About Harry

Chapter 24 - It's over

Harry had been to Azkaban many times already and didn't like the place.
It was a desolate and ugly building. A tall and square double wall with four tall turrets were surrounding the main building, a rectangular edifice built of big grey stones. The windows were small, spare and barred.
The island on which it was build was bare in winter as in summer. It was a cliff on the water. Nothing grew on it. It was dusty and the sea washing over it didn't improve the scene.
After the Voldemort bringing down, dementors were driven out of the place so Harry had never seen it with them floating around. But it seemed like the feeling instilled by those creatures lingered, nevertheless. He couldn't picture how this place could have been even more desolate and forlorn than it appeared to his eyes. Happiness abandoned people when entering its walls, prisoners or not.
Harry always felt very much for the witches and wizards working there; you would never hear a laugh or joke, not even among them. Their uniform was grey and dull, everything seemed to be grey and dull.
Harry couldn't remember ever being sunny there. It was always either foggy, or raining or cloudy like that day when it looked even more forbidding than usual.
The entrance door was in iron and small. When he leaned to pass through, was immediately greeted by the guards. They knew him well and they knew why he was there.
'Hello Harry' said the one to which Harry was on a first-name basis coming forward. His name was Earnest they had chance to chat time to time when he was there for business. Harry liked him, there was an air of honesty and simplicity about him that he valued.
It was at first glance that he understood what was about to come, and there, on the entrance, surrounded by the other guards, he uttered the following words: 'I just wanted to tell you on behalf of everybody here that we regret very much what happened. We were very sorry to hear it.' He wavered for a moment while everybody else nodded sombre and then he added with uneasiness, the weakened voice forbidding him to conclude the sentence 'I have got a daughter of the same age...'
He seemed sincere and Harry knew it was felt unlike many other words of condolences he had had to submit to.
He nodded not needing that sentence to end, and him, after Harry had left his wand to the guard standing beside the door, didn't add anything else conducting him across the second wall leaving everybody else behind.
They crossed the empty and miserable courtyard; a few benches and a frail looking tree was everything that could be seen in it.
After being searched, more guards let them pass through the door for the main building.
Inside was chilly and a sense of general dampness stuck to the clothes. A few torches were lit emitting a feeble glow that seemed swallowed by the grim atmosphere.
It was bright outside despite not sunny, yet inside one could scarcely see some light. The windows were too small and the inside too vast. Torches were lit night and day.
He was escorted through a vast room and then first to a corridor and then to another. Every few steps they stopped, and Earnest pronounced incantations under his breath to allow them to pass through the security spells casted in the building. Many doors, all alike, opened on it. Harry reflected on how many wizards were behind those doors because of him. The hunt of Death Eaters had lasted for years and wasn't over yet. Some managed to flee abroad and they were still actively looking for them. But most of them were in those cells waiting for their life to end.
Harry thought that, in a way, it would have been better for them to still have dementors. At least they would have had the certainty of a speedy madness and consequently death. Being as it was, they just had countless, joyless and grim days in front of them. Nothing to look forward to, if not the end. Some committed suicide after a few years with the same method Ron had tried.
It was a bleak prospect. But they brought it on themselves. They were paying for the atrocity they did in the past.
Earnest halted in front of one door looking exactly like all the others.
'Here' he said. He drew on the sturdy wood a symbol with his wand that glowed feebly in the dark vanishing quickly, and the door opened on a small dismal room made of big blocks of stone, the walls bare and shiny with moist, the ceiling high and a lonesome tiny window projected a square patch of light in the middle of the room.
A wooden bench was attached to the wall and Ron was sitting on it emaciated and wild looking: his hair uncombed, the beard grown, big shadows under his eyes. His garments were wrinkled, dirty and ripped in places.
He detected Harry behind the guard and his eyes widened in stupor. Apparently, he hadn't been informed of his visit.
