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The great black dog curved his path to mirror that of the bare forest floor that stretched out beneath his paws, avoiding the trees, the rocks, nose to the ground without a second thought, for these things had become his nature. Muzzle sniffing and paws padding rhythmically, the dog was always alert. He spared one split second for a twig, the other half for the faint scent of a rat lingering upon the ground.
Rat.
The dog had been avoiding them whenever their particular smell registered in his mind, choosing instead to go after different kinds of prey. Rabbits, squirrels, and the like. He was swift, and in a forest such as this he could afford to be choosy. The rats were skittish, with ever twitching whiskers and scurrying toes, and Sirius had no time for them.
He had escaped the abyss, the prison in his mind, surviving on ever-present innocence and an emaciated body as he had slipped through the bars of Azkaban. The bars might as well have never been there in the first place, for the blinding grief and horrifying recollections that crouched and huddled at the very front of his mind were the only things that kept him locked in his cell. They forced him to add his despair to an atmosphere that was already thick and blackened with the stuff.
For now, rats were not the first thing on his mind, but he had to be careful, at times, to keep the simple dog desire from hindering his journey and keeping him from his godson. Twelve years had been quite long enough a wait.
The dog paused, nose to the ground, at a thick blanket of leaves rotting at the base of a tree; oaken decay filled his nostrils as he straightened and twisted away from the tree. Sirius raised a paw turning rapidly to hand to his backbone, and dragged his fingers over the bumps as they lengthened. His hair was longer and more matted than the dog's, he imagined. He had not seen himself in a looking glass for years, and he feared that his face had become another man's. He feared above all else that that man's mind, grim and gaunt, would take over in full and the abyss would once again fall into sharp relief.
Sirius remembered Moony's scarred face for the first time in days. Weeks, even. Then Wormtail and James shot across his consciousness, James lingering longer than the traitor, and then, inevitably, came Harry. He paused as his foot stretched out to take a human stride, and then his body arched back downward into the black dog. Nose to the ground, one thought, one all-consuming need. Harry.