A Feast in Azkaban

Nyx Fixx

June, 2005

I.

The newest prisoner will not eat. This cannot be permitted.

He is a novel acquisition; so much we have already sensed. There is much to be learned, much to be savored somewhere in him; we all sense that as well. All is locked away behind a wall of featureless despondency; cold dejection, a tantalizingly stubborn unwillingness to live. He will not eat. He does not sleep. He rarely even moves about in his cell. His thoughts are uniformly black and uninteresting.

He is resisting. It is our nature to know whether a warm blooded creature’s spirit is truly broken or not; it is our business as well. We cannot be deceived in this. There is a veritable glut of life left in him, this we know.

A feast of sorrow is left in him; this we suspect. We have begun to ache to taste this life; such obstinate resistance is seductive. He must eat; he will not be permitted to die just yet, not when there is still so much for each of us to learn; still securely hidden away from us all. We are patient, that is our way; there will be many more years ahead in which to pierce these guarded darknesses, every one of them. But not if the prisoner dies. 

Three weeks have gone by since last he took some of the nourishment his kind must have. He must eat. We have decided to persuade him. There are methods.

A new meal is prepared; several among us are already vying to claim the task of bringing this offering to the prisoner, of applying the proper compulsion. None among us has, so far, entered his cell. Tonight this will change.

Three of our number are chosen to serve the prisoner; others, many, gather round outside the cell to observe. We cannot see, we cannot watch; that is not our gift. We can only sense, we can only savor, we can only learn and taste and, ultimately, know. Many among us hope to taste a lesson tonight.

The keys are produced, their jangling in the cellblock corridor catches the attention of the prisoner in a way nothing else has before; we all hear the altered rhythm of his heartbeat, only momentarily. Then his breath catches, stops, resumes in a smooth, deliberately controlled cadence. The heartbeat slows until it has smoothed itself out into its original, untroubled rhythm. He has controlled it, set it back on its featureless track. It’s brilliant.

Such will. Resistance in such artistic detail. It’s marvelous. 

This prisoner must eat. Tonight. Our chosen three enter the cell. The feast begins.

II.

Sirius is not on a hunger strike. There is nothing he hopes to obtain from his new captors; so his object is not the application of passive coercion; not for protest, not for gain. There is nothing he wants.

He doesn’t touch the various wooden bowls of unidentified swill that appear in his space at intervals because he doesn’t quite remember what they are or how they might relate to him. He is locked fast in an internal landscape of grief so deep he has lost touch with cause-and-effect trains of thought. He does not expect to end his existence by avoiding the food, rather, he does not quite remember what effects such avoidance can have, nor does he especially want to end his existence. There is nothing he wants.

There is nothing Sirius wants, but he is no more able to stop his natural inclination to resistance than he can consciously stop the long habit of breathing. It is too deeply ingrained in him, far below any glimmering of conscious thought. He simply senses that his inhuman keepers want him to eat, and so he will not. It’s as impersonal a reaction as magnetism or gravity.

He has not been much aware of anything outside his own blank, black thoughts since he has been here, in his new home. His awareness is crushed flat under the weight of loss. All he sees are James’ empty eyes, glasses askew, pupils unevenly dilated, the left only a pinprick, the right a perfectly round dot of black. All he hears is silence, a house destroyed, not even a single breath left anywhere in it, and a baby crying outside. All he smells is a crisp fall night, and the faint scent of a Halloween bonfire, drifting across deceptively peaceful darkened fields from acres away.

All he tastes is blood. All he feels is frost.

All he knows is comprehension.

That, at least, can not be resisted. This grief is real; it has attached itself to every cell of him. Each detail of misplaced trust, of strategy gone amiss, of the final result, all this resonates in him with crystalline clarity. This is what has happened, this is how it happened, this is why it happened. So far, he has felt no fear of the dreaded Azkaban guards to whom he has been given at all. So far, he has barely noticed them. Perhaps it is their influence that keeps him so totally enmeshed in recent memory, but perhaps not. This grief is unimaginable, and indeed, he cannot imagine ever being less crushed in it than he is now.

The clinking of keys outside his cell door penetrates his seamless inattention only because it is a break in the dullness of prison routine; a routine he has already learned, in a relatively short time. Dementors have never entered his cell in his time here before; it sounds as if they may be planning to do that now. It occurs to him to wonder why they would, momentarily, and just past that small blip of curiosity is more than enough self-awareness to for him to experience fear. His heart rate increases.

Then resistance, as integral a part of Sirius as his skin or his blood, kicks in. These foul things who are his caretakers do not have eyes, he has seen that much. But he suspects that their hearing may be very, very good. And he has already sensed the cold greed with which they gather around fear; even through his mostly remote awareness of things he has sensed that much. He has slowed his own heartbeat back to its normal pace before he has even thought about how to accomplish it. He just does it.

He will not provide them with fear. And he will not eat. This issue may be growing into a bone of contention, he supposes. They are, after all, coming inside his barred cell. Three of them.

One of the things carries a bowl in its noisome hands. Another brandishes a wooden spoon. The third glides toward him, only stopping a foot or so short of the corner where he is huddled. It cocks its hooded head; he hears a wet snuffling; it is sucking in the air in his space, tasting it.

This is foolishness. We cannot permit it. You must take what we offer you now. 

Sirius bears down, hard, because there is more than fear in this. There is shock. He had never imagined that these things might speak to him. They do not use voices, per se. Their speech enters his mind through other means; he feels it like the faint, almost painless prick of fine needles. But it is, nevertheless, speech. He represses a shudder and looks up at the empty-handed member of the trio.

