Glamours and Lies
by sick-atxxheart
Prologue

Screams filled the Azkaban prison, piercing the cold air with it's icy tendrils that echoed with a fearful uncertainty throughout. The screams in themselves were not so unusual; the terror and the haunting dreams that followed all who resided there was a constant. But anyone who cared to listen closely would hear the difference between the screams of fear and those of pain- one was frantic, pleading, unending, while the other was heartbreaking, terrifying, desperate.

Anyone who cared to listen would have heard that only one scream betrayed true pain.

A woman, insane, deranged, but still hauntingly beautiful despite her coarse hair and the sunken look her eyes had gained, was giving birth in her cold, dingy cell. No one was there to help her; she was left alone, her anger and pain fueling her screams that filled the prison, considerably louder than the others.

The woman's eyes shone with a black gleam, growing harder by the moment as pain wracked through her body. She had felt her share of pain in her life, and normally she embraced it- welcomed it- as an honor, as a way to show respect, gratitude, and loyalty to the Dark. But this pain, this torment- this was not honorable, she thought. This baby- it did not bring honor. It brought shame.

With a final blood-curling scream, the woman flung her head back. She knew it was over. A human guard, a rarity in that place, rushed in and picked up the child she had just birthed. The woman just lay back, not wanting to see the thing that would undoubtedly bring her so much shame.

But a want, a desire, she did not understand in the very least- coursed through her- by it's direction she raised her head and saw the tiny baby that had been the cause of her agony.

The child's beautiful, startling black eyes met her own as the door closed, and the woman fell back, unconsciousness claiming her.

She vowed to forget that baby.

--

A spell was muttered, and with light from the pointed wand the baby's face began to change. The blacker than black eyes melted into pools of chocolate brown; the black fuzz of hair changed and expanded into brown frizz that exuded volume; and the pale, pale skin warmed into a darker golden shade. The men in the room looked on the baby girl with satisfaction, seeing her identity sufficiently hidden by the strong glamour charm that had been placed on the child. It would last a bit more than eleven years, but this child was definitely magical- the power that resonated throughout the child was already evident. Hogwarts or another school would definitely be contacting the baby once they came of the age for magical education.

But for now, a hidden identity was all that protected the child. The woman in the cell was insane, a broken, tormented soul, shattered by the Darkness and furthered still by the effects of the Dementors that guarded the prison so closely. Surely this baby would have some effects of that insanity, such a broken soul that was the mother- but there was no way for those men to tell. They could change the surface, but they couldn't change the mind, the heart, the soul of the child.

The baby was put up for adoption, with no name. The child's fate seemed sealed.

--

The woman screamed again, and this time it was one of fear. Her dreams haunted her, an unending circle of hurt and anger and panic and trepidation caused by the Dementors and the insanity that she knew, she knew followed her like a curse. Her dreams were nothing unusual, she accepted them and welcomed them as a way for payback- but this time, her dreams were not normal.

She was dreaming of her baby, of the hauntingly black eyes that had stared back at her as the child was taken away.

She had tried, but she couldn't forget.

--

This was written for the Hermione Challenge on HPFC. This is only the prologue. Please review.