NINTH CIRCLE, regulus black

EXTENDED SUMMARY

Though those that are betray'd do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor stands in worse case of woe.
—— William Shakespeare

BETRAYAL WAS INEVITABLE in one's life, and of that, Harper Pierce was certain. Betrayal was a powerful word, capable of producing imagery of some backstabbing creature from the very depths of hell, fangs dripping with the mahogany blood of the innocent. Such a dark being, this traitor must be, for someone capable of such a dastardly act surely must have been the spawn of the devil, no? Yes, this creature was birthed in his lair and fed with spite, charred with the hellfire it had been born out of; for anyone capable of such an act was raised from the fiery prison that all sinners went to when their last breath was taken in a shuddering rasp. For traitors were doomed to the eternal damnation of hell, bound to the sweltering heat that bore them. "And they deserved it!" the crowds would echo, as people rejoiced — for why shouldn't they? Sinners were sinners, and traitors were traitors, one and the same to be thrown into hell, the only place that would take the damned.

YET NOT ALL SIN WAS the same, and the living understood such distinctions; from the robbers to the murderers to the traitors. They all had their separate distinctions marking their hierarchy in the damp, wet halls, for as court proceedings continued on the outside, the prisoners' court reigned inside. Harper Pierce knew of this hierarchy better than others, having been compliant in it since the day she entered the system. Sure, she was all bitter glares given to the dementor guards, who fed on her endless well of anger and fiery heat. She was all screams and cries and tantrums like a little child, the fire sustaining her burning out as the soulless fed on her desolation, her flame, her spark of life. But that didn't last for long. Harper was a terrible liar — after all, she did get caught— but she was a quick learner. This was why she quickly learned to stay in the dark shadows of Azkaban, for she would rather extinguish her spark by herself than let a dementor suck it out of her. She stayed in the cold corners and let the darkness and desolation envelop her. She lived in the absence of light, hoping to rid herself of sight so she wouldn't have to watch the fights breaking out beside her, so she wouldn't have to see her cellmates lie in a mass of blood and bone. Sinners were sinners, yes, that is true; but for the murderers, for the rapists, for the traitors — prison was the Ninth Circle of Hell. In the absence of the very government that had thrown them into such a hostile environment inhabited by literal soul-suckers, the so-called sinners took it upon themselves to create their own.

AND THAT WAS THE ORIGIN of the classes used to discriminate between the sinners, for this place had its own circles of hell; one for the robbers, one for the murderers, and one for the traitors. Harper pitied the traitors, for even in the vicinity of such individuals of varying degrees of evil, they were treated the worst. Who would dare associate with the backstabbers, unless you yourself wished a knife to be plunged into your heart? Who would want, as you look away from these creatures, for their dagger to find a home in your back? This was exactly why the prisoners weeded out the traitors first and jumped upon them at the first chance, to rid those sinners of the life they lived in some sick form of community service — after all, traitors would always be traitors, no matter what some idealists believed.

SO THEN CAME THE SUMMER of 1976, beamed back up to the purgatory (which at least was better than the circles of hell) her strength sapped, yet her resolve unbroken — for the cold had dimmed the fire, yet the embers still burned with the bitter taste of revenge unfinished. But why had she entered hell anyway? Harper remembered the day very clearly, acidic on her tongue as she even thought of it. The very peak of her adolescence, when it should have been all teenage dreams and regimes of gossip queens, was a time Harper spent in mourning, her eyes bloodshot and face tear-stained. Harper was made for none of those lies, her expression sober and acidic enough to bleach her own tie of red and gold an ugly white — blank, house-less, outcast. And on that bright, sunny morning in Pierce Manor, she decided she would like to become orphaned as well. Sinners were sinners, and traitors were traitors, and as she woke, her father ceased to, a knife plunged into his heart, her courtesy. But in the circles of hell, where did Dorian Pierce go? He was a sinner of the worst kind, yet his record was spotless, never stained red with the dirty blood of his opponents. After all, he did no dirty work — his hands were always immaculately manicured, and never chewed down (unlike Harper, whose own nails were down to little nubs and skin peeling off in some desperate ploy to reveal the bitterness within her). But despite her skin betraying herself, Harper was no traitor, truly. She only did what she wished — her words though unminced, were honest — which had bought her safety at the hands of the prisoners. No, Harper was a good one, she swore! She was no traitor, she was an honest to god murderer.