Azkaban Prison Experiment

MarsMagnus

April 5, 2015

I don't own Harry Potter or any of its characters. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling and whoever she sold the rights to. No monetary gain stems from this fanfiction. For entertainment purposes only.

Chapter 1: New life

Storm was raging around him, rain hitting him like bullets. But Sirius Black did not feel the rain or the cold of the night. He shifted a gear up, urging his motorcycle on into the black sky. Something about this doesnt feel right. Something happened to James and Lily, I can feel it! He was quickly approaching Godric's Hollow, hoping that his friends would be all right when he arrived.

As Sirius broke through the clouds over the Potter's residence, he faltered. His hands slipped from the motorcycle, and he barely managed to pull up the handlebar.
40 feet below him were smoldering ruins were once was a beautiful cottage. He flew a bow, descending faster now. This can't be happening, not now! The Fidelius was supposed to protect them!

He went through the open door, and froze mid-step. "James...", Sirius whispered, barely able to speak. He inched forward, weakness overcoming him and his legs shaking. He knelt next to his best friend, looking into his face. But not the lively and sparkling brown eyes were looking back, James' eyes were cold and dull. Tears were starting to fill up his eyes, but then Sirius heard a thud from above.
The upper parts of the building were collapsing. "Harry!", he shouted while jumping up. He got up the stairs and into the nursery. Lily's body was lying next to the door, and there, in the shattered crib, was Harry. A large, angry red scar was on his forehead, but the baby was calm. He picked Harry up, cradling him into his arms, and he sank down against the wall with a face aged ten years in the last minute. His life was in shambles.

"The Fidelius should have kept them safe.", he mumbled. "Should have kept them safe . . . the Fidelius." Then realization struck him. "Peter! He betrayed them! The bloody bastard betrayed them!" He jumped up, pulling his wand out in the motion. He conjured a sling, and with one, two quick movements, Harry was safely tucked away.
He strode over to the cupboard, and put a few jars of baby food into his bag. I don't want Harry to starve.
He jumped down the stairs, but was stopped dead in his tracks. A large, looming figure was blocking the doorway. Sirius pushed Harry to his back with one hand and leveled his wand at the figure with the other.

"Who walks there?", he demanded with a certain hardness in his voice. The grief had let every positive spirit drain out.
The figure stepped into the light, and Sirius could see it was in fact a man, albeit a very large one. "Hagrid? What are you doing here?" He lowered his wand, but after a split second it was aimed at Hagrid's face again. If Peter can betray us, so can Hagrid.

"I said, what are you doing, Hagrid?", Sirius said between clenched teeth. Hagrid raised his hands with a clearly shocked face. "Sirius, calm down,
Dumbledor sent me to look after the Potters an' Harry. They're dead, aren't they?". At the end, Hagrid broke into a sob. This did not break Sirius' resolve, though. He kept his wand raised. "What did Dumbledore sent you for? What is your mission?", Sirius nearly screamed, driving Hagrid back out of the House with his wand.

Strangely, the larger man was shaking. "What are ye doin' ? I am supposed to pick up Harry an' bring him to his aunt an' uncle", Hagrid said slightly frowning. To his aunt and uncle? Lily said her sister hates magic, and her husband is probably wore. Why would Dumbledore put Harry there?

"Give Harry to me, Sirius.", Hagrid said with regained posture, holding out one large hand to Sirius. This isn't right. Something is off. "Stupefy! Stupefy! Stupefy Stupefy!" , Sirius bellowed. He released flurry after flurry of stunners. The giant fell with a truly thundering thud. Only the last of the dozen charms had managed to get through Hagrid's skin. Sirius was now standing over Hagrid, and he aimed his wand at his face again.
"Amnesia!" , Sirius intoned. I can't take any chance of him telling Dumbledore. He ran over to his motorcycle, kickstarting it with his wand. Before a full minute had gone by, Sirius Black was back in the skies with a baby under his arm.

It was a 2 hour flight to Peter's hideout in Durham. Sirius was sure that Pettigrew would run away to his hometown, like he had always done. He went down at the outer skirts of the city, far from muggle eyes. I hope some garages are still opened, I don't want the cycle stolen. Sirius drove into the city, finally finding a motel with a nearby car park. He paid the bored-looking portier his 7 pounds for the night, and went into the small and dirty room. "Ambushing Peter will be fairly easy I guess. He will want to trap me. But what do I do with Harry? I can't possibly leave him here. I guess I will have to take my chances with him at my side.", Sirius mumbled to himself. He opened one of the baby jars and began feeding Harry. "Here you go, little man. Eat up.", Sirius said, struggling to to keep from crying again, crying for the friends that had died. "I know you would prefer eating with your mom and dad." He held Harry tighter. "But you'll have to cope with me I'm aifraid." Eventually Harry fell asleep, snuggling into Sirius lap.

