Chapter 1
Finger Prick
Two guards stood on either side of a dark-haired woman, hiding her gaze beneath the wide brim of her hat. Whatever apprehension or anxiety the woman might have been feeling, not a trace of it was shown on her face. Alarice Dugan maintained a regal, stoic appearance in all that she did, even while being led through a circle of cells, prisoners shouting and jeering down at her.
“How are you doing today, Mrs. Dugan?” one of the guards tried to strike up a conversation, but Alarice didn’t answer. She never did. From the very beginning of her visits to Azkaban, Alarice Dugan had made it clear that she came to this place for one reason, and one reason only.
The guards lead Alarice into a hall like a tall, hollow column. Narrow, floating walkways traced in front of walls of barred cells where the shouts, screams, and jeers of the prisoners echoed of the walls at a painful frequency. The prisoners of Azkaban had all become a great deal more active and aggressive ever since the removal of the Dementors. Of course, Azkaban was still, by no means, a happy place to be.
Stairs upon stairs, and prisoners jeers and taunts”along with a few subtle hexes at the more active prisoners”the party of three found themselves at the same section of the columned hall that Alarice was led to at her every visit. It was something repeated so many times, the woman had no doubt so could find her way there in her sleep. Not that she would have the opportunity to do so alone for a very long time.
“Over there,” the guard at her right told her, pointing in the general direction. “Three cells down. I’m sure you know it by now.”
The guards were familiar enough with Alarice by now to allow her slightly more privacy than most visitors were allowed. Still, before being allowed into the hall of cells, she was forced to surrender her wand and was fully searched for anything else that could possibly be used as a vessel for magic. Rules were rules, after all.
And so, there Alarice found herself, standing before a small figure who sat huddled in the shadows of the cell. Every time she found herself here, that figure had slunk a little further into the darkness, and was slumped a little deeper.
“Maddox,” she called through the bars. “Maddox, love….”
Referring to her son like this was surely not going to make him seem like any more of a man in the eyes of the other prisoners, though neither was having his mother come to visit.
At his mother’s voice, the figure in the cell looked up towards its source. “Mum,” he said at barely a whisper, slowly making his way towards the bars of his cell, though Alarice almost wished he wouldn’t. She just couldn’t stand to see her son like this. He was frightening pale from being locked away from the sun, and dark circles had formed under his eyes. His prisoner’s uniform absolutely hung on him, and Alarice was certain that her son had lost weight. His face was becoming more and more hollow-looking, and his cheek bones were just starting to poke their edges into his skin.
There was no formal visiting room within the walls of Azkaban, yet another legacy left by the Dementors. Because of them, prisoners from the previous era never received visitors. What sane person would willingly go there? The warden was always promising in the papers that one was going to be built at some point in the future, but so far, such a project had yet to be seen. So, whenever a prisoner did get a visitor, they simply met through the bars of their cell with a Silencing Charm cast over the area to give the faintest hint of privacy while the guards watched out of the corners of their eyes.
Maddox stood up right beside the bars, wrapping his pale fingers around the cold steel and attempting to look to the sides of his cell. “Dad isn’t here?”
The woman shook her head, the feathers perched on her hat shaking wit her. “He is busy, I’m afraid,” Alarice did her very best to lie. “With the new school year approaching, he has so much to do.”
At the given explaination, Maddox sighed in a very resigned sort of way. “It’s alright, Mum. I understand. Having your only son in Azkaban cannot be something to be proud of.”
Still, Alarice shook her head more, almost like a four-year-old trying to be defiant against the words of an adult. Alarice had always been proud of her only child, even after his conviction. In fact, if anything, her son’s incarceration only proved to make her more proud of her son.
No matter how many times Alarice came to visit her son in this place, it didn’t make it any more believable that her only child was in Azkaban. Still, it seemed like Maddox was just visiting or had gotten lost inside the tower to be found locked in a cell, or a thousand other nameless reasons that did not include her son really and truly being an inmate of the British wizarding corrections system.
“How are they treating you in here?” Alarice asked, mostly because she was still so unsure of what to say to her son given the current circumstance.
Maddox looked so tired as he exhaled. “Fair. I mostly stay in my cell. The guards don’t force me to go out or anything.”
Alarice wished she could reach through the bars to touch her son’s face. She knew her child well enough to know that Maddox’s brief, vague response was in order to protect her. As though not knowing the full truth of what the boy faced every day, surrounded by the very worst that British wizarding society had to offer would somehow make his mother believe his current position wasn’t really as horrible as it must have been. It was a trait that Maddox had gotten from his father, one of the man’s only traits that Alarice had hoped her son would inherit. It was the trait that had caused Alarice to first fall in love with her husband, and it was one she wished she could say that Cyprian was still showing.
Despite her previous excuse about her husband needing to prepare for the upcoming school year, it was only recently that Cyprian had even decided that he would be returning to teach at Hogwarts. All summer, all the man had been going on about was “How could he possibly show his face there again, after all his son had done.” As though his pathetic, peacock pride could even hold a candel to the suffering of their son and all he was currently facing. But every time Alarice tried to bring this up, her pathetic husband would only regard his wife with a patronizing look and retreat to his stacks of books and parchments.
As a former Gryffindor, it disgusted her, which was something she was glad that Maddox had inherited from her.
“Maddox, don’t speak like this is all final,” she urged her son. “There are appeals, and it’s not just a one-chance opportunity either.”
“For those you need evidence,” Maddox said with his head hanging slightly. “Either proof that I was given an unfair trial, or new evidence related to the crime of which I am accused.”
Alarice tried to speak more, but Maddox just took his turn to shake his head, almost like he didn’t want to hear anymore.
