Prologue
It would begin and end with a veil.
It is said that when a person dies, that person's life flashes before their eyes. Some say those moments are the ones most treasured, others most horrifying, and others say that....well, the entire life flashes before the eyes. Sirius Black did not know which theory was correct. The last thing he saw before melting into the veil was Harry's distressed face and Belletrix's hysterically amused one.
He saw nothing. He heard nothing, save for the faint sound of Harry's screams....Harry's screams.....it was not James he had been dueling with moments before, it had been Harry. Harry, his godson. Dear merlin, he had failed the boy again....
He wanted to feel guilty. His heart had been heavy for so long....he couldn't feel it. He just felt the sadness....the overwhelming doom that dementors brought with them.....and then peace......calm....perhaps even happy.
Sirius Black had not been happy in a long time.
He felt so sleepy....he could imagine the scene now, Remus and he playing shadow puppets by the Gryffindor Common Room's fireside......James on the other end snuggling with Lily, giving a cocky yet matured grin. Sirius's own girlfriend at the time, Catherine, was adorably curled up to sleep by Sirius's side. He couldn't help but smile at the slight twitch her toes made when she was dreaming. It was one of the happiest moments of his life....not exciting, not thrilling....simply content....with people he loved.....with people he trusted.
Peter sat quietly in the corner, shifting uncomfortably as he fiddled with his long sleeved shirt.
It was that memory that had remained with him when dementors drew near. It was that memory that reminded Sirius why he needed to live. It was that memory, among others.
A proud James and a weary Lily at the hospital, cradling his godson.....
A cooing Harry as Padfoot gave him a stuffed dog.......
Getting drunk with James after a battle, blabbering an excuse to Catherine as to why he had thrown up all over her new blouse....wait a minute....that wasn't a happy memory.....oh well, it may haven't been happy, but it was still funny as hell.
Sirius had finally allowed himself to be happy....to have a family.......and then....and then.....the war.....blood. Voldemort took it all away.....his past came to haunt him.....the battles grew bloodier, and he was soon attending the funerals of wizards he had attended auror academy with. A prophecy had been made about Harry or Frank's kid. There were bags under his best friend's eyes. Catherine and he weren't speaking. Peter was never around. Remus was acting funny.....and....and.....betrayal?
It had hurt. His arrogance had hurt. It had hurt him, it had hurt the Potters, and it had hurt Remus. Peter, dim Peter, could never be serving the dark lord. It wasn't possible. But Remus, a bloody werewolf, now he was a plausible suspect.....The dark Lord was offering a new potion that would let Werewolves remain conscious during transformation. Remus was smart enough to pull of something like this. It had to be Remus...after all, he was a dark magical creature.......
And then a flash of green, a crying boy-who-lived, and the whole world was crying that it had to be Siruis....after all, he was a Black. Remus had been innocent; it had been that rat. That bloody rat who had tricked them all. Remus's thoughts that Sirius had been the betrayer were 'confirmed'. Cathy......merlin....she had been dead a month before James and Lily.....found dead in her apartment. She and Peter had always been close friend....but the bloody rat killed her too.
It was all Sirius's fault.
He had gone nearly insane.....no.....he had gone insane. Sirius Black had gone insane because the only people he had allowed himself to love had been stripped away from him. His mother had been right....he was a horrid idiot who didn't deserve to live. James was dead. Lily was dead. Cathy was dead. Remus thought him a traitor, and Harry was growing up with those monstrous relatives of his.
Sirius chuckled to himself suddenly. He supposed the old literary phrase held some truth. His life had not flashed before his eyes....but certain bits had certainly been thought over. Regretted over. Wait.....
Wait.....
He had chuckled. Yes, he was quite sure of it. There it was again! A very faint, croaking noise, but a noise none the less. He was making noise, and he could hear himself making the noise. Was he a ghost? Ghosts could make noise, he supposed, and they certainly were burrowed in memories....no.....he could feel his chest rising. He was alive.
How the heck was he alive?
Sirius flexed his fingers, one at a time. His eyes were closed. He was conscious of that now. He felt no pain, but that drizzly content feeling was draining away, as well as the nostalgia. He had been dying, but he had not died. Sirius barked another laugh, this one notably louder. Sirius Black had escaped death once again.
Slowly, ever carefully, he opened his eyes. His vision was blurry, but it was growing clearer. His senses grew sharper. He was on a hard, concrete surface....maybe stone. Muddy...no, not muddy. Grimy. The air was moist. How could the air be moist? He had been in the Department of.....
His heart skipped a beat. No. He could not be...Azkaban? Had they recaptured him after all this time? After all he had fought for? No. This could not be happening, he had promised Harry.....
