A Lost Cause
Azkaban – Day 136
The air in Azkaban is stale, heavy with the weight of misery that clings to every stone like a second skin. I have spent months learning how to live with the silence, how to exist in a world where time stretches endlessly forward, day and night blurring into one.
I stopped counting the cracks in the walls after the second month.
The rare occasions we are hauled out into the yard for physical enrichment—some Ministry-backed initiative meant to look good in a re-election campaign—are the only thing breaking up the monotony of my sentence. I should be grateful for it, I suppose, but mostly, I just sit in the sun, soaking in what little warmth I can before we’re shuffled back inside like cattle.
I wish they’d let us out at night.
I want to see the real stars, not the imagined ones I trace onto the ceiling of my cell, but the guards don’t give a damn about what I want.
Outside of the showers, the yard is the most time I spend around other prisoners, and I have learned the hard way that keeping to myself is the only way to survive. The first time I was sent outside, I made the mistake of not sticking close to the guards. It turns out I am a prime target—for what, it doesn’t matter. Too many people have their reasons.
It landed me in the infirmary.
I have learnt the hard way that keeping to myself is the only way to survive.
I didn’t know that the first time.
No one warned me.
The moment we stepped outside that first time, I made the mistake of staying too far from the guards, assuming that my name and my silence would be enough to keep me safe.
It wasn’t.
The first hit came from behind. A fist to the back of my skull, sharp and jarring, sending me stumbling forward.
I barely caught myself before another blow struck my ribs.
Laughter.
Someone calling me a Death Eater scum.
Then hands. Grabbing. Clawing. Dragging me down into the dirt like a pack of wolves descending on a wounded stag.
I fought. I don’t remember how well. Maybe I landed a hit or two. Maybe I only made it worse.
It didn’t matter.
The world blurred into a mess of fists, boots, and pain.
Kicks to my stomach, my ribs, my back. Someone’s knee colliding with my face, sending an explosion of white-hot agony through my skull.
A boot against my throat.
Pressure.
Too much pressure.
I don’t know how long it lasted.
By the time the guards pulled them off me, I was barely conscious, my vision swimming, my breath coming in sharp, pained gasps through what felt like broken ribs.
They didn’t rush me to the infirmary.
They didn’t care.
They let me lay there for Merlin knows how long before finally dragging me off the ground and hauling me inside like a sack of flour, dropping me onto a thin cot in the piss-poor excuse for an infirmary.
The Healer—if I can even call him that—was a bitter, hunched old bastard with yellowed teeth and fingers stained with gods-know-what.
He looked me over with the enthusiasm of a man inspecting rotten produce.
“Didn’t kill you,” he grunted, stuffing a filthy rag under my nose to stop the bleeding. “You’ll live.”
That was it.
No pain potions. No real treatment.
Just a few half-hearted spells to make sure I didn’t choke on my own blood, then a dismissive wave of his wand and a muttered, “You’re lucky they let you keep your pretty face, Malfoy.”
I spent the next two days curled up on that cot, every breath a sharp, stabbing reminder of my place here.
No one came to check on me.
No one cared.
And when I was finally deemed well enough to return to my cell, I staggered back alone, my head pounding, my ribs burning, and a single lesson carved into my bones.
Do not let your guard down.
I stuck to the edges of the yard after that, where the guards were close. I did not look at anyone. I did not acknowledge the ones who sneered at me, who muttered curses under their breath as I passed.
I existed.
That was enough.
I don’t make that mistake again.
I keep my distance. I say nothing. I move when I have to. That’s how you survive here.
The showers are worse.
Once every two weeks, we are stripped down, marched in, and allowed to scrub the filth off our bodies under freezing water. The rest of the time, we are at the mercy of whatever guard is in a generous mood, who might cast a half-hearted Scourgify if we’re lucky.
Some weeks, I am lucky twice.
Most weeks, I am not.
The showers are filled with leering men and catcalls, and I have perfected the art of not reacting, of staring straight ahead and pretending I do not hear them.
There is no mercy in Azkaban.
No kindness.
No hope.
I have accepted that.
I do not expect visitors. I do not expect to hear my name spoken in anything other than cold disinterest.
And I certainly do not expect anyone to write to me.
So when a crumpled letter slides through the narrow slot in my cell door, I stare at it as if it is a hallucination.
The parchment is creased, the ink slightly smudged.
I do not touch it.
Not at first.
Who the hell would write to me?
My mother, but she is not allowed to send letters or contact me as part of her probation.
My father is rotting somewhere in another wing, and the last thing I want is correspondence from him.
So I sit there, unmoving, staring at it as if it might disappear.
It doesn’t.
My fingers tremble as I reach out.
I unfold it slowly, my breath catching in my throat as I recognize the handwriting.
And for the first time in months—
I feel something.
Malfoy,
Look, I don’t know why I’m writing this. Or maybe I do, but I don’t really want to think about it too hard.
