Prison

I have been existing in my prison for three months now. Although my magic is still with me, and I grew myself new eyes in three days, I cannot find a way out. I continue to exist in this emptiness, having created for myself, with the help of eternal transfiguration, a dwelling resembling a module of a space station, which I support with levitation runes drawn with my own blood.

Sometimes I leave my house and try to get out of this little world. I have tried everything I know, but the walls of my prison are indestructible. Spells do not harm it, transfigured objects break against it, and the ritual knife bounces off. I am already tired of growing fingernails. I can move by apparition and phoenix only within the confines of my prison, and even Nagini is not able to carry me away from here.

I call the Death Eaters, trying to give them orders—telling them not to panic and to look for me. But I feel that the signal is distorted. I sense emergency calls from my servants, who remain somewhere out there. These signals prevent me from sleeping and distract me from my next attempts to escape, but I cannot understand the meaning of their messages. There is a connection, but nothing can be transmitted over it!

In principle, everything is not so bad. It would be worse in Azkaban: I would have a smaller cell, I would not be able to cast a spell, and there would be annoying dementors. Here, I even have an interlocutor—Nagini. But it would be better if I had ended up here with Bellatrix.

Again and again, I beat against the walls of my prison.

I really wanted to use sacrifice, but there are no objects for sacrifice here: only me and Nagini. And I do not want to kill Nagini. Maybe over time, Albus's spell will weaken, and she will be able to move me. But bloodletting has become my hobby; I can already call myself an honorary donor. It's just a pity that everything hematopoietic has run out.

Never mind, though. I am close to brewing a blood-forming potion in a transfigured cauldron, using conjured water and a new recipe. It includes my blood, hair, nails, feathers, and the scales of my familiar. And nothing more…

Albus Dumbledore… Who are you? I have a feeling that he is the heir of Slytherin, and I am, at best, a smart Gryffindor. If you knew how much I hate you... If my hatred were equal to my magical powers, Albus would die right now...

Maybe when he was trying to get me out of here, I shouldn't have resisted and risked fighting him and his minions. I shouldn't have thrown away the Time-Turner. Oh, I shouldn't have... I'll have to always carry a second one with me!

Right now, I was writing a list of things I would do when I escaped from here on transfigured clay tablets. So, toilet paper with a photo of Dumbledore... What else could I think of? I should probably create new text for the inserts for the chocolate frogs featuring Albus…

On another stack of clay tablets, I was writing a list of things I should always carry with me. The list was headed by Pandora Lovegood, whom I had transfigured in my house that very day, followed by everything—victims for Dark Magic, ingredients for potions, and freeze-dried food for ten years. The last item was underlined several times.

I had potions with me. I had amulets and artifacts. But no food! If only I had a crumb of bread that could be increased in volume. If only one seed of wheat!

Okay, let's not talk about sad things. Albus, you are such a bastard... He must have thought something like this: "I will not kill the Dark Lord; I am not a murderer! I will simply lock him in a place without food and water, and I will not feed him. It is not my fault that he died! Look, there's no necroenergy coming in!"

It's immediately obvious he's been communicating with Grindelwald, and the ideas about concentration camps haven't been forgotten...

"Master, it's time for you to train," Nagaina told me.

"Just a minute, my dear. Let me read you some poetry?"

"As you wish, Master."

When Tom was in Russia, he used the simplest way to learn the language: a ritual based on strict Legilimency against a native speaker. A Muggle was chosen as the victim, and this Muggle knew a couple of poems in Russian. One of them was "The Captive Knight":

I sit silently by the dungeon window;

I can see the blue sky from here:

All the free birds are playing in the sky;

Looking at them, I feel both pain and shame.

There is no sinful prayer on my lips,

There is no song of my beloved glory:

I remember only ancient battles,

My heavy sword and iron armor.

I am now encased in a stone armor,

The stone helmet presses on my head,

My shield is enchanted from arrows and swords,

My horse runs, and no one controls it.

Swift time is my unchanging horse,

The helmet's visor is the bars of the loophole,

The stone armor is the high walls,

My shield is the cast-iron doors of the dungeon.

Run faster, flying time!

I feel stuffy under the new armor!

Death, when we arrive, will hold my stirrup;

I will tear off a tear and tear the visor from my face.

"Master, who is a knight?" Nagini asked me.

"It's like Albus, only in iron," I answered.

"A bearded faggot in iron?" Nagini tried to clarify.

"Yes, Nagini, that's exactly it," I said with a grin. Without Nagini, I would have to transfigure a parrot for myself. And train it to speak...

"I do not understand, Master. You said that Albus had you... So you're a faggot too?" Nagini asked.

"No. I'm a spectacular loser. Let's not talk about sad things, especially about Albus."

"Can we eat, Master?" Nagini asked me.

"And why isn't my familiar a pig..." The phrase about food made me shudder slightly. Food can't be conjured. I don't have anything to grow food from.

I don't even have a can of food to increase its volume and stretch it out a little. I would eat Nagini, and then she would be reborn again, but phoenixes are not edible.

After casting a pain-relieving spell and an anti-bleeding charm, I created an ordinary knife out of thin air. A few blows of the knife, and my hand lost a solid piece of meat. A series of swings of the wand—and the piece of meat increased to the size of a small child. Some of the meat went raw to Nagini, who eagerly began to eat it, and the other part went to be baked for me. Another series of wand passes—and my wound healed without scars. Soon, the tissue volume would be restored.

