Cold

Cold.

That's all you've ever known: cold.

You see the world through the tunnel of your hood, and you glide up and down the stone hallways between the prisoners, and sometimes you wonder whether the bars on their cells are keeping them locked in or keeping you locked out.

Because there is something in each of those cells that calls to you—something utterly foreign, something you've never seen or touched, but something you're longing to caress against your cheek, something you're longing to consume. Each cell contains a light, a warmth, and the longer you stalk these corridors the more you yearn to pass your face through the bars and beckon with one long, rough finger to that precious silver blaze they call a soul.

(They say the prisoners here go mad, and you often wonder whether they're talking about the men or the Dementors.)

Sirius Black is a murderer.

They put him in one of the cells that lines your hallway. His soul is brighter than the prisoners who neighbor him—he's new, after all, and the new ones are always stronger at first. You always pause for a moment when you pass his room. You turn your hooded, tunneled vision toward Black's face, and you suck in a slow breath, and you taste that soul as it hovers in the air like a mist.

"Get back." His eyes are haunted. "I'm innocent."

You know it doesn't matter. They all say that at first.

"James," Black says. "I'm sorry."

Your name isn't James, but you have no way to tell Black that, and so you simply move on.

His soul burns brightly for months—years—and you wish you could ask him why.

Bellatrix Lestrange is a sadist.

They give her the cell next to Sirius', and they warn you not to come too close. She thrives on her worst memories, they say. She lives for the screams you make her hear in her head. Your kind only makes her stronger.

Your curiosity gets the better of you one night, and you glide up to her cell as she sleeps and watch her chest rise and fall. There is a soul shining between her ribs—you can see it—and the longer you linger, the brighter it becomes, until it almost burns your eyes.

She smiles and twitches in her sleep. You wonder what she's dreaming about.

"Bloody madwoman," says Black from his cell, and you move away from Lestrange and continue your rounds.

Barty Crouch is a Death Eater.

He's a child when he arrives, and he screams all day and night, but he stops when you come near, and so you spend your time lurking in front of his cell. His skin is pale, save for the black stain of ink on his forearm, and you notice that the soul burning in his chest is not quite as tempting as Black's or Lestrange's.

"We'll be rewarded beyond our wildest dreams," says Lestrange when Crouch goes silent. "The Dark Lord rewards his loyal followers."

"The Dark Lord is dead," Black says.

Lestrange cackles. "The Dark Lord will never die."

You know she lies. There is no soul capable of shining forever.

Mundungus Fletcher is a thief.

They don't usually put thieves in your jurisdiction. The hallways you guard are reserved for the life sentences, but it's Fletcher's tenth arrest in as many months, and they're trying to teach him a lesson. They put him across from Lestrange, and he whimpers and shakes and cries and curses for the entirety of his twelve-day stay.

His soul goes out like a light when you come down the hallway. "Baby," Lestrange says, leaning against the bars with her arms hanging out the window. "What a sorry excuse for a Slytherin."

"Don't listen to her, Dung." Black is lying in the back corner of his cell with his arms folded behind his head. "This place does terrible things to those of us who are sane."

"Expecto patronum," Fletcher says. Nothing happens. "Expecto patronum." He has no wand. "E-expecto patronum!"

"Give it a rest," says Black.

You rarely bother to check on Fletcher. He isn't worth it.

Rubeus Hagrid is a pureblood supremacist.

He's been setting a basilisk loose at Hogwarts and commanding it to attack Mudbloods. That's what they tell you when they put him in your hallway. He's killing students to send a message to their parents, and he's safer behind bars.

"Didn't do it," Hagrid says every time you look in on him. His soul is large, and warm, and it tempts you like all the other souls tempt you, and you wish you could reach within those bars and pluck the light from between his ribs and touch it. "Go 'way—I didn't do it, didn't do it, didn't—Dad—Dad, no, come back, Dad, please—"

You think you would pity him if you knew how.

They leave you one by one.

First it's Fletcher, at the end of his sentence. He shakes so much they have to carry him out on their backs.

Hagrid is found innocent, and they take him back to the school.

Black escapes. They don't know how. The Mistry looks into it, but none of their officials stay very long. They complain about the cold. Lestrange barks like a dog when they ask whether she saw anything, and they sigh and shake their heads and wonder aloud whether she's always been insane or whether the Dementors have broken her.

Crouch dies. He changes toward the end; his soul is weaker, feebler, and he stops screaming.

Lestrange breaks free. You watch her go, and part of you knows you should stop her, but you don't—can't—not when she's finding her way back to that immortal soul.

You hope she'll bring it back here one day.

Maybe then you won't be so cold.

Quidditch League, Round 4: Creature Comforts

Holyhead Harpies, Seeker

Prompt: Write from the point of view of a Dementor

Word Count (MacBook Pages): 981