The Ghost in the Machine

Prologue: A Long Wait

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or the Pitch Black Series.

Summary: No man or beast can remain caged forever. Slash. HP/RR.

Author's Note: Yes I started another fic, no I'm not crazy, I realize that with several as of yet incomplete fics out there using up the sparse but valuable time I have to post this instead of an update to one of those is probably a bad plan but...meh. I couldn't help it. So sue me.

Harry Potter.

Boy-Who-Lived.

Savior of the Wizarding World.

He was sitting in a five by five holding cell warded to the nines and guarded by an insane number of trained Aurors. He was still wearing what they'd caught him in, loose pants and nothing else. While the outfit was perfect for a lazy day in an Arizona heat wave he was friggin' cold locked up in some dank corner of the Ministry back in jolly old England.

He hadn't been given a blanket but temperature control kept him from actually freezing. He was just uncomfortable.

He'd been here for, he guessed, a month. He still had friends in high places who were bearing down on the new Minister for Magic and his bureaucracy trying to get the order for his execution rescinded. At least, he was fairly sure that's why he was still waiting for either death or daylight.

Harry reflected that this was really all his own fault. If he'd stayed in England during the aftermath of Voldemort's defeat instead of immediately disappearing to wander the globe he could have used his influence on the Wizarding World to prevent this. He could have stopped the new government, which was comprised of all the former government's faults with none of its malleable bribability, from ever coming into power.

After Ron's death though he had needed time to grieve and after that he'd become used to the freedom of flitting from place to place, exploring the world learning about other cultures and places. He'd corresponded with Hermione, Luna, the Weasleys and Neville. They'd all done much the same thing he had, thrown themselves into actually living life without worrying about politics or war.

Hermione had fallen in love with Draco Malfoy of all people and though they never married together they had three kids and were running a chain of private luxurious hotels in both the Wizarding and muggle worlds. Busying themselves with their work and family they hadn't noticed the signs.

Luna had done much what Harry himself had done only she had done it for the specific purpose of discovering heretofore undiscovered magical creatures. She'd met Rolf Scamander a fellow mythozoologist along the way and though they hadn't as of yet found any Crumpled-Horned Snorkaks they were both deliriously happy with each other. In remote wildernesses completely cut off, by their own disinterest, from news of the Ministry.

Neville had hooked up with Tonks in the early days of the aftermath. He'd been her partner when they'd both still been Aurors and he'd helped her raise Teddy and work through her grief over Remus' death. Then slowly they'd become more. Lovers and parents to Teddy. They poured all their time and energy into their family and then into their students when McGonagall had hired them on as Defense and Herbology professors respectively.

Molly and Arthur had rebuilt the Burrow a process taking months and comprising fits and starts that eventually collected into a hodge-podge whole. It would go to Ginny when the elder Weasleys passed on.

Arthur had retired from his position at the Ministry his pension and Molly's new bakery in the village of Ottery St. Catchpole kept them living comfortably and peacefully.

Ginny had joined the Hollyhead Harpies and was anything but peaceful. Harry's revelation about his sexuality had caused Ginny no amount of self-esteem issues and she apparently found it necessary to work through them by sleeping her way through the International Quidditch League. Needless to say she didn't read the papers much.

George, Lee Jordan and Angelina Johnson kept WWW afloat in the aftermath of Fred's death and eventually the Joke shop began expanding revitalized by new ideas as they took on apprentices and finally were able to move forward. But wallowing in grief and fighting to save a business left little time for keeping track of political curves.

Bill and Fleur had moved to Cairo and spent the majority of their days plundering forgotten ruins for treasure. English politics were as far from their minds as it was possible to be.

Harry had heard about the trial and the verdict only after it had happened. He had been staying with his sometime lover Julien Delacour, Fleur's cousin, when Gabrielle, still a rather big fan of his despite the fact that it had been years since he'd pulled her out of the Black Lake, had burst in and informed him the Ministry of Magic had petitioned the International Confederation of Wizards and had revoked his diplomatic immunity in order to hunt him down and have him executed for being a former Horcrux and posessee of Voldemort's.

Apparently too much time with the Dark Lord in your head could turn you into one yourself. Who knew?

He'd left Julien immediately and gone on the run. It had taken the bounty hunters two years to catch up with him and even then they'd barely prevented his escaping three times before they actually made it to this miserable cell.

They'd locked him into Binding Chains cutting him off from his magic. His magic thought he was dead and was slowly draining away back into the Earth from whence it came and all he could do was sit here and hope to be rescued before the last of it ran dry.

The cell was small, bare and depressing but there was an old deaf house elf who kept it clean and him as well with her magic so at least it didn't smell too badly. There were three meals a day, the same crap they served in the cafeteria above, and he had no cellmates and none of the guards seemed inclined to try and hurt him. He'd had worse at the Dursleys.

It was waiting in the dark that got to him.

There was nothing here to do except ward off the feeling of the silence and blackness pressing all around him, for hours, days weeks...

If he let it the feeling would press tight against his senses sending the primal parts of his brain that still remembered he wasn't at the top of the food chain into screaming fits until he was sweating and shaking with near panic. He'd done it on purpose a couple of times just to shake things up, worked himself into such a dither that he'd ripped his nails off trying to claw through the walls and floor.

The house elf had tattled on him after that and judging by the horrified expressions on the Aurors' faces when they came to inspect the damage it hadn't helped his case.

The trap door to his little cell swung open and Harry tried not to shrink away from the light that hurt his eyes after so long underground.

"Potter!" called a familiar clipped voice.

"Secretary Blinthe, how nice of you to visit," said Harry clearing his throat to try and erase some of the disuse from his voice.

Blinthe, as usual, ignored Harry's jibes. The picture of bureaucratic efficiency, that was him. He was a bland sort of man, a half-blood who'd worked as a memory modifier before the Ministry's fall to Voldemort. A steady looking sort of man people thought they could depend on if not be particular friends with. He was, Harry reflected, a man with no soul; obedient to a fault, loyal, practical, a little ruthless and not particularly squeamish.

"Mr. Potter, as the Secretary for Internal Defense it is my duty to inform you that you have been charged as unstable and dark and thus a threat to this government. As such, the Ministry of Magic in conjunction with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement has sentenced you to eternal imprisonment. The Aurors will escort you to Azkaban Island Prison where you will be entombed in enchanted stone. If you have any final words you may speak them now,"

Harry laughed a bit. A bitter humorless sound.

"You're all fucking idiots," he said.

Dutifully Blinthe noted the words down on his clipboard. He then turned to the burly Auror standing beside and slightly behind him.

"Bring him," Blinthe ordered before turning away his boot heels clacking smartly on the polished floor.

The Auror gave him a pitying glance.

"They tried y'know. Yer friends," he said.

"I know,"

Harry saw a flash of red light and then everything was dark.

And it stayed dark.

He couldn't move in the dark. It pressed close against his skin keeping him still. It pressed close against his mind keeping him silent, his thoughts down to mere whispers. He still perceived the shadowy echo of murmured voices and the occasional brush of a flower against his feet or rain and wind across his body jolted him into greater awareness for awhile.

Mostly though he felt nothing.

Mostly Harry dreamed and remembered and waited.

For what he didn't know.

AN: Just setting the scene here a bit. Let me know what you guys think. Thx.