Mildly inspired by Nyeren's excellent Peter ficlet "Inferences of Gold." I would have tried to make this an authentic drabble--I thought it would be that short--but it was a tad longer, so instead I worked it down to exactly 250: a double-drabble-and-a-half. And I don't precisely condone revenge, by the way, but I couldn't get this image out of my head.
So this is freedom. Padfoot remembers vaguely what this means, but he knows it didn't used to be like this. He remembers hidden passageways, and moonlight, and the Shrieking Shack—or at least he tries to remember these things. He can grasp them now, briefly, but the green light is still stronger—the dementors are never really gone.
"James and Lily, Sirius—how could you?"
How Peter must have laughed—he spoke the truth, after all.
Hogwarts. He must find Hogwarts. He will find Hogwarts.
He's hungry, suddenly—really hungry for the first time in years—and he realizes he has never before needed to eat in this body. No matter: Padfoot has his own instincts, which Azkaban couldn't dull.
He sniffs, willing to settle for garbage—there'll be plenty in a fishing village like this—but a warmer scent feathers his nose: something alive, nearby. He rounds the corner—it's running, but he's very close now, he's going to catch it—
It's a rat.
Sirius would freeze, staring, and probably let it escape. Padfoot lunges, jaws snapping its spine. He knows it's only a rat—raw, and not very tender—yet it's surprisingly tasty, and he licks its blood from his teeth with grim satisfaction.
He won't kill Peter this way—as a man he'll kill the man who betrayed him—but for a moment he lets himself enjoy the thought and feels a different sort of hunger.
He will find Hogwarts.
This, too, is a kind of freedom.