The water hit an island of stone far away. The spray wound its way through narrow crevices and quarries. But it did not get to the center of the island. Just the damn salty air kept filling the air. And his lungs.
His skin was not spared from the salt either. It was encrusted and popped out individually. The lips were one open wound. The skin on the feet tore under the toes and left bloody cuts.
Only the eyes seemed to be alive. The confused sparkle hadn't left them for three years, the sparkle as if you were holding your godchild by the arm for the first time ... And it was eyes that caught the eye of the other prisoners on the man.
They were marked by deep innocence.
And for a bloody three years the man had seemed to be there. Not like some others who rumbled through their cell after a year, staggering and screaming, total madness had seized them. A third had already died, at least half of them from the dementors.
The bars quivered and trembled when a prisoner began to travel again at his cell door. Dull screams echoed through the stone corridors and cells. Soon this prisoner too, his hands clenched on the bars, would lose his strength and sink to the floor from exhaustion. Then redemption would be revealed for him. A slow but redeeming death.
He shuddered. As always. As always when the others began to defend themselves against their fate. There was no point anyway. You were here forever, forever and ever.
It slid down the wall. Was received harshly and ungraciously by the ground.
His hand, the bones stood out clearly, ran through the matted and lank hair. Suppressing the emerging memories and thoughts. Memories of his childhood, his school days, his fight against him ... of his friends.
He hit his head hard against the wall. Holler's pain felt for his heart. His head crashed into the wall again. They should go away, go away. These thoughts.
Again the shiver flowed through his body, stronger. The prisoner next door had started calling for death. Pathetic, bitter but determined screams of rage rose from the parched throat and filled the night as always.
He looked up at the sky.
Again he hit his head against the wall. Harder and harder. A trickle of blood ran down his neck.
And the moon that stood in the sky seemed to soak up the screams. The moon in its round, full shape. Full moon.
The memories streamed back on him immediately. Too many, too beautiful, too ephemeral.
And he allowed her.
The angular, scarred face, with the amber-colored eyes and the narrow mouth rose out of the darkness. The young man smiled at him. And it seemed as if he was talking to him that he was
No!
That was an illusion. A damned, dreamed up illusion. It hurt his heart, it hurt so damn it! How hard it tried to suppress it, it didn't work. The thoughts broke the mental dam and everything streamed through his head, before his eyes.Moony must have thought he was a murderer! A traitor who sacrificed his friends! He had to believe he had killed the Crown and the Wormtail!
It was the rat, the miserable, lying rat!
Crown was dead! His brother ... and Lily! The little star ...
He saw it. The two corpses. Brave crown, with wide-open eyes and hair that was always tousled. He had faced the deadly curse so that the two people who had meant most to him could flee.
The sight had been a shock, the step into the abyss.
And Lily's body lay limp over the cradle, her red hair hugged her peaceful face that looked as if she were asleep.
And the little one ... he had to be four now. He had been through terrible things!
Wormtail the traitor! You never would have thought that it was the smallest who worked as a spy for HIM. The little appendage!

And his heart went cold. It seemed to freeze.
A hiss followed him.
A dementor slipped past his cell. The messenger of death on this island.
You could hear the gasping breath, the salty air was drawn under the hood. Happy and happy memories that he no longer had with her. Maybe that's why it didn't turn out like the others ...
His head hit the stone wall again. The trickle swelled up. Flowed down his back now.
The screams from next door had turned into gasps and coughs. And the bars stood still. A choked gasp, one last sharp scream and there was a thud. Something hit the floor.
In his head he saw what was going on in the next cell. Two days ago, the iron guards on this island had also executed the prisoner opposite his own cell, with bare presence. You could really hear how the twinkle in the cloudy eyes went out, the breath was still and the heart froze.
Both hands were probably still holding the bars tightly.
And a deep cold spread over the island.
His head sank back against the stone wall and he closed his eyes. He felt the bloody spot throb.
No, he wasn't going to be like that. He would never die with that guilt. He had to see the boy, he had to help Moony understand, he had so much more to do ...

You could hear the door next door being opened. The next moment it fell back into the lock. Sanding cloth over stone, and a man, wrapped in a black cloak, pulled and dragged the dead prisoner behind him. A low chuckle from the other cells followed the prisoner's last walk to the cliff. A kind of death melody. Then the black tide received him. The current didn't care who he was.
Nobody knew his name. Nobody knew what he had done wrong. What was it like in his past. Was he even to blame for what he was here for?
He was just one of many ...

And his eyes stared into space ...