Wait. No. Azkaban had walls, there were no walls around him. There had been no stars looking down upon him in Azkaban. He could see them now, clear as day. He jerked himself up, laughing loudly once more. He could see Sirius. He could see the constellation! Oh, how hilarious. Even after Azkaban, he had scarcely seen the stars, never the less his namesake. And yet there it was, just sitting there as if it had never moved.
Technically it hadn't, but that was beside the point.
He flexed his fingers once more. He was weak, but he was very much alive. Around Diagon Alley, it appeared. Diagon Alley.....
Quick as a flash, Sirius formed into a dog. He could not take any risks. Merlin knows how he ended up in the middle of the streets.....but he was not about to stay there in human form. Not when the risk of Azkaban was still very real, and still so very fresh on his mind.
But along with Azkaban, there was another thought. Where was Harry? Was he safe? Dear merlin, was he dead? No. He was a Potter, after all, and everyone knows Potters are as infamous for getting out of trouble as they are at getting in them. He had to find him, however, and soon. And get Moony to explain to him how the bloody hell he had ended up here.
Padfoot strolled down the alleyway, surprised at how quiet the scenery was. Not even the street rats were stirring.....the bars were all silent, and the lights were all out. It was because of this, Padfoot realized, that he could see the stars in the middle of a city. Moony would be proud for him to be thinking about such things.
Still, the silence put him at unease. He cautiously peered at the side of the alleyway's end, and suddenly felt very glad that he had been quiet in doing so. He could not see them, but he could certainly smell them. Two familiar scents were stalking his way....both of which deatheaters.
Lucius Malfoy and Antonin Dolohov.
Padfoot froze. Dolohov always sent shivers down his spine, but Malfoy...Malfoy....Malfoy was an old time rival, and one that was too smart for his own good. He might not recognize Sirius in animagus form, but he would certainly know something was up.
"It was from here." Yes. He would definitely know something was up. Padfoot scurried back down the alleyway, thankful for his padded feet.
"Are you sure? This could be a trap, Malfoy...."
"Shh! Listen!"
He was almost at the end....what was at the end? Curse dog vision, everything was in black and white.....smell....smell.....what was that smell?
"Wand out. Watch my back."
"Personally, I'd rather stab it....."
"Good, because then my screaming would alert the aurors and you'll be locked up in Azkaban while I'm the innocent victim."
"Like Moody would believe tha...."
"Listen!"
Sirius had whined. Ever so softly, but he had whined. It was pure doglike instinct to do so when you've discovered something utterly dreadful. That utterly dreadful something being that the alleyway led to a dead end.
And now his whining had confirmed Malfoy's suspicions.
He could hear them, even fifty feet away. They talked no more. It had been unprofessional for them to do so in the first place. They were confident. They were......they were.......Sirius sniffed at their scents once more. They were young.
Perhaps it was Malfoy Jr. They were bound to smell similiar....no....it wasn't Draco, he was sure of it. For one, the voice belonged to that of an adult in his twenties, not some snotty kid finishing his fifth year. Maybe Jr.'s voice had deepened more....no....this was Lucius. His scent was distinct. It was him, and it was Antonin Dolohov.
Hadn't Dolohov been in the Department of Mysteries only moments before?
"It's a dog." Malfoy snarled. Sirius froze, but caught himself and began digging through random rubbish within the alleyway. Dolohov peered closer towards him.
"That isn't just a dog. Dogs don't hesitate like that."
"Stupef...." Sirius jumped to the side, and leaped at Dolohov. Dolohov swore, Malfoy began muttering the killing curse, but it was too late. Sirius had fought Dolohov before....in fact, only moments before. He knew what a nasty brute Antonin was. He knew how experienced he was. Malfoy too, for that matter.
Yet, as Sirius darted past them, he couldn't help but think just how easy it had been to get past them. Both had years of experience....Dolohov, in particular, had endured Azkaban even longer than Sirius had. Yet with a simple surprise maneuver, two experienced deadly death eaters had been taken off their guard. They had been sloppy, too. They had talked aloud for any wizard in the Alley to hear them.
Sirius, however, had no time to think this through. If he had been Moony, perhaps he would've bothered to. But at the moment, his only goal was to escape Diagon Alley and find Harry before he got his arse cursed off.
Wincing, Sirius noticed he had just barely dodged a cutting hex that would've done just that.
"It's one of Pettigrew's friends, they're animagus!" Sloppy. Malfoy would never lose his cool, never speak as confidently (though perhaps arrogantly) as that in public. But it was him. His scent, albeit it a bit muffled from his death eater robes, was definently Malfoy's.
