Disclaimer: Jo is the queen, I am only the being who finds inspiration in her creation.
- They all go quiet in the end.
He was slumped back against a cold brick wall. Clammy tendrils of darkness reached through the tall metal bars that marked the edge of his world. His eyelids flickered open, but there was not much to show behind them: any reminiscence of beauty had departed into the grainy night, thieved by the muffled shapes that drifted outside. The air that usually found a way to navigate freely into his lungs was half-battling some formless resistance that surrounded his face, and when it did worm its way inwards, it found a hazardous path between internal organs that were tired of taking breath after breath. And so it endured, for without the continuity of thought there was no contingency of the end, but still, now it was over, and the first sign of it was a breath that rushed inside his chest with ease and restored some decency of physiological functioning. Behind his lacklustre eyes, keen thoughts quickly rushed into place, flooding over the torpidness that always accompanied the lengthy presence of Dementors. His neck was the first to move; it slowly lifted from the hard floor and settled into a position much more life-sustainable than the arched settlement it had apathetically arranged into. He had recovered quickly from the after-effects, like he always did. Sirius was quick like that, his thoughts still keen and glazing with the intelligence of his youth. The typically documented manner in which Dementors rapidly employed their dark powers – the chilling cold, the sudden loss of every single happy memory, the descent into immediate sadness and even the grievous feeling of potential loss – all tended to diminish after long-term exposure such as that experienced in Azkaban. At least, the apparently chilling coldness became a constant and subtle presence of life, and the conception of happy memories became increasingly impossible with Dementors pressing their darkness into every corner of the prison. In Sirius's case, his mind had learned to stall itself into a peculiar internal compartment whenever the Dementors were near, leaving the consequence of lethargy and the burden of maintaining functionality upon his human body. If this was anything unusual, then Sirius didn't know it.
"That cell there," carried a strong voice.
Sirius shifted slightly upwards, sitting comfortably. All of the Dementors had cleared his surrounds, allowing him to savour a rare moment completely unstifled by the presence of that horrid darkness. The voice was followed by a pair of footsteps, and two figures came into view not far away. They stopped in front of a cell – one that had been very quiet for some days now. That cell had been containing the same person even since he himself had been brought in here, Sirius thought to himself. Who knew how long it had held a prisoner. From his vantage point, he saw beautiful white wand-light being directed into the cell. His heart did a strange skip and then hammered twice as fast in his chest as he experienced a longing for magic, for even the light of a simple Lumos. But he knew that casting even such a basic spell could not be easily achieved with the Dementors around – another of their effects was to suppress the natural internal flow of magic, a consequence that was only aided by the lack of contact with his wand.
"Can you assist with a medical confirmation," drifted the same voice that had spoken earlier, albeit a little weaker.
The wand light dimmed as the man standing outside walked in through the metal gate he was holding open, briefly illuminating a Ministry of Magic insignia. Sirius stood up, and then took some steps around his cell. He was feeling clearer than he had in a very long time. Five long steps up, then back. Forward, then back. Sirius paced the reasonably spacious domain of his cell, tracing and retracing his steps. The door of the cell that was not too far away was pushed open with the shoulders of one of the men. He was holding his wand high behind him, his colleague emerging from behind the covered stretcher that they were carrying with their wands. The men walked further away, still in Sirius's sight. They stopped a long but straight distance away from him, their wand-lights paling before the emerging moonlight. It shone on mounds of dirt and on the dull grey headstones that had aged alongside its residents. Sirius watched the two men rapidly cleave the ground with magic, and soon after lower what must have been the silent body of the quiet inmate. They all went quiet in the end. The Dementors had given much time to the prisoner, had spent many hours at his front door. And here, Sirius thought, was the result. A stillness forever achieved. Silently, sure that the brief display of new events was over, Sirius too made to sit down and return to the mundane features of night life in Azkaban, which currently offered an all-clear to the presence of any Dementors near his cell. But suddenly, quicker than ever, he bent down, hands and knees on the ground, eyes peering closely. There was a bug crawling around. Sirius was greatly astonished to see another form of life walking with such vitality. He had never seen any live being willingly venture into his confines. Perhaps it had come with the two Ministry of Magic officials? Sirius bent lower towards it, trying to make out its insect-type (was it a dung-beetle?), but before he could catch anything more than a brief glimpse at the black marks around its head, it vigorously took flight out the bars of his cell. He darted his head up in surprise, shocked by such a vigorous display of existence in a place so undeniably barren of spirit as this. Still bent upon his hands and knees, he watched the beetle fly straight onwards for a short length, until he was distracted by moving figures. The two ministry workers were departing, their work here was done. Sirius could make out a new mound of dirt in the near distance, on a small piece of land that was not barren but bearing a very little growth of some knotgrass. Sirius blinked at the plant, which was being illuminated by the strong moonlight. He looked up, and realised, through wet eyes, that the moon was full. Memories of moon-lit nights in the Forbidden Forest rushed through him, memories of sliding down the entrance of the Whomping Willow, of running deep into the forest, in the grounds of night-time Hogwarts, and of racing through deserted Hogsmeade streets with Moony by his side and Prongs trying to drive his antlers into his tail as Pettigrew swung wildly from those messy, curly antlers. Sirius blinked again, and the memories were replaced by the view of black cloaks converging around him again. This was the longest amount of time Sirius had experienced without the Dementors for as long as he could remember, and for once, he wished he could just run away from the darkness.
'Prong's,' he whispered. He could feel the Dementors coming closer. 'Expecto Patronum,' he whisped urgently, but no brilliant light came out, only cloaks that came closer. He held on to the memories he had just seen, memories that he did not want stolen, sensations of running faster than any Dementor ever could, away from their darkness, into the light. But they were here. And so was he. But so were these memories. Prong's was still here. His eyes gleamed down at the ground. A magnificent black paw eagerly tapped the ground. Padfoot's tail wagged in delight.
Author's note: I'm not exactly sure about this one. It's the first HP fanfiction I've written in a long time, and I felt like writing in a slightly different style to usual, and though at times there is some imitation of Jo, it is largely an individual and varying style. It was written almost entirely around the midnight hours, in different moods, so I hope that the story somewhat works. I also cannot think of a title… but I really want to publish this right now :p