Freedom

Say not, it is the final road we tread,
Leaden skies will pass, and sun will shine instead.
Believe that freedom’s hour will appear,
Our steps will tell the world that we are here…
But if our freedom should arrive too late
The world should know the meaning of our fate.
-Hersh Glik

~

I am not too young, I think, to know bitterness such as this.

Still, I feel in my heart that these past months have scarred me irrevocably, made me more of a man and yet less human, stronger mentally against the mind-games we play here, yet hardened and soured in my heart. It is impossible to survive here without a cage around one’s heart. Weakness has no place in Nurmengard.

Since the spring I have been here, working and withering at the command of Grindelwald and his followers, the Reinigers, or Purifiers, who run this prison. Within our cells were are tortured for information or confessions, then starved for days, and then healed so that they process may begin anew. Several among our number are treated somewhat better for the skills they have to offer: Healing, or darker abilities the Reinigers value. I am not among those traitor few.

A dozen prisoners that I have met here are dead. I have lasted longest, stubborn and thick-blooded as I am. But lying here in my final hours I realize that it has been hope I held to for all those many months. For so long I dreamed of seeing sunlight again, but more than that, seeing them…

There are no windows in the cell where I wait; I have not known the time of day for months now. But I imagine the blushing pink of sunrise, the endless of blue of midday, the indigo beauty of nightfall. Tears slip down my cheeks at the memories of color – everything here is grey and barren and broken.

One sunset haunts my mind, the small portion that remains sane. It is this remembrance that has allowed me to last so long, the one that prevents my complete transformation to something heartless and cold – something like the Reinigers.

I close my eyes; a woman, young, dark haired, and smiling, greets me with a soft smile. Aneta. In her arms she holds a child, our little son. Little Petar, with the beaky nose I gave him, and Aneta’s laughing eyes. I watch them hungrily in my mind’s eye, sustained by their presence.

A darker memory breaks through my calm, wild and grasping, until I cannot resist its force. I see them breaking down the door, coming for Aneta, crying “kill the mudblood and the half-blood!� as they brandish their wands. I feel Aneta’s parting kiss on my cheek, hasty and eternal, as I push her into the emerald green flames with our wailing son. I sense the movement all around me, hear the anguished yells, and then succumb to the darkness of their curses. I awaken in this prison, wandless and alone, with the knowledge that purebloods are no safer than the rest if they resist Grindelwald.

I hear the Reinigers approaching my cell, their wandlights casting shadows along the stone walls. Faint moans echo down the corridor from the cell they have just left, moans utterly devoid of hope. Mentally that prisoner is farther gone than I, though he has been here a mere three weeks. Yet I will die the sooner; my body has wasted to bones, and I believe this is the last visit the Reinigers will deign to make to my cell.

“Up, scum,� spits one, and I wobble laboriously to my feet. The ragged robes adorning me do little to hide my skeletal figure, and emphasize the sun-deprived paleness of my skin.

“He’s not long for this world,� mutters one of the Reinigers to his companion, looking me up and down. “Shall we kill him now?�

“No!� Their leader leers cruelly at me. “You know that our Master prefers for them to die slowly. We will leave him. Come and fetch him in two day’s time. He should be dead by then.�

With an appreciative laugh the other two Reinigers salute their superior and leave my cell whistling. The leader hesistates, watching me with an intense gaze. Then suddenly he reaches for my chin, pulling my face up to his level so that he can stare into my eyes.

“You’re not really broken, are you, scum?� he whispers. “On the outside you are, but inside – inside you have escaped us! I will not let you die free!�

He drops me and I fall back to the earthen floor as the Reiniger draws his wand and turns it upon me.

“You will break beneath my curses, and you will die a follower of Grindelwald the Pure! Crucio!�

The pain whips through me with more fury than a thousand dragons, burning me everywhere. Even after it has ended I writhe in the flames, clutching at reason by a thread. From very far away, the Reiniger speaks.

“Come to the right side. Say that you are a follower of Grindelwald, and the pain shall end. You will die in peace. Speak!�

The last unconquered part of my mind fights, and I find words flowing to my lips unbidden.

“I will die free.�

And as the fire of a tortured death consumes me I see their faces, Aneta’s and Petar’s, safe and happy and alive. Around me the pain is lessening, the bonds dissolving, and finally I am free…

I did not survive to see the sunlight, but here is freedom of another kind. My death and the deaths of my fellows will not be forgotten by this generation, nor the next. But when the foundations of this dark dungeon have crumbled and the names of the murdered have faded upon their tombs, the legend of this war will remain. The meaning of our fate will live undying in the hearts of our children and our grandchildren, and all who fight for freedom in the days to come.