The thing appears to be pleased by his appraisal; there is a certain kind of cool satisfaction audible in its snuffling. Perhaps it is glad to have at least attracted his attention. He feels a sort of unpleasant shuffling about in his thoughts themselves, as though incorporeal hands were picking up thoughts and setting them down again, slightly out of place. It is an intrusive, ghastly sensation.

Of course we can speak, in our way. But we are told that what passes for our voices seem … unpleasant to your kind. Would you rather we spoke no further this night?

This is manipulation, Sirius understands. This is a threat, of sorts, but it is also an attempt to engage him in interaction. He does not reply, but something in him is glad of an opportunity for conflict. Something in him does respond to it and comes back, just a tiny touch, to life.

You must eat. Only agree, and no further conversation need take place tonight.

Conflict. A line drawn in the dirt. An ultimatum. Eat or we’ll make you eat. Sirius’ will hardens automatically; and although he does not realize it; he has not felt as connected to the real world as he does right now in months and months. He has been pressed too flat by grief and guilt. But now his captors are offering him a fight.

“Converse all you like,” he says, rustily, to the dementor nearest him. His own voice sounds strange, virtually unrecognizable to him; it has been so long since he has spoken aloud. “Chat away. Do any of you happen to know the results of the last Quidditch World Cup, by any chance?”

The thing sways with pleasure. Its two companions glide closer, eagerly, their implements of dining momentarily forgotten in their hands. Sirius can hear the crowd of them gathered outside the cell bars, rustling faintly, like dead leaves rattling in gutters. He feels again that sensation of psychic tampering in his head - thoughts, sensations, memories, everything - seized, examined, moved about. It is sickening, this ghostly violation, but he finds he can concentrate on the battle at hand and thereby tolerate it without screaming.

You must eat. We can do more than speak to you.

Cold, icy greed in that tone of not-voice. Sirius knows he would be terrified of it, were he not so intent on defiance. If he did not have a small internal supply of endless rage of his own to call on now.

“No doubt you can,” he answers. “No doubt you can do all sorts of things. But it’s clear to me that one thing none of you can do is cook a decent bowl of stew, or whatever that swill you have in the dish is meant to be. I’d much prefer some Dover sole tonight, I think, and perhaps a light Chenin Blanc. Perhaps one of you would be so good as to get word to the warden?”

Sirius has fallen back on the arrogance of manner that five hundred years of selective breeding has instilled in him. It is another small, dark part of his identity, like his rage, that he has always despised in himself and has, hitherto, had little use for. Now it serves him well.

It apparently serves the dementors all around him as a feast. They all rattle and creak with pleasure, every one of them. He understands that he cannot expect to win any battle against enemies that fairly tremble with pleasure at every touch of his weapons, but the battle is an end in itself and he is not quite ready to abandon it.

The nearest of them leans down, brings its hooded head near Sirius’ face. It reaches forward and its scaly, rotted hand passes over his head, just skimming his hair. It is a sort of tentative caress. Sirius convulsively swallows against a sudden onslaught of nausea and his face pales against the icy cold he feels coming off the thing’s exposed flesh in waves.

You must eat. Agree at once or suffer further persuasion.

“No,” he says, through numbed lips. “I will not.”

All that is in him that is more Padfoot than Sirius rouses, and he shows his enemies his teeth, even though he knows they cannot see. He feels the hair on the back of his neck stirring and understands that if he were currently wearing fur instead of skin, his hackles would be rising. There is a low, deadly growl trying to get started deep in his throat. His awareness of scents intensifies and he casts about, instinctively, for the scent of blood.

It is a pity that there is no blood in these enemies. 

You must eat. You must.

“No. I won’t.

Yes. Do it now. Your strength is failing. We much desire that you should live.

“I much desire that crossword puzzles should grow on trees. The answer is no.”

The dementor caresses his cheek, cold fingers against bare skin. Sirius cannot tell if it does this to impel, or if it is a gesture of pleased affection. The former, he desperately hopes. The touch revolts him beyond all immediate will and he shudders under the thing’s hand and jerks his head away. He does not want these things touching him at all; he especially does not want them touching him because they like him.

Ah, but perhaps we do like you. Perhaps we will grow to like you a great deal, in time. Your name… it’s … let us see …

He feels a cold presence pawing, once more, through his head. 

Ah. Sirius. You must eat, Sirius. Please eat.

“No.”

We can pet you until you scream, you know. Some of us. All of us. Sirius. Please. Only agree.

“No. I won’t.

Your obstinacy is exquisite. It is a banquet to us. It is seductive. Why continue? You must eat.

“No.”

The thing bends itself in its robes and kneels on the stone floor beside him. It touches his shoulder, it runs its hideous fingers through his hair, it touches his mouth. It rummages through his mind and sorts through memories roughly, avidly. If it could whisper, it would be whispering in his ear.

Such intransigence borders on insanity. Where does this madness come from in you? Why continue to refuse? You are sick with horror; each of us can feel it. Each of is feeding on it. You must eat. Please agree.

Sirius is so revolted he can barely speak. But he manages anyway.

“No. I won’t.”

The dementors in his cell sway with avaricious pleasure. The one at his side sucks up the air nearest him hungrily, leaving him none, snuffling near his ear. The crowd of them outside almost coos; he hears his name repeated, again and again, in their needle-like un-voices. They are imploring, all of them. It is horrifying.

“No,” he says, his voice cracking. “No. I will not.”

He doesn’t know why he must continue to refuse. He’s never known why.

It goes on in this way until Sirius loses whatever grip he has on consciousness and slides into a memory, one evoked by the nearness of his captors, and by their inquisitive greed. It is a memory like a dream, but it is more than memory, it is also life. His life, complete, one moment out of time.