A/N: Hey there, welcome to my first ever posted fic, 'The Feeling of Freedom' and this is a very big thing for me because I'm extremely shy about anything I write. Please point out any spelling/grammatical/factual errors, thanks.

Disclaimer: Anything you recognise from the Harry Potter world belongs to JKR, not me.

Summary: Sirius Black escapes from Azkaban with a murderous young woman who's never known freedom.

Timeline: Flint goes to Azkaban in 1980, when she's 15. Escapes in 1993 with Sirius when she's 28. Sirius: Goes to Azkaban in 1981 when he's 21. Escapes in 1993 as canon, when he's 33.

Prologue

1980

"Did you hear the news?" a very pregnant Lily Potter asked hotly, entering the kitchen of her home where her husband and his best friend sat at the table playing Exploding Snap.
"What news?" James Potter, minus his eyebrows, asked. Usually Lily would have laughed at the sight of her husband's singed, slightly bewildered expression, but today the redhead had an angry scowl on her face.
"Jemima Flint went to Azkaban today," she told the two men, who shared a look of confusion.
"Friend of yours?" Sirius asked mockingly. Lily shot him a dirty look.
"I'm not surprised neither of you remember her," she huffed, throwing the newspaper she'd been holding down onto the table between the two men. A photo of a ratty looking girl with inky black hair and smudges of kohl eyeliner under her eyes –which gleamed savagely up at them –grinned dangerously on the front page of the paper.
"She was five years below us at Hogwarts. Lovely girl. Horrible temper," Lily told them. "And they're sending her to Azkaban, for life, without even a trail! She's only fifteen years old, for Merlin's sake!"
"What'd she do?" James asked, pulling the paper –which was headlined 'Death Eater's daughter to spend life behind bars' toward him.
"Apparently," Lily said, as if she believed it was all rubbish, "she killed her mother, sister and one of her brothers. It's still no reason to send someone to Azkaban without a trial!"
"Says here she was found standing over their bodies with a bloody brick. She – yuck – beat their heads in," Sirius scrunched up his nose as he read aloud.
"Yuck," James agreed, tilting his head thoughtfully. "Aren't the Flint's friends of your family, Pads?"
"Probably," Sirius muttered. "I know I've wanted to beat my relatives to death more than once."
James' lips twitched into a smirk and soon the two young men were laughing.
"Life in Azkaban is nothing to laugh about," Lily scolded, snatching up the paper and storming out of the room.

1981

"I'M INNOCENT!" Sirius bellowed, but his cries fell on deaf ears. "I'M AN INNOCENT MAN; YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!"
His cell was tiny. There was a rickety bed on one wall and a toilet on the other.
"I'M AN INNOCENT MAN, HELP ME!"
"THEY DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE INNCOENT OR NOT AND I'M TRYING TO BLOODY THINK SO CAN YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP?"
It was a girl's voice yelling back at him, young and angry and surprisingly close, mayhap from a neighbouring cell. Sirius fell back against the wall and he slid down it, head in hands.
"I'm an innocent man," he whispered to the oppressing darkness. "I'm innocent."
But there was no one to listen.