The sight of him awoke in Harry the anger felt before. Seeing Ron so despondent irritated him. He had no business in being dejected. He would have preferred to see him defiant, at least he would have had a reason to physically vent out his frustration.
None of them spoke. Harry had confirmation of what Ted said just a few hours before in Earnest's eyes. Usually, guards kept their face expressionless in front of inmates, but, on this occasion, one could clearly see contempt depicted on it.
'Time to go' Earnest said flatly.
They got back through the corridors and the vast room, Ron marching in front of them. Harry's glance was fixed by the rhythmical movement of this man in front of him. Ron had been his best mate for more than half of his life, he had found in him a complicity he never had with anybody else until going to Hogwarts, being the source of his first laughs and happy moments after eleven years of total loneliness and bullying. Ron had shared his own family with him who had none. He owed him so much, so many cheerful memories in between the dark times and, yet, everything was gone, like if it never happened, neutralized by one single act. But such an act that rendered impossible for Harry to rekindle what he knew it was still there, somewhere. Hate was raging in him like a thunderstorm. If it wasn't for Ron, he could still have his precious little girl to brighten his days. This was not something that could be either forgiven or forgotten.
They crossed the courtyard in silence. The sudden light blinded Harry's eyes for a moment and from a flinching in Ron's demeanour he knew that the same had happened to him. It was the first time for Harry to take somebody out of Azkaban and the first time that he was leaving the place with this fierce mood.
He'd usually took people in and no matter how difficult or dangerous the capture had been, he always felt good in leaving knowing that he had done his duty and thanks to him there was one less evil wizard to worry about.
But now Harry was letting Ron out from that gloomy prison and he, with what had done, had locked him in a far worse place than Azkaban.
They reached the double walls and the aversion from the guards toward Ron was palpable, they let them pass through the small iron door, and one of them shoved roughly in Ron's hand a small bag containing his wand and personal effects while Earnest gave Harry a friendly pat on the shoulder and a parting good wish together with his wand. The door closed behind them with a clank.
Alone, they started to walk side by side in that god forsaken place, and Harry could barely contain the frustration.
Then, Ron halted. 'Harry, I don't know how to say this. I'm sorry...' he said contrite.
Harry halted too, few steps in front of him. He turned slowly, putting all his effort in mastering his rising temper 'Spare me' he answered with a frown 'If you are hoping for an absolution from me, you will find is in vain.'
Ron lowered his eyes defeated, 'I'm not looking for anything of the kind. I know I cannot hope for it. I feel awful. Lil..'
'Don't you even dare to pronounce her name' he tailed him off sharply.
Ron nodded. The wind was blowing, rising the yellowish dust around them.
'I see how you feel. I can't blame you. Thank you for letting me out and everything.'
Harry looked at the miserable and battered looking man in front of him, his shoulders hunched, his eyes incapable to meet his own, and for a split second he saw the frecklish thin and gangling boy that was gaping at his scar the first day they met.
It was time to put an end to it.
'I didn't do it for you' he spat in defiance 'I've done it for your sister, for Hermione and your kids. But not for you. Perhaps, for what has been, but definitely not for what it is now.'
He stopped speaking for a moment, but Ron didn't reply, taking in every word limply. Harry was irritated by this listlessness, he rather wished to provoke him into a fight, but constrained himself, what he had to say was more important.
'It's my turn to say this: I want you out of my life. This is the last time I lay my eyes on you. You are free to go wherever and see whoever you wish. I'm not as unreasonable as you have been. You are free to see my family if they want to see you. But not when I'm around. If you decide to be somewhere, I won't be there.' Ron was motionless in front of him, still avoiding his gaze.
'It's over.' He concluded.
He turned his back on him spite scorching him in the deep and marched away, leaving him there, alone, standing in the middle of the nothingness of the place, with windswept hair and torn clothes.
Harry didn't look behind. He didn't hesitate. He took just one step more, the last one, and disapparated away.