who: charlotte & justin where: azkaban when: 20 october 2002
rating: G status: Complete (threaded)
If a single adjective could sum up Azkaban in its entirety, emotional and physical, it would be grey. Grey walls stood indistinguishable against grey stone floors, near narrow grey bars that separated her from the central walkway that wound through cells up and up and up and up to the heavens. Seasons marched by her window (little more than a vertical slash connecting her with the outside) with monochrome certainty, though Charlotte could see little of seasons through the thick rolling fog that entrenched the castle. Upon very special occasions she was graced with a bit of grey sunlight, which thrust the roughly hewn stones of her cell into sharp relief and reminded her of the futility of hope.
And though she, amidst it all, was a splash of pink toes (upon which still lingered the last vestiges of year-old green nail lacquer) and gloriously long blonde tangles, she felt, more and more increasingly, rather grey herself.
It had been a long time since she'd been dragged into this room, divested of both possessions and dignity, and left to rot, but not nearly as long as it felt, she realised upon renewed interest in the journal she'd been given over a year prior. At first it'd been tossed away - another method to hold her captive to their sick pleasures, another way to rub freedom in her face - but now, in only a short week, the journal was a lifeline to intellectual stimulation. There were times, though, when it needed to be put away, when jealousy grew too painful to endure and she had to touch base with The Grey.
Retreating to her corner (their corner, really, since she knew that Justin inhabited the same corner through only a foot of stone), Charlotte took a deep breath and wrapped her thin blanket about her, shuddering against the curls of October cold that her treacherous window allowed entrance. A few heartbeats passed while she listened for any sounds of approach, but, feeling safe, she retrieved a palm sized chunk of broken stone from where it lay and rapped, soundly, upon one of the stones that connected her cell to her neighbour's. Azkaban was held together more by weight than immaculate masonry, and through the narrow slivers of space between stones, Charlotte was often able to get the sound of his voice, if nothing else.