"Tomorrow, we are going to avenge your parents, Harry." With that, Sirius fell asleep as well.

The sun was shining through the colorful market stalls on the town square in Durham. Sirius Black was sat in one of the many little cafés and enjoyed the weather with his morning tea. Well, at least that's what it looked like.
Inside, he was tense to the extreme. He was expecting someone. Someone who just arrived on the other side of the town square. Here we go, Peter. You or me, only one of us can go out alive. Sirius checked the concealment and protection charms on Harry's sling again while walking out. They were still very strong, and yet subtle. It would be hard to find Harry or take him away.

Pettigrew didn't see him coming. "Hello, Peter.", Sirius growled. Peter spun around. "Sirius! What are you doing here?", Peter stammered with obvious fear. "You know damn well what I am doing here. How could you, Peter? They were our friends, they were innocent, good people! How could you betray them?!" "You don't understand, Sirius! The Dark Lord, he would have killed me. I had to help him!" "Coward!", Sirius spat while drawing his wand.

He sent a cutting curse after Peter, who brought up his schields just in time.
"I would have rather died than betray my friends! And you should have too!" Sirius cast spell after spell, each curse deadlier than the former. "I don't have time for this, Sirius. The Lord is expecting me for a report." Instead of blocking Sirius curse, Peter aimed his wand behind himself, muttering a spell. Even before he had finished, he began his animagus transformation. Seeing that his curse had missed, Sirius began to recast, but a sudden explo- sion stopped him. When he could hear and see again, Sirius was standing in front of a 8 foot deep and atleast 20 feet wide crater.
People were screaming, blood and torn bodies were everywhere. The neighbouring buildings were collapsing. Pettigrew was nowhere to be seen.
"Great. Now he wants to frame me for dozens of dead muggles.", Sirius thought surprisingly calm. He didn't move, for what seemed for hours. He had started to laugh somewhere in the last minutes. A strangled, gurgling laugh, terrifying to listen. Sirius was still laughing when he was hauled away by the Aurors, and he was still laughing in the halls of the Wizengamot. Finally he was to tired too laugh, but broken sounds still escaped his mouth on the way to Azkaban. When he fell asleep that first night, in his cold and damp cell, Sirius' life as he knew it had truly ended.

The next morning Sirius was rudely awakened by a kick to his ribs. A large man, nearing 40, with long and dirty brown hair was standing over him.
"Get up, idiot. We have a lot of ground to cover today.", the man said. As Sirius scrambled to his feet, readjusting the sling with little Harry inside, the man continued. "I'm Howard, and I am on newbie duty this week. That means I have to show a bunch of douchebags like you the ropes of life in Azkaban sector M, and make sure that you live through your first week. That is what the Prison Council decreed."
He was leading Sirius out of his cell down the prison hallway. "Here on the left and right are your lovely mates. They will be thrilled to get to know you."

They turned right into the next hallway. "Where are we goi..." "Shut up! You are here to listen, not to speak", Howard interrupted Sirius. "Up ahead is the cheapest of the four M canteens. The food is not the best and barely digesteable, but they will give even a lowlife like you something to bite. From time to time even for free.", Howard ended with a laugh.
The canteen was a large room filled with low slung tables with two rows of benches each. Bent and impossibly thin tin plates were heaped on a stone slab at the head of the room. Every surface in the room was stained and covered in filth.

"Breakfast is something for the more expansive canteens" At Sirius' disgusted look Howard laughed again. "Too expansive for you, retard."
Howard pushed Sirius into the hallway they had come from. They followed the hall for nearly half an hour, cells with inmates lining the walls, most of them still asleep.
"And here we have our...Aquadrome." Sirius stepped into a large, domed stone hall. On the right and left side stone steps were leading to the upper floors. The floors were made out of metal grates, to allow the water to flow through.
"There are three floors. Twice a day, there is water for one hour. If you want to get clean, I recommend the upper ones. If you can fight for them, that is." "When twice a day?", Sirius asked. "9 in the morning and 6 in the afternoon. Now let's get going."
They followed labyrinthincal paths through the prison, to arrive in a slightly cleaner area.

