Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, Season Four (Round 13)
Team: Puddlemere United
Position: Seeker
Prompt: S2FR2 / Phrases - the sky seemed ominously dark
Word Count without A/N: 1,013 (Google Docs)
The sky seemed ominously dark that night, it was almost as if the whole world was grieving with him, Sirius observed through the bars from the corner of his temporary cell in Azkaban—which was odd. Weren't the holding cells in the Ministry?
Of course, they had won—Lord Voldemort was finally dead and gone—so maybe they were simply full of arrested Death Eaters.
They had finally won, but at what cost? So many lives were lost, so many children orphaned, so many families and friendships torn apart.
Sirius snorted mentally. All of this happened to him and his family in the last day—his family by choice, not by blood.
The last twenty four hours had been a whirlwind of emotions and he was hopelessly lost in it. His thoughts barely made sense; there was no order in them at all. He grieved for James and Lily, cursed that bloody traitor, cried for poor Harry and hoped that someone, anyone other than him would find out the truth before his trial, which could take weeks. Weeks in which the true traitor could flee and hide, like the coward he apparently was.
All of this was constantly in his mind, along with many other things that occasionally popped up, like the fact how guilt-ridden he was. Why had he convinced James and Lily to choose Peter, not him or Remus?!
Sirius basically crawled further in the corner of his cell, as far away from the Dementors as possible. They were passing by quite frequently, now that he thought about it. Too frequently.
A sense of dread rose in him. No, they couldn't, they wouldn't put him into the high security tract before his trial, would they? It was against the law, wasn't it? Innocent until proven guilty and all?
He curled into a ball in the dirty corner of his tiny cell and started to rock himself back and forth. Sirius did confess, kind of. And there was no proof that he wasn't the secret keeper, now that the Potters were dead and gone. Gone to a better place, into nothingness or whatever; it didn't matter.
Then again, they had his wand—and, possibly, Pettigrew's. Surely they would use Priori Incantatem, surely they would discover who had killed all those Muggles, had destroyed so many lives, wouldn't they? By law they had to. They had to search for all evidence possible and look for the truth.
Sirius tried to cling on this ray of hope, but to no avail. Perhaps it was because of all the things that he had discovered and experienced in the last day, perhaps it was because of the Dementors, perhaps it was because he had worked with the people in charge and knew them, but with every second that passed he found it more and more likely that this was not intended to be a temporary arrangement. Except perhaps if you thought of it as the time between when he had been—almost literally—thrown in here and his death, whenever that may be.
He stopped moving and lay still in the corner, still making himself as small as humanly possible.
Wait...humanly….
Perhaps it was a dumb idea, in fact, it was, but he had to try anything and everything to get rid of this terrifying feeling.
Slowly, he inched further away from his corner. Not much, just so that he had enough space to transform.
And he did.
Within a single second, he felt, well, not good—definitely not good—but better, so he had at least achieved something for the first time in weeks or months. Of course he thought he had managed to do things before, but right now all of it seemed pointless.
Yes, being in the form of a dog did not suddenly make the world okay, not that he had expected that. Still, it cleared up his thoughts, perhaps not a lot, but it was better than nothing. Everything was better when compared to what he felt before.
Padfoot—because he would always think of himself as Padfoot while in this form—turned once around himself and then curled into a small ball again.
That small motion alone had brought back so many memories of his seven amazing years in Hogwarts and of the few, moderately happy years that had followed those in the castle. Harry—sweet, little Harry who was now all alone wherever Dumbledore deemed appropriate, without him, without his parents—had loved to watch Padfoot chase his tail until he was too dizzy to continue.
Padfoot tried to clear his thoughts. It almost worked.
Then another Dementor passed by.
He did not feel the effects yet, but he could smell them and he could hear the screams of the other prisoners. He tried to prepare himself for what had to be the thousandth time he would relive the last day. A dreadful whine escaped him, but he did not care. It would not take long until he too was in the Dementor's reach, he had to be, based on his day of experience.
It...took longer than expected. How could that be? Was it a weak Dementor? A young one? Or was it something else?
If he took into consideration that the sensations and the horrible memories weren't as intense as before, it had to be something about him, but what had changed?
Then, he realized, he was no longer Sirius Black, he was Padfoot, a dog. Was it possible that Dementors had less of an effect on animals? It most likely had not been tested before—who would do such a thing voluntarily after all?—so it was not impossible.
He almost laughed. In any other situation he would have, but at the moment it was impossible.
Maybe there was hope after all. Maybe he could survive this—and stay as sane as he was before—and one day someone would discover the traitor and he would be free. Then, he could be with Harry. He could do whatever he wanted.
Life as a dog seemed to be easier for now. He would only be a human when he had to be.
Please tell me what you think!
~Marvelgeek42