Disclaimer: I don't own J.K. Rowling's universe, I just like to play with her characters, on occasion.
Author's Note: My thanks to lj's verus_janus, who encouraged me to take a step back from all my stuff in-progress to do something different for Christmas (2009). This one's for you, J.
A Very Sirius Christmas
by Scribe Teradia
His first Christmas out of Azkaban, Sirius spent in the Shrieking Shack, miserable and alone. It was a cold, cold winter, and the little house was in the worst state of disrepair he'd ever seen, but his fur kept him warm to a point, at least in dog form. His hate did the rest. Hate for Peter the traitor, hate for Peter-the-rat whose cowardice and greed had cost Sirius his family.
Five months, he'd searched for the rat, but he'd allowed himself to be distracted, especially in the early days following his escape from Azkaban. The dementors had tried to steal the warm memories, the happy memories, but Sirius-the-dog didn't think the way Sirius the man did, so the memories were mostly clear when he was in man-shape. He'd spent so much time over the past twelve years as a dog that it felt strange when he walked on two legs instead of four.
It was easier to sneak into the castle on four legs, the padded feet that earned him his dog-name making no sound on the floor as he tracked the rat through the corridors, all the way up to the Gryffindor tower, where he knew the little coward was hiding. The cat had told him, and while it might have appeared strange for a cat to work with a dog, the cat was as much a cat as the dog was a dog, so they worked well together. He felt bad about scaring the fat lady, though, when he remembered to think about it.
The wind howled as it blew around the rundown little house, and Sirius-as-Padfoot tilted his head back and howled with it. He considered taking a nap, but lately there were dreams even in dog-form that no dog should ever have to dream. Not the good dreams, in which he caught up to the rat and sank teeth into fur, into flesh, into bone, but scary-bad dreams of green light and green eyes and a shattered house he once knew. Those were the dreams he awakened from as a man, sometimes screaming and sometimes crying, and the cold wrapped around him, cut him bone-deep, burrowing into his heart until the hate-flame returned to lend him warmth again. Only then could he seek the protection of fur in dog-shape, and sometimes he hunted the ordinary mice and rats that infested the house, ripping and tearing and littering the corners with tiny skeletons, but it didn't satisfy, not the way he knew killing Peter-the-rat would satisfy.
Another gust of wind shook the house, and Sirius-Padfoot decided to curl up in the bed-things, because they offered some measure of warmth in this otherwise chilly and empty place. Time and the elements had leeched away any lingering traces of the friendships that had grown so many years ago, turned to dust now like so much of the less durable furnishings. He remembered crying over it, in his man-shape, but he couldn't remember why, in the comfort of dog form. Life was easier in dog form, but he refused to take the easy way out, not until he'd made the rat-traitor pay for what he'd done. Soon, he thought, and drifted off to sleep listening to the wind howl and moan, dreaming of small and vulnerable furry things.
The End