IMPORTANT AN: So, this is how this story works. Once upon a time, about 7 years ago, I stumbled on a fanfic that was well-written, interesting, and in my opinion, a believable representation of a Harry-goes-to-jail story. I've never read anything like it since, and likely will never be fortunate enough to find another such fic again. This story is "Redemption," written by krtshadow. I really recommend reading it. Regardless, in the second chapter, krtshadow mentioned an idea in which Sirius refuses to believe that his godson could do anything terrible enough to wind up in Azkaban, and decides to break him out, with Remus trailing at his heels trying to get Sirius to come up with a plan. This little ficlet was born of it. If you can, though, read Redemption for a truly well-written, exciting, interesting, and honestly amusing Harry-in-Azkaban story.
Disclaimer: If I had owned Sirius, or Remus, they would have never been allowed to leave Grimmauld Place in the fifth book. In fact, they'd never be allowed to leave where I put them at all, for fear of losing them. But alas, no such luck. I don't even own the idea for this fic- krtshadow does. So really, I own jack.
"My Godson is WHERE?" Remus winced and flinched backwards as his best friend (the only one still living and on their side of the war, anyways) threw a chair at the wall, his dark, brooding, deep-set eyes furious.
Once upon a time, the idea of Sirius being frightening in any way had seemed laughable. The oldest Black child was so unlike his family, so unlike his own last name itself, that people often had believed him when he claimed he was "unrelated" to his mad cousins and brother.
Since then, his cheekbones had become more sharp, his face more gaunt, twisted with pain and sorrow and anger and, (though Remus denied it to anyone who verbally asked) just a small hint of the madness that should have resulted from his stay in the wizarding prison for 12 years.
The same wizarding prison his godson had just been thrown in.
Outside the door, he all but heard the rest of the Order wince as well in reaction.
"What do you mean, they've thrown him in Azkaban? They can't possibly have any evidence tying Harry to anything! If he'd so much as cast a cleaning charm he'd have been expelled from Hogwarts—he'd never cast a dark curse in broad daylight at the risk of being seen by muggles and wizards alike! He's not that stupid!"
"I know you feel that way, Sirius," Remus stated calmly, holding his hands up in the hopes of pacifying his old friend. The soothing gesture seemed to do very little good. "I'm sure this is something that we still need to work out. But Dumbledore hasn't fully gotten to the bottom of it yet, and…" Remus paused, trying to think of the gentlest way to tell Sirius exactly how the Headmaster viewed the matter.
He needent have bothered. His silence told Sirius everything he needed to know. "So he BELIEVES it?" He hissed instead, ready to go find the Headmaster of Hogwarts and shake him until the old fool understood. "It's ridiculous! And what about Harry's friends?"
Remus hesitated, torn between wanting to calm down his friend and needing to be honest. "Well, they're not so sure either."
Sirius just stared at him, shocked beyond words. Stunned, he watched as Remus picked up the chair that Sirius had just thrown towards the innocent, now-damaged, wall just moments ago. At Remus's gesture, he sank down into the chair.
"They have evidence, Sirius, and it's pretty blatant evidence. They have the wand, the bodies… Merlin, they even have a confession! Even Dumbledore can't argue with that… and Ron and Hermione, while they may have been his friends for a while now…well, they're also still just children. You have to understand what it's got to be like for them, trying to decide if—"
But Sirius cut Remus off, a horrified look stretching slowly across his gaunt face as he listened to the former professor talk. "Do YOU believe them?"
Remus stepped back a little and really thought about it, reviewing everything that he, the Headmaster, and several other members of the Order had discussed for several hours previous. If Sirius heard some of that information, the confession and the number of victims, it would absolutely break his faith.
But then, hadn't he thought that of Sirius too. Hadn't he thought Sirius guilty of murdering three of their best friends, regardless of how well he'd thought he'd known Sirius? Hadn't the evidence seemed condemning for Sirius as well?
Yes, it seemed unlikely that another innocent could be thrown in Azkaban with so much fabricated evidence. But hadn't it seemed unlikely the first time?
"I'm not sure yet, Sirius." He responded quietly, suddenly doubting himself and his conviction that Harry had committed the crimes he was accused of. He thought of the boy with the large green eyes and the mess hair, so similar to James and yet so different, and felt that seed of doubt that Sirius had planted begin to grow. He jumped when, after several moments of silence, Sirius drew him out of his musing by shouting.
"Are you lot going to shove off for a while, or what?" Sirius hollered at the door, scowling at the shuffling he heard on the other side as people excused themselves and stopped listening to the conversation.
There was no way he was going to break Harry out if Dumbledore knew about it, after all. Aware that there were ways of putting ears anywhere in Grimmauld Place, (courtesy of those fascinating Weasley twins and their ingenious inventions) he thought long and hard about how to phrase his next sentence before slowly allowing a grin to spread across his face. "Remus, I'd like to play quidditch again soon," He told his old friend slowly, watching with satisfaction as confusion and then exasperation spread across Remus' face.
The sentence had clearly registered, as well as the deeper meaning behind it. Years and years ago, back when they had been young and innocent and naive, "playing quidditch" when Sirius or James was in detention had meant doing everything possible to sneak the Marauder in question out of detention.
