azkaban. None of the Death Eaters had died imprisoned there, so they had to have survived. They'd survived this hell, and it must have been worse back when there were Dementors there, and they'd gone on to fight for the Dark Lord once more. There must have been times when they wanted to just give up, times when they felt it was pointless.
They hadn't. If they could do it, she could do it.
For the past few months of her imprisonment, Ginny had been drawing strength from those scratches, reminding herself constantly that she could do it.
But she'd realized yesterday, or what she thought was yesterday, how foolish it was to draw inspiration from them. Though they'd been in her cell, they hadn't been in the same situation as her.
When they'd been imprisoned here, whoever they were, the Dark Lord had been alive. Even if they'd thought he was dead, he had still survived.
They'd had something to hope for, something to live for.
She had nothing of the sort. The Dark Lord was dead. She knew that, knew it all too well.
He was dead and he'd never be coming to rescue her, he'd never be coming to return her to his service.
The previous occupant had held out, and they'd been rewarded for it. She never would. Even if she forced herself to survive, it would all be for nothing.
Slowly, her tears and snot drying on her face, she pushed herself into her back, her gaze automatically flying up to the showerhead.
Her hands curled around the pants she'd been given, the long, thin pants she was wearing.
It would be so easy. She'd need to pull her bed over there so that she could stand on it, but it would be so easy.
Merlin, everything would be so good. There'd be nothing, no pain, no despair, no hopeless wishing for a life that she'd cast aside.
She'd be free.
For years already, she'd been wishing that Potter had simply left her to die in the Chamber. Well, it was too late for that, too late to change anything that had happened, too late to change anything she'd done.
But she could at least spare herself the future pain. What else was there for her? To spend the rest of her life like this, wiling out her days and wishing for an opportunity that would never come? To weep endlessly, always wishing that the Ministry had simply executed her?
No.
She couldn't do it. She wouldn't do it. Every cell in her body knew what the right thing to do was.
She didn't have to keep fighting any longer. She could finally rest, finally get the peaceful nothingness that Potter had denied her five years previously.
She could escape.
She'd tried already, the moment she saw that the Dark Lord was dead. She'd raised the wand to her head and began the words, started speaking the incantation that would grant her peace.
Sirius Black had stopped her then, that worthless animal who never deserved to share blood with a woman as brilliant as Bellatrix.
Sirius was not here to stop her now.
She'd tried again, in St Mungo's, when the Healers had stupidly left a bottle of Dreamless Sleep right next to her bed, close enough that she could grab it even with her chained down hands.
She still wasn't sure if it would have worked, but it had certainly been with a try.
She'd gotten it halfway to her mouth when one of her Auror guards had stopped her.
None of them were there to stop her now.
The guards had gone past her cell on their patrol within the last hour, and wouldn't be back for a while.
A cold, numb clarity settled over her, bringing a strange calm along with it.
This was it. There was no point in waiting any longer, no reason to hold out.
Everything had ended for her, and she would be damned if she would delay the inevitable.
'Bellatrix held out for fourteen years. Are you really going to give up so easily? After all that she did for you, you're going to spit on her memory like that?'
For a moment, her resolve wavered, fear twisting within her.
Then she gritted her teeth and set her jaw, nodding sharply.
'Bellatrix isn't here. She promised me that she'd stay with me forever, but she isn't here. I don't owe her anything. Not anymore. Fuck off and let me do what I need to.'
And for once, the voice fell silent.
It felt...oddly comfortable, to not have a part of her deriding her decision.
'I chose to die for him in my first year at Hogwarts. The only reason I didn't end it later was that I could live for him instead. I can't do that anymore. Let me at least be at peace. Let me not have this constant war with myself.'
Her tears dried up, a curious fluttering sensation making her insides squirm.
As quietly as she could, she stood up and gripped the bed, beginning to gently pull it across the floor, taking care to make no noise.
It would all be for nothing if she alerted the guards to what she was planning. If they found out...they'd stop her, and they'd find a way to make sure she'd never be able to try this again.
No, she only had the once chance.
'Better make it count. No noise.'
It was far easier than it should have been. The bed was light, and she pulled softly, moving it an inch at a time until it was directly beneath the showerhead.
It was good that the bed was light. That meant that it would be easy to kick it out from under her feet.
Her heart was racing, a bizarre mixture of excitement and terror thrumming in her.
This was it. Now, she'd finally be out of this hell her life had become.
She slipped out of her pants and sat back onto the bed.
'Merlin, am I really doing this? Am I actually going to do this?'
Images began to flash before her eyes, scenes of her life playing out in her last few moments.
Merlin, she couldn't believe that she had been happy once.
She held up her makeshift noose, eyeing it.
It looked like it would hold her. It didn't need to last for too long, just enough to choke the life from her.
That was all that she needed.
Tears began streaming down her face again, the realization that this was it beginning to burn at her.
'I need to do it quickly, before I lose my nerve.'
She would, she knew. If she left it too long, that little voice would come back, and it might be able to talk her out of it.
Her decision to finally do this had come in a flash, and she needed to act on it immediately.
'Hell, I was a Gryffindor. That's what we do, we run into things.'
As she was putting the noose over her head and preparing to stand on the bed, something caught her eye.
It had been hidden by her bed, something the cell's previous occupant had scratched into the wall.
She couldn't read what it said in the dim light, but even from so far away she could make out that it was actual words.
'Go see what it says,' the voice whispered. 'It'll only take a minute, and then you can do whatever you need.'
Feeling as if she was in a trance, Ginny rose and stalked across the room.
When she saw what had been scratched into the stone, her heart skipped a beat, the scars on her leg beginning to tingle.
'She said she'd be with you forever,' the voice whispered, more insistently than it ever had before. 'And she is. She lives on in you. If you kill yourself, you're killing her too. You can't do that. You can't let her dreams die. You can't let his vision die. She's with you right here. It's a sign. You can't do it. If you die, you're giving up. If you stay alive, maybe someday you'll at least be able to get revenge.'
Ginny dropped into the floor, a shocked laugh escaping her. Shaking, she lifted her hand and stroked the writing on the wall.
The tears pouring down her face made her vision blurry, that name in the wall dancing before her eyes.
Two words had been scratched into it, carved somehow into the stone in much the same way as they were carved into Ginny's flesh.
Just two words, just one name.
Bellatrix Lestrange.
Weeping, her whole body shaking with her sorrow, Ginny threw back her head and began to laugh.