Chapter Seventeen: Prisoner
Azkaban. Its named drifted across Harry's chapped and split lips like some revered place of paradise
compared to this hell, to this... Dakhal.
He lay atop his straw bed, tucked away within the corner of his small cell. His arms were bent, his hands cupped beneath his head as he stared without expression at the stone ceiling above. The dark, wet stone closed in around him, forever reminding him just how small, just how alone he was.
A new set of engraved tallies shown just a hint brighter than the older, weathered ones around them on one of the formidable walls. If one bothered to count these, they would have reached twenty-seven, but Harry had long since given up on the hobby.
There was also a small coned dent in the stone, right in the very corner of his cell. No larger than a galleon, it's grains were a lighter shade and smoothed by days of Harry grinding away at it with his smuggled in rocks of the quarry. He'd once fantasized about tunneling out of here, but like his calendar, he'd given up on that too.
In those first days, he had fanciful dreams of a delegation being sent to retrieve him. Of the Indians even contacting their British counterparts and of him being extradited. But alas, no one was coming. And even then, what if they did? He'd killed a man. 'I am a killer.' Azkaban...
Swallowing that hard pill, Harry had come to accept his fate. He forgot his lost pouch. He forgot his wand. Not once had he ever sat before his locked door, contemplating Alomohora wandlessly. He toiled away in their daily labor within the rock quarry in his locks and chains, just like the rest of those sad souls. It was hard work, the Sun grueling, the guards merciless, but never once did Harry break like he saw so many do.
He no longer cried out when the guards came by on their nightly visits to punish him with their whips. He merely grit his teeth and took his lickings. His bare back bore the countless scars of the abuse, evidence of his crime and punishment.
He no longer dreamt of home. This... this dark, hellish place was now his home. Fight it all he may though, in his darkest, most solitude moments, her face still came to him. It came to him now.
The corners of his mouth pulled into the slightest of frowns, his face ticking in protest as he tried to force it away. That lump burned in his throat with the memory of her... her smiling, pinkish lips. Her full brown hair blowing in the salty air in that last memory of her. And her eyes... those deep, chocolate eyes, taking him in, they consuming him that night underneath the moon and stars on a beach of white sand. Never again. He'd had his moment. 'Now she lives in my memories.'
His reverie was broken by the echo of footsteps outside, and by the opening and closing of the slots of the doors down the block, almost in a rhythm. One by one, until his slot opened. He did not turn to watch the rusted, filthy ladle dip within and tilt to empty it's putrid mush into Harry's grimy pale. The ladle disappeared back out the hole at the base of his door and the slot slammed closed once more.
Still Harry did not move. He did not flinch at the shrieking, rusted metal grinding upon itself. He did not blink.
It had been another long and arduous day. He was hungry, but he did not eat. Something was changing... something was different about him now, but he did not bother sparing too much of his thoughts on it. He just accepted it.
He'd lost his glasses in the fight with Bart, like his pouch never returned, but slowly, just as his body would heal all too abnormally fast, he'd found his lost vision had returned to him as well. He could see every line and scar and blemish in the stone above with absolute clarity. He did not dwell on it.
And he never ate. The slop they fed them was not fit for a pig. Others, those who had been here the longest, most were mere skeletons of men. Even with their bread at midday and this putrid soup in the evenings, he'd seen several collapse within the quarry, their still eyes open, but dead and as empty as their bellies. He'd watched others come in after him and deteriorate at a rapid pace, their bones and ribs showing beneath their weathered skin in a matter of weeks. He'd seen more death here than all his time in war. But not Harry. Fate it seemed, simply took too much joy in tormenting him so. No matter how many times he left his bowl full and untouched at its place by the door, his body stayed fit and healthy and undeterred.
And through all the beatings and whippings, through the labor and scuffles in the yard, through the abuse in the fights, his body always bounced right back. It was an anomaly. He did not understand it, and he did not try to.
More footsteps. The clanking and scraping of his door's metal bolts. In stepped an older man with a shaved head and face, but dressed in the same dirty rags as Harry. The guards slammed and locked the door behind him.
"Kokerel," the older man said solemnly, bowing his head with respect. It was the name the other prisoners had given Harry.
"Koca," Harry greeted him, though with his eyes still locked on the ceiling above. Like Harry, Koca was different from the rest. He was Indian by nationality, but hailing from the northern Himalayas, he looked like an old Tibetan monk. Soft in the eyes and smile, but strong and fierce in spirit.
Koca stepped forward to the middle of Harry's cell before dropping with his legs folded beneath himself, his calm hands placed gently on his knees, his spine stiff and erect.
"You must eat, Kokerel," the older man stated with concern, spotting Harry's untouched pale. Harry gave only the slightest of nods, barely noticeable.