"That is this sector's outer office. News get in, and messages get out. There is the occasional contract, but not that many up here.
"Right next to it is the contraband shop. They carry the usual stuff, but you can order from them as well. If you can pay for it, of course. There is a gym in here and some other stuff, but I am not really interested in going around holding your hand the whole day. Just one thing for the end: Remember that you have one week here where you are basically guarentueed to live.
"Don't throw it away by slacking. And now, you'll find your way back to your cell, I'm sure."

It had been a year since Sirius' internment, and a lot had happened. He had managed to hide Harry from the other inmates, and he had managed to keep them both alive.
He had taught Harry to walk and talk, and Sirius himself had learned to put himself back in order to survive in the harsh prison environment.

"Come on Harry, we have to go." He wrapped the sleeping Harry into the sling, happy to have conjured so much excess material a year back. "Let's see what Richard has for us", Sirius mumbled. Richard was the old clerk of the outer office, and he ran the contraband store as well. He was to Sirius the closest to a friend in all of Azkaban, except for Harry of course.
At first, the many hallways and small bays everywhere had confused Sirius, but now he moved in Azkaban as safe as a sleepwalker.

It was always quiet in Richard's store. Richard loved his quiet, and you don't go and anger someone sanctioned by the Prison Council. "Ah, Sirius. I had hoped you would come today. It's good to see you again", Richard greeted him. Richard was getting old, his short brown hair beginning to grey.
Richard's eyes were grey, too and those eyes had a particulary intelligent stare. Sirius let himself fall on one of the chairs in front of Richard's desk.
"Any important news?" "There are, actually", Richard answered, his lips curling up in smile. Sirius lifted an idle brow. "There are, really? I did not expect that." "It is about your old friend Marcus Hemlock." Sirius' face grew into a grimace.
Hemlock was the worst man he had met in Azkaban.

20 stone of a man, with a face covered in scars and always something nasty on his mind, Marcus was brutal to the extreme. In the hour that his first week had run out, Hemlock had beaten Sirius to a pulp, breaking two ribs and his collarbone in the process.
"Teaching the bloody Death Eater how it works in sector M", he had said. "What about him, Richard? Please don't tell me he made Wake or something."
The Wakes were the muscle of the Council, elected twice a year for every sector. The number of Wakes was dependant on the size of the sector, and right now M had four of them. The Wakes were also issued a wand free of charge by the Coucil, making them the clearly superior inmates. Not many had the money or influence to get themselves a wand in a sector as high up the prison tower as M.

Richard coughed a laugh. "Morgana's mercy, no! I would never get anything done again with that mongrel looming over my shoulder. But back to topic. Before Azkaban, Hemlock was running a brothel in Leeds for the Welsh mob, remember?" Sirius nodded at that. Hemlock had always bragged that "his folk's'" influence would get him out of Sector M into a friendlier part of Azkaban very soon.
"What about them? They're getting him out of M?" Richard laughed again.
"In a way, yes. They came to know that he fucked them over to the Scots, repeatedly. Ruined one of their operations, reselling of stolen antiquities or something, and he took a bigger cut than he was supposed to. Bottom line, they want him dead. They offer a favor, and 100 Galleons once you are out of Azkaban."
"I have 29 life sentences, I don't think I'll be able to leave any time soon", Sirius said with a sad smile. "But I could definitely use the favor. Does he know what's coming?" "No, I held the contract back for you. I have to put it up on display though, should you accept it." Sirius pondered it only for a moment. "I will have to accept", he said with a sigh.
Richard's gaze softened. "Look, I know you abhor all the killing. But here, you have to be cold to survive. If you get some satisfactory revenge out of it, all the better. But you should get going. Maybe you can ambush him on his way to lunch." Sirius stood, shaking Richard's hand. He made his way to the door, but before he could get out, Richard stopped him. "One more thing, Sirius. I heard that the Dementors grew bored of the death eaters above. Not much happiness left I guess. They're making their way down here, one after the other. So you better remember to lock your cell at night." Sirius smiled. "Always do. And thank you, Richard."

The dementors were what Sirius had feared most in those first nights in Azkaban. But he had never seen a single one in the past year. Dementors liked the heights, and they would always go after the prey higher up in the sky.
That the Ministry put all witches and wizards convicted for being a death eater in the highest sector gave the rest of the prison a brief period of peace. But the abundance of food had let the dementor population swell to a peak, and now they were starving for fresh minds.