You probably won’t read this. You’ll toss it aside, scoff, or maybe just pretend it doesn’t exist at all. That’s fine. I wouldn’t blame you. I wouldn’t read a letter from me either.
I just—
I’ve been thinking about the trial. About how everything ended. About how some people got second chances, and some didn’t. And about you.
We spent years hating each other, didn’t we? Years trying to tear each other down. But when it really counted, when things actually mattered, we weren’t standing on opposite sides anymore. And I keep wondering if things could’ve been different. If we could’ve been different.
I don’t know. Maybe this is stupid. Maybe I just don’t like the idea of you sitting in that cell, thinking no one remembers you. Or maybe I just don’t like leaving things unfinished.
You don’t have to write back. But if you do… I’ll read it.
—Harry
I stare at the letter, waiting for my brain to catch up.
This must be some kind of joke.
Potter—Potter—writing to me?
My first instinct is to laugh, except nothing about this is funny, and my throat is so dry the sound barely escapes. Instead, I reread the letter, trying to decipher the hidden meaning. Because there has to be one. Some greater, noble, Gryffindor reason for this nonsense.
But the words remain the same. Stumbling, hesitant, like he wrote it without thinking and then couldn’t bring himself to throw it away. It’s not like the speeches he gave at the trial. Not like the way he stood there in front of the whole Wizengamot, arguing on my behalf, rattling off every moment of hesitation, every scrap of good buried in the wreckage of my choices.
Then, he wouldn’t look at me.
Now, he’s writing.
I run my tongue over my teeth, exhaling sharply through my nose. I don’t understand this. And I hate not understanding things.
Potter isn’t my friend. He never has been. He shouldn’t be writing to me. And yet, here I am, clutching this scrap of parchment like it’s worth something.
I should throw it away.
That would be the smart thing. The right thing.
But I don’t.
Because the truth is, I haven’t spoken to another human being properly in weeks. The guards don’t count—they only talk when they have orders to bark or fists to throw.
I had convinced myself I was alone. That it was better this way.
And then Potter, of all people, had to go and ruin it.
My eyes flicker to the tiny, battered desk in the corner of my cell. The Ministry, in all its benevolence, had provided it along with a single quill and inkpot, as if I had anything to say to anyone.
Until now.
Eyes closed tightly, taking in a slow deep breath, just willing myself to be rational. To let it go.
But my fingers twitch. My breath is unsteady.
And before I can talk myself out of it, I reach for the quill.
The quill is awkward in my grip, stiff from disuse, the weight of it foreign against my fingers. My hand hovers over the single scrap of parchment the guards issued me when I arrived—standard prison allowance, one sheet a month. I hadn’t touched them before now.
What would I write?
I am here. I am surviving. Do not write back.
I drag the nib of the quill across the paper without ink, tracing invisible shapes, stalling. Waiting for something—some spark of clarity, some justification for responding. None comes.
Instead, my mind circles the words in the letter sitting heavy in my lap, reading them over and over until they feel imagined, a cruel trick of my own making.
I don’t think you deserve to sit in that cell believing the whole world has forgotten you.
The truth is, I do.
Or at least, I had convinced myself of it.
The world moved on without me. No one was sitting around, reminiscing about Draco Malfoy, the Death Eater’s son, the coward, the boy who failed at everything—failed at murder, failed at war, failed at choosing the right side before it was too late.
And yet, here is Harry bloody Potter, writing to me like it matters.
Like I matter.
I exhale sharply through my nose, pressing the heel of my palm against my forehead.
This is stupid.
I should rip the letter in half, toss it into the dark corner of my cell, let it rot alongside me. I should laugh at the absurdity of it—Potter, of all people, thinks I have anything to say to him.
But then, silence has been my only companion for months.
And for the first time since I was thrown into this wretched place, there is something in my hands that isn’t cold stone or a half-rotted mattress.
My fingers tighten around the quill.
And before I can think better of it, I press ink to parchment.
Potter,
I assume you must be extremely bored to be wasting your time writing to me. Either that, or you enjoy playing the hero even when there’s no one left to save. I can’t decide which would be worse.
Regardless, congratulations. You’ve succeeded in making me break my vow of silence.
You have no idea how ridiculous this is, do you?
That you are writing to me. A lost cause.
That I am responding to you. The Golden Boy.
I don’t know what you’re expecting. I don’t know if you’re doing this because you think you owe me something, or because you have some noble Gryffindor need to mend things that don’t need mending.
If you’re looking for me to spill my soul onto parchment, to confess the torment of my days here, to tell you what it’s like rotting in this hellhole, you’re wasting your time.
It’s prison. It’s Azkaban.
It’s exactly what you think it is.
I doubt that satisfies your curiosity, but I don’t care. You said I didn’t have to write back, and yet, here I am. Maybe that says something about me. Maybe it says something about you.
Or maybe this place has finally driven me mad.
—Malfoy
I stare at the words for a long moment, debating.
