The Center Cannot Hold
A Harry Potter Fanfiction
By Jewel

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and its characters were created by JK Rowling and are copyrighted to their rightful owners. There is no copyright infringement intended.

Rated light R with minor spoilers for OotP & HBP.

Summary: "He knows, he can feel his mind falling apart... These days he can only hear her crying in the next cell. Crying, crying, he can only think of her in terms of her tears now."

Challenge: Dementor's Kiss - Agateophobia, the fear of insanity - includes blood & vomit

Author's notes are located at the end.

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The Center Cannot Hold
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In the chill of the night
I can feel my heart racing
As I run towards the light
that seems so far away
Wondering forever
In the darkest of shadows
Wondering if I will ever see you again
- "The Walking Dead" by DJ Z-Trip & Chester Bennington

He stumbles from the chamber; his wand is limp in his hand. Blood is smeared against the polished wood. Blood... is he bleeding? No, not him. He looks behind him. Bodies are spread across the floor... so much blood. Why is it still streaming from them? God, he thinks, Filch will never get the blood out of the flagstones.

His mind is racing. He's trying to think, trying to process what has happened, what needs to be done. The scent of blood isn't sitting well with his stomach, and his wand rolls away as he doubles over, the contents of his stomach spilling on the carefully manicured bushes.

He wipes the traces of bile from his mouth, tries not to gag again. He gropes in the dark for his wand. His hand is soaked in blood before he finds it. He stumbles from the castle, nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste to get away. The gates are broken. Smoke is billowing from Hogsmeade. It's so thick he can barely see through it. It creeps into his nose, down his throat, choking him. He coughs violently as he concentrates on where he needs to be.

His mind won't slow down. He tries to concentrate, but he can't. A millon thoughts flicker across his consciousness, and he tries to grab on to one. Anyone, it doesn't matter. But he's too busy thinking, remembering, hoping...

If it's like this here, then what's it like where she is? Is she still alive? No, no, chase that thought away.

Of course she's alive. She's a Gryffindor; she's too stubborn to be dead.

Yes, think of her. Her bright smile, her annoyed scowl. Hair that moved against him like silk, lips that tasted like strawberries all year round. Her picture flashes in front of him, and suddenly the other thoughts are quiet. In a second he disappears.

"We can't keep this up," she said, moaning when he kissed her neck.

"Why not?" He asked, his hands going to the row of buttons on the front of her robes.

"It's wrong."

He pushed the robes off her shoulders. "So what?"

Biting his ear, she replied, "So it's wrong. We can't do this anymore."

"It hasn't stopped us for the last two years." He slipped his hand beneath her shirt.

"It's different now. We're about to leave school... We couldn't possibly continue with this."

"Sure we can," he murmured, kissing her neck again.

Mustering all her strength, she twisted away. "Warrington! I'm serious."

Scowling, he turned away from her. Outside the dark windows he could see the clouds shimmering silver beneath the moonlight.

The brand of treason is worse than the mark. That night, years ago, pales in comparison to what he suffers now.

Days mean nothing to him anymore. He can't tell the difference between Sunday, Wednesday, or Friday. He can't tell where anything begins or where it ends. The months have blended together. All he knows is the dark corner of the cell that he huddles into.

Are his eyes open or closed? It doesn't make a difference. He knows, he just knows, that what he's always feared is growing in power. He can't see the patterns spread out on the ceiling, but he likes to see arthimantic sequences write themselves across the insides of his eyelids. It helps to keep his mind in tact. Helps to keep him together... Because when he's screaming in pain, writhing on the ground, he forgets what she looks like.

Rocking back and forth in his cell afterwards he tries to remember why he needs to know what she looks like. Most times he fails.

The attack wasn't meant to be a massacre. It was meant to raise panic, fear. Provoke terror, and through it more power for the Dark Lord.

They hadn't expected much of a resistance.

He hadn't expected to see her there. Hadn't expected to feel what he did.

When the other Death Eater threw a hex at her, he hadn't known he'd moved to shield her until he felt the hex strike him in his back.

Afterward, he'd reeled back from her. She stared at him with wide-eyed surprised. Equally surprised, he shoved her away, throwing her to the ground.

He almost screamed when the dark mark crawled into his arm, searing the surrounding skin. He bit his tongue to stop from whimpering, and panted when he was pushed aside for the next servant.