Sirius awoke to the sound of singing. He's been in Azkaban for a day and a night already and already he could feel his sanity draining away. There was a pounding ache in his head that he didn't know how he's gotten or why, and his cheeks were wet with tears for his lost friends.
Sirius stood, cracking his stiff joints, an ache in his stomach. Some time while he slept a tray had been shoved into his cell, on it a bowl of some sort of soup and two pieces of stale bread. As hungry as he was, Sirius didn't dare touch the stone cold, cement like soup and instead wolfed down the bread like he's never eat again. In this place, who knew?
"It's not that bad, you know," said a voice behind him. Sirius spun around, thinking he'd gone mad already and instead saw the grimy face of the inmate in the cell next to him peering at him through a small barred window at the top of the stone wall that separated their cells. It was a girl, young looking, probably the one who'd yelled and swore at him when he first arrived, her face half hidden by a mane of greasy dark hair, dark green eyes gazing at him with barely concealed amusement.
"The gruel," she told him. "It's not that bad. Although I suppose in this place you'll eat anything if you're hungry enough. Just make sure you eat it before it eats you," she grinned, leant back and yelled, "Welcome to Azkaban Prison, the home of the criminally insane and the insane criminals!" and a chorus of "Shut it, Flint, we're trying to sleep!" rang out from the nearby cells.
"Aren't you going to answer me?" the girl asked, leaning forward and pressing her face to the bars, voice mockingly sweet, and Sirius thought she might have been laughing at him. "You were yelling loud enough when you came in, and conversation helps keep you sane. I have this conversation with myself all the time, you know."
She was definitely laughing at him, Sirius realized, and he couldn't help but mutter back, "My apologies, I was startled into silence by how incredibly ugly you are."
To his surprise, she laughed, and said through rather insane giggles, "You're funny. I like you."
"Glad to know I'm still funny," Sirius muttered, kicking the foot of the rickety bed and wondered if it would collapse under his weight the next time he lay on it. "Since I suspect my ravaging good looks with disintegrate during my stay here."
"Probably," the girl agreed. "Mine did, leaving so incredibly ugly. I'm Jem, by the way. Jem Flint."
"Sirius Black," he offered, aware that the name he hated so much would be plastered across newspapers declaring him a murderer and a Death Eater.
"What did you do?"
"Do?"
"To get chucked in here, Black. I doubt you came to stay for the five star accommodation and fine dining."
"They say I'm a Death Eater," he whispered. "They say I handed two of my best friends over to Voldemort and killed another along with twelve muggles."
"Did you?"
"No."
A moment of silence. Then -
"They say that in a fit of murderous insanity I accidentally killed my mother, sister and brother."
"Did you?"
"It was no insane rage. I knew exactly what I was doing."
Sirius was silent, and Jem Flint began to sing.

1982

"Hey, Sirius guess what?"
Sirius, or rather Padfoot, perked his ears up at the familiar voice and the shaggy black dog transformed into a man.
"You've figured out how to escape this hellhole?" he asked, pulling himself up to the window so he could look into Flint's cell.
Sirius had been in Azkaban for seven months, and in that time he'd formed an odd sort of friendship with the murderess in the cell next door. They would spend the long, cold nights talking about everything from escape routes to kittens and Sirius was sure she was the only thing keeping him sane.
"Escape? Oh, god no," Flint answered, leaning her head back against the wall. "It's my birthday."
Sirius snorted. "I'll make you a cake."
"I'm seventeen," she continued. Sirius was surprised; he'd always assumed she was in her early to mid-twenties, but he didn't say anything. When he had turned seventeen, James' parents had thrown him a massive party with plenty of alcohol and presents, and his Uncle Al had given him a fortune, and Sirius felt a stab of pity for the young girl spending hers behind bars.
"You're younger than I thought you were," he said finally. "I'd always assumed you were my age."
"Which is?"
"Twenty-one. Wait, I'd be twenty-two now."
"You're older than I thought. Also, you act like a twelve year old."
"Hey!"
Flint just laughed, and hummed that insufferable song she was always singing about blackbirds under her breath.

1986

It was windy when they took Flint away.
The howling reminded Sirius of Moony, and he'd been dangerously depressing himself by thinking about his lost friends when the rusty hinges of Flint's cell door creaked open and he heard her cheerfully greeting someone. Sirius hoisted himself up to their window, where he could see two guards – two human guards –enter the room and advance on Flint, who backed away with a wild look of panic in her dark green eyes.
"You're being transferred to another cell," one of the guards informed her.
"Why?" Flint asked sharply, looking rather like a cornered animal.
"This cell is needed for a high-risk prisoner."
"You're taking her away?" Sirius growled, pressing his face to the bars of the shared window.
"No!" Flint shied away from the guards. "You can't! Please, don't!"
The guards glanced to Sirius, then to Flint and a shared look of comprehension grew on their faces.
"Sorry, sweetheart," one of the guards stepped forward and drew shackles from his belt, "but we're going to have to take you away from your lover boy."
"No!" Flint cried as he grabbed her and let his partner shackle her. "Sirius! You can't let them do this – SIRIUS!"
"FLINT!" he yelled, shaking the bars of the window. "FLINT! JEM!"
He realised it was the first time he had ever spoken her first name but didn't have time to think on it; they were dragging her away, and the last glimpse he got of her was a swish of black hair and she was gone, the cell door banging close behind her.
He could hear her yelling all the way down the corridor – "Don't take me away from him, he's the only thing that keeps me sane – PLEASE! SIRIUS!" but eventually even her voice faded away into the background, and she was gone.
And in the ringing silence that followed Sirius could feel his sanity slipping away.

So that's the prologue. First chapter on the way. Reviews and constructive criticism are welcome, flames make me laugh.

-GNU