The ink glistens wet and dark under the dim light, the letters sharp, every stroke deliberate. I could still tear the page in half, discard it before it’s sent, before I make a mistake I can’t undo.
But it’s already done.
I fold the letter neatly, crisp creases pressed into the parchment, as if structure might somehow make up for the mess inside it.
When the guards come by to collect the day’s correspondence, I slip it through the slot in the door without waiting for them to grab it. There’s a beat of silence, then a muttered, “Didn’t take you for a letter-writer, Malfoy.”
I say nothing.
The moment the parchment is out of my hands, doubt sinks its teeth in.
This is a mistake.
I close my eyes.
But there is nothing left to do now but wait.
Azkaban – Day 138
I don’t expect a response.
Yet, two days later, another letter arrives.
Malfoy,
I’m not bored. I just think too much. Hermione says I should “unpack my unresolved trauma” instead of bottling it up. So, congratulations, I guess you’re part of that now. Lucky you.
You’re right—I don’t know what I expected. Maybe I thought you’d toss the letter away without reading it. Maybe I thought you’d write back just to tell me to fuck off. But I didn’t expect you to actually say something. And I didn’t expect you to keep going after the first sentence.
But you did.
You could’ve ignored me. You didn’t.
And that’s why I’m writing again.
I’m not expecting you to “spill your soul onto parchment.” I’m not expecting anything, really. I just—
I don’t know.
You said it yourself—this is ridiculous. That I’m writing. That you’re responding. But maybe ridiculous isn’t always bad.
Besides, you’re an idiot if you think you’re a lost cause. You never were. I know what the papers say. I know what people think. But I also know the boy who hesitated, the one who lowered his wand, the one who was more scared than cruel. I know you spent years caught between choices that weren’t really choices at all.
Maybe no one’s ever told you this, but you deserve better than to be left here, forgotten.
You don’t have to believe me. You don’t even have to write back. But I hope you do.
—Harry
I stare at the letter, turning the words over in my mind like I can unravel them, like I can pick them apart and find the moment where all of this will start to make sense.
I don’t, of course. Nothing about this makes sense.
I should be insulted that he thinks I’d entertain whatever misplaced sense of justice he’s working through. That I’d give him the satisfaction of being his latest project, some broken thing he can fix just to soothe his own guilt.
But it doesn’t feel like that.
It doesn’t feel like pity.
And that makes it worse.
I press my thumb against the ink, feeling the way the parchment bends under the pressure.
I could stop this now. End it before it turns into something I don’t know how to handle or worse grow dependent on.
Before Potter keeps writing, before I keep writing back.
But the silence of this place is absolute, and the only thing that has cut through it in weeks is this—this stupid, impossible conversation.
I let my head rest against the cold stone wall, exhaling slowly, the weight of the letter pressing into my palm, something tangible, something real. The ink smudged slightly under my fingers, as if I could absorb the words into my skin, into my bones.
You’re an idiot if you think you’re a lost cause.
Trust Potter to say something so blunt, like it was obvious, like it was fact. Like he hadn’t just trampled all over months of carefully constructed acceptance—of knowing, without a doubt, that I was a lost cause.
The rational part of me wants to crumple the letter and toss it aside, let it join the countless other discarded things in this cell—fragments of meals, broken thoughts, the remnants of a person I used to be. But I don’t.
Because some treacherous, fragile part of me wants to believe Potter is right.
I let my thumb trace the rough edges of the parchment. It’s absurd, really, how something as simple as ink on paper could take up so much space in my mind, could feel like an anchor when everything else has been stripped away.
I shouldn’t respond.
And yet, my fingers are already curling around the quill.
Potter,
I never took you for an overthinker, but I suppose it makes sense. You were always so dramatic. Brooding in dark corners, making everything about some grand, tragic purpose—at least now I know Granger has finally gotten to you with her incessant need for emotional unpacking.
I am thrilled to be part of your healing journey. Truly.
As for me? No, I’m not writing back because I enjoy this. And no, I’m not writing back because I need your validation. If anything, I’m writing out of sheer spite, because I refuse to let you have the last word.
You don’t know me, Potter. You never did. Don’t act like you do just because you saw me at my worst and mistook it for something redeemable. You say I was scared more than cruel. But fear and cowardice are two sides of the same coin, and I’ve lived my whole life flipping between the two.
I’m not looking for pity. I don’t want your pity. And I don’t need you wasting ink on me when you could be out there playing the hero for someone who actually deserves saving.
I doubt this is the response you wanted. But I warned you not to expect anything satisfying.
—Malfoy
I fold the parchment with sharp, deliberate creases, the paper stiff beneath my fingers. A tiny, quiet part of me expects regret to settle in—the same way doubt had when I sent the first letter.
It doesn’t.
Instead, something else coils beneath my ribs, something unfamiliar.
I don’t put a name to it.
When the guard comes to collect the day’s correspondence, I hand it over without much thought.
This time, I don’t close my eyes after it’s gone.
This time, I stare off into nothing, as I wait almost hoping for a response.