He'd waited so long to take the mark... His parents had never given up hope that their master would rise again. His parents, who had been allowed to remain loyal because they had not been known... The Dark Lord's quiet servants who moved in different ways to gather support. The purebloods that agreed but would not mar their smooth skin.

He'd waited with pride to take the mark. Had felt his chest swell with the feeling of self-importance.

Then for ten days he couldn't look at his arm without feeling sick.

He stared at her in shock. "What are you doing here?"

"You saved me today and I want to know why."

Shaking his head in disbelief, Warrington closed the door. "How'd you get here?"

"Everyone knows you live in your parents' old manor. Believe me, it wasn't that hard."

"Then it won't be too difficult for you to find your way out," he snarled, stalking past her.

She turned on her heel and followed him out of the foyer into a green parlor.

"I think I deserve an answer. I don't see you in two years, you show up at the Ministry with a pack of Death Eaters, and then you don't kill me, you protect me!"

"I'm sorry the state of living doesn't agree with you!" He snapped, reaching into his robes for his wand. "But don't worry your pretty head; I can fix that in a second."

Alicia sneered. "I shouldn't have come. You're clearly out of your mind."

Before she could apparate away, he was beside her in a second, his hand a steely grip around her upper arm.

Staring at him she said, "You're hurting me."

"You're dead," he whispered, tightening his grip even more. "I saved you today, and you couldn't let it go, and now you're dead. Someone saw me protect you, and someone noticed you came here, and within hours you're going to dead!" He shouted, shaking her.

With a strangled cry she jerked out of his hold. A second later she had disapparated.

Warrington sagged against a bookcase, staring blankly at where she'd been standing. What was wrong with him?

The burn of the mark woke him up, startling him out of dreams of ice and a tiger pressed low to the ground.

Within minutes he was dressed and apparated to his master.

Several others arrived at the same time he did. All looked awake and alert. Their wands were out, held high in front of them.

The Dark Lord smiled when all his Death Eaters were assembled in front of him.

"The castle is empty now. And it is ours."

She isn't in her apartment when he apparates there. He expected this. What he hasn't anticipated were the two Death Eaters sitting in her bedroom, waiting for him.

He ties to flee. But the previous hours have taken their toll on him, and he isn't as fast as he normally is.

It doesn't take them too long to subdue him, and before he can blink again he's whisked away to the dungeons he spent seven years trying to escape.

He knows, he can feel his mind falling apart... These days he can only hear her crying in the next cell. Crying, crying, he can only think of her in terms of her tears now.

That's all she's been reduced to. Hair gleaming under the high sun... he can't remember the colors anymore. He thinks he remembers the tilt of her chin when she challenged him, but he can't summon her laugh or see her eyes. And he hopes that they might be brown. But for all he knows they're green.

He can feel the hours tick by as the days accumulate. How many weeks have passed? How many months have collapsed on each other?

He can feel the cold no matter how far he huddles into his tattered robes. Is it winter now? It was only summer when it fell apart...

Montague is lying on the hospital bed. His eyes are open, wide and vacant. He can't stand to look at his best friend for more than a second.

They spent two weeks searching for him. Not the rest of the school. No, why would they care. Montague was a Slytherin, and he scared the first and second years, and even some Hufflepuff fourth years. Why would anyone in the school look? No, the Slytherins were the ones who searched the castle from top to bottom for him, several times. Days of worry... and two weeks after his disappearance he falls out of a cupboard and stumbles around the dizzying corridors.

He didn't recognize anyone the first few days. He stared at people, as if trying to memorize them for a portrait. It took him nearly a week to remember Warrington. To remember all his friends.

It terrifies him. He can't imagine not recognizing his own friends, his own parents.

Montague started talking about voices and his parents removed him from Hogwarts and checked him into St. Mungo's.

Warrington hasn't visited since. Ward 49 scares him witless.

Author's Notes:
- Ward 49 is also known as the Janus Thickey Ward of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. It is for patients who suffer from permanent mental damage caused by spells. This is where Neville's parents live.
- Part of the challenge was that the fic has to contain the quote "When you fear, the fear becomes powerful." I couldn't find a way to work the exact line into the story, but I did manage a variation of it.