Polyjuice, maybe? But why?
Padfoot darted across the alleyway once more, strangely thankful that the past years had produced a strained endurance within his lean frame. The two death eaters were being sloppy, and he couldn't smell any others within a couple of hundred of feet. As far as Padfoot knew, he was in the all clear.
He forgot that even a sloppy Antonin Dolohov could be deadly.
With a lurch, Padfoot saw a familiar purple tone. It had an odd tint to it, as if it was a spell that had not yet been perfected, but Sirius had no doubt that it was the infamous curse of Antonin Dolohov.
With dog's reflexes, Sirius was able to partly dodge it. But an alleyway could only provide so much room for a dog to dodge. The curse only hit his tail, but that was enough. Whatever that dreadful curse Dolohov created did, it did it quickly. Within seconds, Sirius was stumbling wildly, a burning pain within his innards.
It was then that Sirius Black did what any dog would do. He howled with pain. It was a short, pitiful howl, but it was enough to draw cursing (both in spell form and in improper words) from the two death eaters behind him. A howl would certainly draw unwanted attention.
Sirius was not thinking of this when he let out the howl, however, but reverting to instincts. Pain. Help. Prongs....Moony....curse it........ugh......
The spell has scarcely even hit him, yet it felt as if his innards were slowly roasting. He kept running, though rather raggedly, until the alley's opening. The death eaters' cursing grew louder, and the walls flashed with green. A killing curse had missed its target by a mere few inches. Sirius let out another howl, this one more desperate. He may have built some endurance through the past years' events, but his body was worn, and his mind was....well...unstable. And Harry....what the bloody hell had happened?
He was running without a goal, now, but purely on instinct. He smelled more people, their scents faint, and felt himself panicking even more. Where there was one death eater, there were several. This was no patrol.....patrol.....why had even thought that? Voldemort hadn't run official patrols since the first war.....
"Sirius?!" He could hear a familiar voice in the distance. Harry? What was he doing here? No....if this was another death eater attack, he didn't want Harry around it. Desperate and out of the two death eater's sight, Sirius transformed back into human.
"Get away from here, Harry, run!" He stumbled, groaning as he hit the cold stone. This couldn't be. He didn't live through the bloody veil at Department of Mysteries to be killed by a bloody death eater. Not after all he had been through....not with Harry...a....wreck.........
"....Could be a trap....."
"That's Sirius, and you know it!"
"Black isn't patrolling toda…."
"How would they know his bloody Animagus, Moody?!"
"Potter, wai….damn it!" Moody?
What on earth was Moody doing here? And Harry? And himself, for that matter? He'd have to remind Remus to correct Harry on his cursing….heh…..cursing….Harry….curses….everywhere…..Malfoy…..
The sharp edge of a wand to his head snapped him out of his daze.
"Black and Potter, always together and always into mischief. Where there's one, there's the other." Dolohov sneered. Sirius felt the edge of the wand push further into his skull. Sirius moaned.
"Feeling my lovely curse, Black? Brand new, just for you. Roasts your innards to perfection, among other things." Dolohov looked at the opposing Order members, than back at Sirius. "What about it, Potter? What about roast dog? They say the liver's the most nutritious part…."
"If you're going to kill him, you would've done so by now, Dolohov. You've always been one more for the efficient and gruesome killing." Moody. His voice sounded different, too. Why did he sound different? Sirius squinted. Moody looked like he had lost some weight. Good for him. Never really was overweight, just not muscled like he used to be….Constant vigilance….heh....so much for it….vigilence….Moody…..Harry? Harry! Had to get him away from here….distract the bastards….
Roast dog it would be, then.
Sirius shoved his elbow as hard as he could into Dolohov's ribs. Dolohov let out a little gasp of air behind him. Just a little, but it was enough for his grasp on his wand to waver. Sirius grabbed it, laughing hysterically. He was beating a death eater the muggle way. What a bit of irony.
Flashes of light filled the alleyway once more. As the strange pain continued traveling across his body, he couldn't help but marveling at them. Purple. Red. Blue. Even green. Screaming. Yelling. Harry's voice….James's voice…James…green flash …no…not green…hazel…
And then at last, blackness.
Author's Note: The first thing I would like to say is: I'm sorry for the cursing. Normally I don't curse in my stories, as I don't curse in real life. I've always been the type of person that scoffs at movies for putting cursing in places where it's not only unnecessary, but just hinders the dialogue further. However, there were some places in this story where I felt that cursing was appropriate. Many places, considering this is Sirius's POV.