Finding a place for the ambush was relatively easy. Hemlock always went to the same expensive canteen, and he always went to the same mistress before lunch.

Sirius had decided for a nice secretive corner, unseen from other hallways.
"It's time, I better put Harry somewhere safe", Sirius thought. He continued to lay little Harry down into an alcove in the wall, where he would be able to retrieve him later. Then the wait for Marcus Hemlock began.

After a few minutes, Sirius could hear approaching footsteps. At first, he wasn't sure if it really was him, but a second later he could also hear Hem- lock's load voice, caught up in a heated discussion about the most recent match of the Leeds Leviathans vs. the Warwick Warlocks. Apparantly the Leviathans had lost, which didn't better Hemlock's mood.

"Now or never." Sirius began the animagus transformation, his whole body shook and his head was turning as his center of mass was shifting. Three seconds later four massive paws were planted on the ground.
I should take out the other guy first. I don't want to be distracted when I finish off Hemlock. The two men came around the corner, both freezed in sight of the giant wolf in front of them "It's the Grim, Marcus! It's the Grim!", the other man shouted. It should be the last thing his tongue ever did, because not even a split second later 16 sharp teeth dug themselves into his throat, and, with a jerk of Sirius' head, ripped it out.
Blood sprayed everywhere, and Hemlock began to scream. His face was covered in warm red blood, and the skin underneath had turned chalk white.
Sirius growled, and turned to him. Hemlock was too tall for Sirius to jump for his throat, so Sirius decided to settle for the belly.
Hemlock fell fast, and he fell hard.
Hard pressed to push the intestines that were sprawled on the floor back into his body, he didn't see Sirius coming for his head.
The last thing Marcus Hemlock saw in his life were the massive jaws closing over his head, snapping shut with a truly sickening crunch.

Sirius reversed the transformation, only to hurl unto Hemlock's corpse.
That was messier than I expected. I think the wolf got the better of me. He pulled himsef up, his knees still shaking. I killed before, but always in battle. Murder like that . . . it's different.
 Wailing ripped Sirius out of his thoughts. Harry!
He ran back down the hallway where he had stashed Harry, and pulled the child up to his chest. "Shh, Harry, everything is well. Let's get back to Richard." Sirius needed to buy another potion of endless sleep, to pacify Harry.
While he was of course feeling guilty for constantly drugging Harry, Sirius could take no chances with the other prisoners. If someone were to hear Harry, everything would be lost.

Not long after he had left the scene of Hemlock's demise, Sirius could hear the literal uproar that he had caused. After a murder like that, everyone was twitchy, and not few were scared. Sirius didn't care to meet any unfriendly prisoners, so he had to detour quite a bit.
It was already evening when he arrived at the contraband store.

Richard gave him a sour smile as he entered. "You caused quite the ruckus, Sirius. That someone dies is not uncommon, but to depart in such a gruesome way . . . unsettling." Sirius looked down, guiltridden.
He looked up again, straight into Richard's eyes. "Can you keep a secret?"
Richard thought for a moment. "From other prisoners? Yes, for you I can. From the Council? Never." "That is good enough I guess. You are probably asking yourself how I managed to kill him like that." Richard nodded.
"To mutilate two wizards like that without a wand is quite the feat. Especially the ripped throat impressed people, Sirius. Important people. So how did you do it?"
"I'm an Animagus, Richard. Unregistered, of course." Richard sunk into his chair, flabberghasted.
"Sirius, I don't think you realize what kind of potential you have. I would never have guessed that you are an Animagus, and if I didn't thought of it, I sincerely doubt many others will. You could take out half of sector M, and no one would know the better."
Sirius frowned at that. "Oh, don't worry Sirius. I will keep your secret. But I will tell the Welsh that you did a very good job, and that you seem to have a lot of talent in that line of work."
"Contrary to public opinion, I am not a mass murderer, Richard. And I don't plan on becoming one." Richard put a hand on Sirius' shoulder, trying to calm him down. "No one is talking about mass murder, son. I am talking about oppurtunities. You said that you wanted to better your position in Azkaban. What better way than to make powerful people happy?"
Sirius thought for a moment, sighing deeply. "Perhaps you are right. Tell the Welsh or the mobster kings or whatever that I am interested in further
. . . oppurtunities."