How I hate you, Albus… And human flesh really does look like chicken...

There is nothing to eat here, and I don't want to die. No one can survive three months without food. So I found a solution very quickly: autocannibalism. Fortunately, thanks to magic, this turned out to be possible. Conjuring water in sufficient quantities is easy. But now, I know many ways to cook meat. It's a pity that the only seasoning is table salt—it can be conjured, like water.

Perhaps this is Albus's plan. In my place, someone might think about it, rethink everything, and repent. But not me. This realization only filled me with anger toward Albus. Now it's personal...

I'll go sleep, then practice.

I had a dream. I was walking through the ruined streets of a Muggle city, under the eternal fog of England and a low sky. Then, Albus Dumbledore appeared in the sky as an angel, his halo a bent Elder Wand, emitting powerful streams of magic. I ordered an attack, and my troops rushed forward, led by me, but Albus simply pulled a hair from his beard, tore it in half, muttered a strange spell, and we all instantly turned into nothing.

I woke up in a cold sweat.

How tired I am of this Albus; even in my dreams, there is no peace from him. It would be better to dream of a naked Bellatrix, like last time. Albus, how did you do it? It is clear that you somehow altered my painting, but how? It's like counting all the bricks in London to the last one—theoretically possible, but in practice, impossible.

I have only one explanation: while all the Gryffindors at Hogwarts get a password to the common room, Albus got the passwords to reality. He learned them by heart and mumbles them to himself when he needs something.

This can't go on any longer: it's time to turn my bed into a makeshift Pensieve. I didn't want to do this; it would be like admitting that I'm here for the long haul. The problem is that the runes need to be applied to regular wood, not transfigured. Okay, for this matter, I'll take apart one of my magic wands.

I wonder how things are without me. Is there a civil war going on, or has everyone fled? Is anyone looking for me, and how successfully? The Lestranges—Bella, Barty? Snape? Snape and Lily only have a week. Are they alive or dead? Or did Snape come up with something? Did he bypass his oaths, rush to repent before Dumbledore, or use his experience with homunculi, or just slightly delay his death?

How is Nessie? Did she give birth or not? And the Carrows? How is Bellatrix? Does she remember me, or is she already being questioned at the trial? I hope the trial will be covered by someone like Skeeter. This will be the trial of the century: according to Bellatrix Lestrange's testimony, an S&M bon Dominant was present at her wedding to You-Know-Who!

And then I don't remember anything, but the next day my legs hurt. Considering that S&M bon Dominant is Albus's nickname... Well, the old man was drawn to BDSM at the end of his life; it happens, love knows no age. And even Voldemort's wife... Rodolphus Lestrange can be accused of being a taster of wives for the Dark Lord. Rabastan Lestrange really wanted to study, devoting all his time to his studies.

But the only way to get a Time-Turner is to raid the Department of Mysteries. How are my "Horcruxes"? What about the new Horcrux from the "volunteer"? How is the new batch of Werewolves marinating at the Well of Princes? I hope Snape is smart enough to kill them—I was counting on keeping one batch at the source for two months at most.

Are the Lestranges keeping a good eye on Horace Slughorn and Aberford Dumbledore? Especially Aberford; he is especially dangerous now. But the most fun will be if it comes to Lily's trial. I wonder if I was convincing enough when I presented the evidence that her husband died because of Albus. It will be funny if she says at the trial that I am good. Veritaserum allows you to find out the truth—more precisely, what the defendant considers the truth.

I remember Tom, in his youth, having fun driving people crazy with Legilimency and interrogating them with Veritaserum. They said such nonsense. Although no, the most fun will be if she is offered to run the organization in my absence.

And there is also hope living in me. Hope that time flows differently in this little world. Maybe it flows more slowly. When I get out of here, there will be no Albus. The main thing is that humanity will not survive. Or maybe time flows faster? And years here are seconds in the real world. No one will notice my absence.

So-so hypotheses, but it wasn't for nothing that I broke the Time-Turner. Albus should have tried to pull me out of here almost immediately, but for some reason, I felt his attack only after two and a half hours. It's time to focus on the matter, having finished the psychological unloading. At first, I tried to move away, with Nagini or on my own.

Then I cast spells at the edge of my world. I had long since given up hope of breaking through the edge; now I simply watched in magical and astral vision as the spells were absorbed, hoping to find a system. But the problem was not the lack of a system—the problem was the lack of a reaction to my spells. In normal vision, in magical and astral, it's just the edge and that's it.

Never mind, sooner or later I'll get out of here. And if I don't? It's okay; I'm not Tom. I don't have any Horcruxes: I'll just die of old age. After all, it's much better here than in Azkaban. Isn't that right, Nagini?

—Of course, Master—my familiar answered me, plucking his feathers. No, I will not resign myself. I will again and again measure my conjured rooms with steps. There must be a hole in the wall that surrounds me, against which I throw my mind, my spells, my screams.

Whether I am a Muggle who became Voldemort, or Voldemort who decided he was once a Muggle, it does not matter. The result is the same: my dream of Magic and power is turned against me. My power is with me, but only within the confines of this cage; I cannot help myself. I wander through my prison like my own ghost.

I cannot let it end this way. Perhaps the next way will help, or the next…