"You train today?" he moved on, having long since lost this battle with Harry.
"No," Harry said simply. Being the only "white boy" at the labor camp, just like that first day within the quarry, Harry found himself at the brunt of many of the other inmates' cruel insults and attacks. But just like that day, Harry proved that he was not one to be trifled with. This would all culminate, however, in his forced entry into the Jhagares, or the fights held within the prison.
"They grow tired seeing Kokerel win," the man smirked with the slightest hint of amusement. "You will fight Pumar tomorrow night..." Koca warned. The Jhagares were the main source of entertainment at the camp, for both the prisoners and the guards alike. Much money and cigarettes both, the prisoners' main form of currency, traded hands in betting on the victors.
"Have you brought me anything new?" Harry asked, ignoring Koca's warning.
"Odds ten to one he crushes you face in. Pumar Dakhal's reigning champion," Koca continued his attempts at baiting Harry into taking this seriously. And Harry, to Koca's continued annoyance, did not respond.
Koca sighed a long sigh before reaching back behind himself. He lifted his ratty shirt and pulled out a worn book from the waistband of his pants. "It missing many pages, but as you request, Kokerel."
For the first time, Harry stirred from his straw bed and lifted himself to a sitting position in mirror to Koca. The old man held the book out to him and Harry took it.
"The Art of War?" Harry mused in a low whisper as he ran his fingers over the worn cover.
"By great Chinese General, Sun Tzu. If you no let me train you, I hope you get wisdom from him," Koca said straight faced, glancing towards the collection of books Harry had stacked in the corner of his cell. It had been the one small privilege, apart from his companionship with Koca, that the Warden of the prison had allowed Harry following his many winnings from Harry's many victories. Harry opened the tome randomly, scanning over the first few words his eyes fell to.
"...Can you imagine what I would do if I could do all I can..?" he read to himself before skipping on.
"Know thyself, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories," Koca quoted in his deep, monotone voice the next lines Harry's eyes had fallen to.
It happened fast. Koca slung his fist out. Harry caught him by his wrist, just before it struck him in the face.
"Good," Koca said pleased, one corner of his lips pulling into the faintest of smiles. "Pumar big and strong, but he much slower than you."
Koca had no more than finished speaking and withdrew his fist than with a quick, fluid motion, he lifted himself from the ground by his hands and his two feet struck Harry squarely in his chest, sending him crashing back against the stone wall of the cell.
"Too slow!" Koca cut at him. Harry grimaced as his head popped against the wall, but it soon spread into a crook of a smile. Koca would never let him rest in peace.
Koca was now on his feet, standing at the far side of the small cell. Kicking his legs into the air, Harry popped himself back up onto his feet, just as Koca had taught him. There was little room for maneuvering, but the two began to stalk each other, moving in a circle about the perimeter of the room.
"You must no let him get hands on you!" Koca was before Harry in a flash. Grasped by the shoulders, Harry felt himself suddenly falling forward. With his foot buried into Harry's stomach, Koca sent him flying across the cell as he rolled down onto his back.
Their practice, as they always were, was just as real and as brutal as any of the fights, leaving both bruised and bloodied, but Koca had been a master of the martial arts in his previous life and was intent on training Harry thus. While almost all of the prison guards despised the white boy, Kokerel, and would forever bet against him, the Warden was quite enjoying the handsome sum off of Harry's fights and had begun sending Koca to train him.
"I do not understand you, Kokerel," Koca bowed once again, preparing to leave. "But I can sense is a sleeping dragon inside you. You fear his fire, but it is fire that set us free."
. . . .
"Come on, Hermione, we've got to go..." his voice was soft, not wanting to provoke her, but they'd put it off long enough. They'd have to apparate to the airport now. Hermione did not respond to this, just as she had not responded to any of his previous attempts to usher them along.
The rain was coming down hard. Hermione stood at the window of their hotel room, hugging her arms about herself as she watched it patter against the pane. Another fruitless search, like looking for a needle in a haystack. She'd come back to Australia, hoping to find Harry at one of the places they'd visited before. How many times had he told her he just wanted to stay here? Why hadn't she just listened to him..?
Ron had been kind enough to accompany her on these goose chases, but Harry was no doubt thousands of kilometers from here. To find him would be nothing short of a miracle. He was adept to moving without being noticed, she'd been with him on the run. But she could not force herself to do nothing... she had to look for him.
Ron came up behind her and placed his hands gently on her shoulders. "He'll come back Hermione... we've just got to give him time."
"Somethings wrong..." Hermione said in barely more than a whisper. Ron sighed, as he always did when she said this. "I don't... I don't know how... I just know. He needs us..."