“There is just no proof,” he said, sighing deeply, as though he had given up long before today’s visit. “Not mention the idea that three first-years.”
But Alarice still continued to maintain her stubborn, four-year-old attitude towards the subject. “Maddox, you have to believe me,” she tried to persuade her son, “I am not about to give up on.”
But Maddox just exhaled and sunk down to the floor of his cell in a very world-wery way, one hand still clinging to the bars. Seeing her son feeling so defeated and disheartened made Alarice feel sick on a level she didn’t previously think possible. He was a child! Wasn’t he supposed to be full of hope and idealism and the like? Should he be the one trying to convince Alarice not to give up and that they needed to keep trying? But Maddox just sunk to the floor of his cell, still holding tight to one of the bars.
It was this place! Alarice didn’t care what people said now about the prison being ‘more humane’ now that there were no Dementors were gone. This place still sucked the life out of its prisoners. The evidence was completely plain on her son’s face.
It was then that Alarice knew she had to bring her contemplated plan into action. It was one that she had been only vaguely contemplating these past few weeks while she had been alone in her home, but now that she was her, seeing her son and how he had so given up on everything, she knew in her heart that she had little choice to do otherwise.
“Maddox, give me your hand.”
The boy looked up at his mother with sunken eyes. “Why?”
Then, in a single fluid motion, Alarice pulled one of the very long, very sharp looking hat pin from her wide brimmed hat. Maddox’s eyes widened and his bottom lip began to quiver just slightly. Then again, it was a very impressive, potentially very painful-looking hairpin.
Upon seeing it, Maddox’s eyes became much wider, as though all that he could was that very sharp pin. “Mum?” he asked cautiously. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to show you just how committed I am to proving your innocence.”
Maddox watched his mother reach toward his hand, and he immediately shrunk back. “H-how?”
“Maddox, you are a clever boy. You get that from your father,” Alaice said to her son. “Why don’t you tell me what is about to happen?”
Before Maddox could pull away, Alarice snatched up her son’s hand with great force, and refused to let it go. “You’re going to make a Blood Pact with me,” Maddox said matter-of-factly, allowing his hand to go limp, surrendering to his mother’s plan.
“Very good,” Alarice told her son, shaking his closed hand open when he still showed fear. “Focus, Maddox! Now…tell me. What exactly is a Blood Pact?”
Maddox clenched his jaw as he tried to focus on his mother’s order. “It’s like an Unbreakable Vow””
“No, Maddox!” Alarice ordered when she heard her son’s words falter and his body begin to shrink away. “Tell me how it’s different from an Unbreakable Vow.”
So Maddox went on, keeping his eyes shut tight so he wouldn’t have to see as his mother began to spread his palm into an open hand.. “A Blood Pact can be made only between blood relatives.”
Alarice held the pin against the tip of her son’s index finger, and the boy began to cringe. “Tell me more!” Alarice hissed at her son as she tried to distract him from the first prick as it began to draw blood.
“The one who makes the Pact does not have the threat of death hanging over their heads….” Maddox’s voice was pained, almost frighten, but he continued to explain, going at an almost frantic pace. “But that doesn’t mean the Pact has absolutely no consequences.”
Maddox made pained noises, baring his teeth as his mother move on to the rest of his fingers. “Go on.” Alarice, on the other hand, remained stoic as ever.
“The longer the Blood Pact is in place, the more consumed the caster by it, until it eventually drives them further and further into madness.” Finally, Maddox was granted a small amount of relief as his mother moved on to her own fingers, his voice becoming calmer. “Throughout history, there are numerous cases of witches and wizards being driven to complete insanity because they were never given the chance to fulfill their promise made to their family members. They became so obsessed with it all that they were rendered completely unable to function, rising to a level of madness that to this day still remains unparallel by any other illness or curse.”
By the time Maddox had finished his summary of the blood pact, Alarice had finished pricking every one of her own fingers, much faster than she had done so to her own son. Then again, it was always easier for one to hurt themselves rather than hurt their loved ones.
Alarice took her son’s bleeding hand in hers, matching the points of her own fingers to his, their blood of the same veins mixing, the power caused by this beginning to grow.
Clearing her voice, yet keeping the tone low so that it might not attract the attention of the distracted guard.
With that, the Blood Pact was drawn between Alarice Dugan, and her only son, Maddox. There had been no sparks, no lights, no spectacular sounds, but to the two people the Pact had been drawn between, the magic that had transpired could be felt more profoundly than anything either of them had ever witnessed in their lives.
“Mrs. Dugan, your time is up now. You’ll have to leave.”
Alarice rose up from her seat on the floor, hiding her still bleeding hand into her robe pocket while Maddox wrapped his own within the folds of his ratty prison uniform. This time, as Alarice left, she gave her son no good-bye and did not even look back in his direction. In her mind, there was absolutely
As the guards escorted Alarice Dugan out of the circular hall of cells, nothing appeared any different that the numerous other times they had done so. It was such a common occurrence that the guards didn’t even bother to look down at the woman they were leading out the doorway.
However, if they had, the might have just noticed the very slightest change that could be seen if one looked into the eyes of Alarice Dugan. A changed, almost manic-looking expression, one almost barely alive. Yet it was there, and anyone who bothered to look would have seen it.
The Arcane ScoRA and the Blood Pact by OliveOil_Med
Story Notes:
Book Two in my Arcane ScoRA series! I hope it doesn't fail to disappoint!
Chapter Notes: Alarice Dugan visits her son, Maddox, the youngest prisoner in the history of Azkaban, and in the spur of a moment, makes the most profound sort of promise a mother witch can make towards her child: a Blood Pact.