The Keepers' Evil

Thirty-Seven: You've more than proven yourself

Song- Come over (again): Crawlers

"You've more than proven yourself."

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People seemed to find gravity and let it take them to the ground as if it would seemingly cure their blindingly depressive episodes. I always thought this to be strange, but nonetheless somewhat healing, like my spine that became embedded within the carpets of the common room and the wooden slates of my dorm room would ground me to the earth, releasing my stresses back into the channels of the world to allow them to find another poor soul to torment. It was of a similar effect in Azkaban.

Though it held chains and bars, coldness and a villainous chaos, it seemed finding the earth beneath my hands was a universally calming experience. The tough ridges of my spine pressed painfully uncomfortably against the stone slates of the floor, and my hands seemed to engulf the frozen film the ground seemed to harden with. There was a rarity in the silence, often what peace could be found was harshly broken by the stab of a scream or the drag of a body beyond the cell that held me, and though it was occasional, it was there.

The ceiling had been an underestimated entertainment; the unnoticeable swirls in the grey matched to pictures in my mind and the activity proved to be similar to cloud watching. I could subtly make out a small bird, the tip of my fingernail dragging slowly through the air to better craft the image in my mind through the drawing. I always found myself chuckling a little at the ease of it all, at the power of my mind perhaps, because all I was required to do was trace the shapes and my mind would fill out the rest.

Sometimes I could see a tree, and my clever mind would decipher that the tree was full of deep green leaves. Sometimes they were a crunched orange and brown, and occasionally the tree was barren. I smiled when I was rewarded by my head's little addition of fruit that hung prettily from the ends of the branches. Apples, pears, olives even, that I rather longed for taunted me a little, but all I had to do was simply turn away and it would all disappear.

Alexander slept more than what could be considered normal, but I supposed that dreaming was somewhere else, it was somewhere far away where the birds continued to sing and the warm flurries of a summery wind could find you, it was somewhere where the touch of someone you loved could be found against you once more.

"Don't you think this constitutes as going slightly insane, Seb?" The tiny whisper beside me rested her head against my shoulder, her hands stowed in a clasp against her stomach as she shuffled her back against the stone as I had. I couldn't deny the soft smirk in response to Madeleine's gentle appearance, but I too couldn't allow the nag that the word insane brought to my mind.

"Probably." The breathy chuckle that left my lungs was one of relief, but also an apprehension that followed understanding that reality wouldn't permit her to be real just yet. My mind seemed to constantly flood with the drowning thoughts of what if.

What if she couldn't find it justifiable enough to come for me?

What if she physically couldn't come for me?

"Are you okay?" I wanted my eyes to find hers, to see the orbs of pearled and mellowed warm brown, to get lost and wrapped up in the gentleness of her kindness again. All that I could hold onto were the mists of what my mind wanted her to say, to ask, and I supposed that if it was unstable to cling to the mirage of her, then I was okay traversing the precarious world beneath my feet.