Disclaimer: I am a science geek. Not a bestselling author. Also there is a reference to the Count of Monte Cristo movie, (which would not have existed in the 70's…)
A/N: This is a revamped version of a painfully awful and clichéd one-shot I wrote in my tweens. I still like the general idea. Hopefully it's better, if not fantastic. I'm no writer. I plan to do a multi-chaptered deal, but don't expect an engaging plot. I want to try to do I few one-shot style chapters of important moments in Sirius life as he reflects on them in Azkaban.
Prologue
Chronophobia
I remember something my friend told me once, long ago, in a time when I could walk more than a few metres without having to turn so I wouldn't hit stone. He had gone to see a film in which the character was imprisoned for many years and in his isolation had counted every stone in his room. And even gave them names. I laughed. I don't laugh now.
13 years. Can you fathom that? It seems small in numbers. 12 years is smaller still. 4383 days. 105,192 hours. 6,311,520 minutes. 378,691,200 seconds. An academic way to measure the passing of time. But I know that time isn't so certain, but wavers, slows to a standstill and skips ahead to morning as you blink.
Time heals all wounds? No. Time creates them. Big, gaping, oozing wounds. A happy, giggling, grinning, babbling, beloved baby becomes a bony, tortured, hunted teen destined to die. 12 years. 473,364,000 heartbeats. Time slowly erodes hope, like it erodes a young man, angry scars replacing smooth pale skin, grey invading tawny brown like a parasite slowly poisoning its host. 12 years. 156 full moons.
In our world a boy is given a watch when he becomes a man.