Now, the situation may have been slightly different, admittedly. This was not a classroom, but a prison. This was not Filch, but instead dementors. Perhaps most importantly, this was not James, but instead Harry.
Still, the basics behind the idea were similar. Break in, find Harry, sneak Harry out.
Remus ran a hand down his face. "Sirius…"
Sirius held up a hand, glancing around in a way that made it obvious that he thought the wall had ears. "Shut up, Remus," He hissed as quietly as possible.
Remus took the hint and improvised. "Sometime soon, Sirius. The war will be over sometime soon, and when we clear your name, you'll be good to go outside again."
For a moment, Sirius stopped to consider just how badly he would truly love to play quidditch—to be able to go outside again, without constantly looking over his shoulder. If anyone else had said that they wanted to play quidditch again sometime soon in reaction to hearing the news Sirius had just received, the change in topic would have been seen as odd. Sirius, however, was known both for being random and for being slightly insane. As such, he felt he could get away with it.
He tried to figure out how best to broach the topic with Remus, before deciding to say, "Yeah, soon. I'm going to bed, okay?" As he said it, he shot Remus a look that made it clear he was soon to follow and headed up to his room.
Remus knew what was going to happen. He'd known it, truthfully, before he'd even told Sirius the news of Harry's arrest. Sighing, he nodded and watched Sirius head up to bed, aware that his friend would likely be gone from the room within the hour, and he would need to hurry if he wanted to catch up.
He had to admit it was unlikely that Harry, a fifteen year old wizard with a completely pure soul would be able to pull off such a dark and powerful spell, regardless of the extremely large amount of convincing evidence that said otherwise.
He also firmly suspected that even if Harry had done it, Sirius would still have broken his godson out.
And then, worst of all, Remus began to get excited in spite of himself. It was just like the old days—Sirius jumping into trouble head-first, and Remus rushing to hold him back and talk him into thinking things through first.
Sure enough, by the time Remus headed up to his own room forty minutes later, Sirius was outside the window. "Come on, Mooney, let's go," He hissed the moment Remus entered the room. Remus noted the packed bags hanging over Sirius's shoulder and sighed.
"Sirius, what're the bags for?"
"We're going to need some clothes and stuff, at least until we can get to wherever we end up, and we're hardly likely to be welcomed back here after we break him out." Sirius suddenly seemed to realize what he'd said, and who might have heard, and instantly his eyes widened. Panicked, he hissed, "Now, Remus!"
"Sirius, I think—"
But, much like in the Marauder's heyday years prior, whatever Remus thought didn't really matter. Moments later, they were standing on the banks of a craggy, rocky beach, the wind from the ocean whipping salt into their hair. Silence stretched between the two Marauders for a moment, broken only by the sound of the waves crashing on the rocks, before Sirius spoke.
"This is where I ended up after swimming," Sirius explained, staring almost blankly around him as Remus tried to orient himself with where they were. "It was one of the clearest moments of my life, stepping out of that freezing cold water and onto solid land that wasn't a prison for the first time in 12 years."
Any protest Remus was about to make about leaving to rescue Harry left his lips. He couldn't do it, seeing the lost look on his best friend's face. Besides, he'd already let his friend down once, and let James down in the end. The least he could do, the least they could do, was do all that they could to protect James's son.
Still, this would call for some extreme delicacy.
"Sirius," Remus called gently, waiting for his friend to come back to himself. When the haunted look had yet to leave Sirius's eyes, Remus tried again. "Sirius, I understand, I really do." Sirius opened his mouth to argue, but Remus beat him to it. "No, I really do. I empathize, even if I can't possibly sympathize. But we need a plan."
"No, all the planning went into how to get here without the Order finding out," Sirius argued, exasperated. "What you were doing waiting so long to come upstairs, I'll never understand. I've been as patient as possible, Remus. My patience is all used up. Let's go—we'll plan on the way."
Remus sighed, exasperated. "Sirius, we don't even know what direction to travel in. What magic to use to get there. What magic to use to get in." Sirius just ignored him, continuing forward to climb down the rocks, scrambling on a few loose stones and nearly sliding all the way down. "Sirius!"
"Trust me, Moony, breaking in won't be the hard part. Plenty of people have broken out before." Remus merely raised an eyebrow, and then chose to ignore the fact that other than Sirius, (and, apparently, as was discovered a few weeks prior, Barty Crouch Jr.) no one had ever successfully broken out of Azkaban. Sirius, unaware of Remus' thoughts, continued. "I think we're the first people, though, who've ever bothered really breaking in."
Remus blinked, unable to really argue with that logic. Well, what could he really say after that? It was a rare day indeed, when Sirius managed to out-logic Remus, and Remus was too stupefied to really come up with a proper response, so instead, he silently followed Sirius to the water's edge, pausing only to transfigure a boat from some driftwood nearby when Sirius seemed ready to simply dive into the frigid waters as a dog.
It was just like old times indeed. Remus was demanding a plan, and Sirius was completely and utterly ignoring him in favor of stubbornly pursuing his goal, and in the end, they'd be flying by the seat of their pants the majority of the time, and catching every lucky break possible the other half of the time.
Strangely enough, Remus couldn't really bring himself to feel all that upset about it.
Review please! Next time: Breaking in requires breaking out. But how will Harry be when the find him? And what becomes the plan for getting him out of the prison?