The Laughing Man
They said that Sirius Black was mad.
They said he'd always been; they said his bright laughter and charm had been concealing the dangerous insanity that lurked within. They said it was in his blood.
They said that the night he killed Peter Pettigrew, he hadn't run. No, he had just stood there and laughed.
They said that he'd laughed and laughed and laughed.
They said he was laughing when the Aurors took him in. They said he laughed when they took him to Azkaban; that he laughed throughout the trial he never had.
They said that he laughed even when in Azkaban, because not even the Dementors could stop insanity.
They said he laughed like Bellatrix.
They said he when he escaped, he was laughing.
He was always laughing.
He couldn't stop.
Because, even when Sirius Black wasn't the Laughing Man, it was still there, festering in a corner of his fractured soul.
The Laughing Man never left, not even when he met Harry, not even when he was nearly Kissed.
The Laughing Man ran free at Grimmauld Place, feeding on the sharp, painful memories that filled that god-forsaken place. Sirius suspected that, maybe, Dumbledore knew about the Laughing Man; that this was his well-intentioned way of making Sirius confront his past. But Dumbledore didn't get it. This wasn't bitterness, not even brokenness; this was madness.
Sometimes, he caught Remus staring at him, at the man he'd become. Remus, with his sharp eyes and sharper mind, had to have noticed something was off. Sirius did his best to act like he was fine, but it was painful.
The Laughing Man didn't like to be caged.
Finally, on that fateful night in the Department of Mysteries, the Laughing Man had it's last laugh.
It met it's match in Bellatrix Black, who had let her laughter consume her long ago.
She didn't make the Laughing Man stop; she killed him. She killed everything. She consumed, just as she had been consumed.
They say Sirius Black died with his last laugh frozen on his face.