Why won’t they shut up?
Felix put his hands over his ears and rocked back and forth on the floor of his cell. They were getting to him, and the Dementors knew it. They knew they had him trapped, trapped in his own self loathing, a loathing so deep it made him sick multiple times a day. The shouting got louder, and he whimpered, his hands gripping his greasy hair. A beard forming on his once handsomely shaven face. It had been months in this cell, months that he had endured their shouting, their name calling, recalled the feeling of a fist hitting his chin, making him fly to the floor in real pain.
The dementors made you think of your worst fear. Your worst memories were brought to light, and they made you suffer through them, day and night. For Felix, this memory was old, and nearly forgotten, but one that was easily used against him. In the memory, Felix was sitting in the corner, no more then five or six... his parents were shouting at each other. Yelling about him, angry about him, about what he had done, about how they needed to fix him… His father had hit his mother… hit her so hard she hadn’t gotten back up again, and then he had gone for him.
His father was drunk, Felix didn’t blame him, it wasn’t his fault the alcohol made him angry. But still…
His fist hit hard, and Felix had stayed on the floor, hoping his father would just forget him, call him weak and let him go, so that he could get a beer and fall asleep in front of the couch like always. But not today… Today he had kicked Felix repeatedly, kicked him until Felix had felt something crack in his chest, and he had started to cough up blood. His foot wouldn’t just hit his chest though, he was kicked in the face, in the groin, over and over, face, stomach, groin. Until finally Felix had blacked out.
Felix lay whimpering hard on the floor clutching his head, tears falling down his face. Was this what everyone else saw when the Dementors were around? Did they see things this horrible. Felix may not be the toughest guy around, but no ‘man’ would have been able to stand up against these memories. No ‘man’ would be able to get through that without crying.
And then, once the dementors felt secure that he had learned his lesson from that memory, they moved onto more recent ones. Naomi in front of the werewolves, Khaat helping him, the look in her eyes when he had nearly attacked her, one last time. They didn’t deserve it.. they hadn’t done anything to him, in fact it was people like him, that made people like his father, so why had he done it? Why had he gone and been an evil bastard… killing people… kidnapping.. hurting.. worrying… it didn’t make sense.
When Felix was in moods like these, he wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t sleep, he’d just rock back and forth and cry, cursing the world, himself, his father, until he had no curses left, until he was spent, exhausted, useless.
His beard grew longer.
One day Felix had gotten up, one day he had stood up, and went to his cell door and looked out. Some Dementors had come over, looking for some fresh new hope to chew on. But there was nothing, and they quickly stopped and went to other suffering souls. Felix was completely empty, a shell of what he had been. There was a guard sitting near the door, his patronus guarding him from the wrath of the dementors. “I wish to see Khaat Lupin..” Felix croaked out, and the guard didn’t look up. Felix cleared his throat and tried again.
“I wish to see Khaat Lupin!” He said louder this time, and finally the guard looked up at him. “Wat you wanna see ‘er for? She ain’t got no time for the likes o’ you…” The guard flicked his newspaper and kept on reading. Felix stared at him blankly for a moment, before he cleared his throat and tried again. “Please… may I set up an appointment to see her?” He asked softly. Other prisoners were starting to notice, and the guard had looked up from his paper, startled. “Ain’t no prisoner ever said please before…” he said chewing on his lip before sighing. “I’ll see wat I can do… don’t ‘spect nothing.. but I’ll see what I can do.” He said and went back to his newspaper.
Felix sat down on his cot again, and stared blankly at the wall. He had nothing left.. and he was hoping that just possibly.. just possibly, this woman could help him in building up what the dementors had just knocked down.