This is an account of the twelve years Sirius spent in Azkaban, and the damage it did to his psyche. As such, it is nothing like Incendio. There is no romance here, nor (hopefully) romanticism. This is a dark tale, dealing with even darker issues. There will be graphic depictions of violence, and mental illness, and a fair amount of swearing. Consider yourself warned.
Disclaimer: I claim ownership over neither the Harry Potter series which belongs to J.K. Rowling and her associates, nor the poem, Invictus, which is the property of William Ernest Henley.
This has been a hard thing to write, being my first foray into writing a piece that is pure angst. I can only hope it does these deeply complex characters justice.
Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
1.
Black
Friendship is a strange and beautiful thing. It is easy to forget the true extent of humankind's empathy and tolerance—unless you are reminded of it in the form of bonds between kindred spirits, manifesting in that elusive yet marvelous phenomenon we call friendship.
Flaws are accepted; welcomed, even. Childish tantrums are tolerated, formalities and the tiring social etiquettes that plague us are all but removed. Comfort is given and taken, gratis. So is happiness—happiness so poignant it is like basking in a puddle of golden sunlight.
In the glory of those familial bonds, sometimes dearer to us than family itself, it is easy to overlook your companions' shortcomings. Frighteningly easy, in fact.
In retrospect, they should have all seen it coming. What had Lily said in her last letter to him? That Peter had been acting "strange"?
They were all fools for writing him off.
Sweet, naïve Peter. H near hero-worship of James had seemed amusing at the time.
Noting good ever comes out of a relationship of unequals.
In his school days, he'd never even dare to let such a thought cross the threshold of his mind. They'd accepted Peter as he was, just like they'd accepted James' egotism, his brashness and impulsivity (for he was never blind to it), Remus' Lycanthropy, and all the by-products that came with it.
The Marauders were brothers to him, more than Regulus had ever been.
Yet, it seemed like it hadn't been enough.
And now, two among the rare few he considered family in the world, two of his best friends, were dead. Dead at the hands of a man they'd known and loved and accepted, for ten years; dead at the hands of a man they'd trusted with the life of their newborn; dead at the hands of a man who'd played his cards so well they didn't know they were being choked until the ivy had strangled them.
Sirius had always been loyal to a fault. It was not in his ability to comprehend things like betrayal—though, of course, he knew enough of it. His family-the one he'd been born into, at least-considered him a betrayer, after all. But then again, he'd never considered himself a part of them. Unlike Peter, who had formed what had once seemed like true, pure bonds with his only friends.
Finding your best friends' corpses, cold and stiff with Rigor Mortis while their one-year-old screamed for his mummy with an unceasing vengeance on Hallowe'en night was, darkly enough, like the plot of some shite horror novella. Too bad it was the utter Hell his life had descended into.
Their eyes had been empty, unseeing. Leaving a once-warm cottage bare to the bone, sucked dry of all its vivacity and purity by the sulphurous odour of Dark Magic.
The all-consuming hatred he felt for Pettigrew was what registered after the blinding grief had minimally receded. It numbed his rationale, washing over him like an inferno, kissing his nerves, leaving them charred and unfeeling.
Unware of any emotion, but hate.
He was nothing but an entity of wrath and vengeance in that moment. He would kill the rat; slice his unworthy head right off his pudgy shoulders, char his remains, and spit in the ashes.
The Avada was too lenient a death for a murderer, after all.
And so, he confronted Peter in that dusty street, with the smells of rotting vegetables and open sewers permeating every breath he took, smoke and tar staining the broken cobblestones a filthy grey.
It was the sort of place where a rat would be at home.
The coward had tried to hide, too. A cunning thing, Wormtail was, with mean, watery eyes, glimmering strangely among the innocent, tittering vermin he'd tried to shield himself with.
But Padfoot could taste the rat's fear on the air.
And how he reveled in it.
Underestimating the sheer self-preservation that lent itself to shrewdness in the rat was the worst mistake Sirius Black had ever made.
He stood there, in that fateful, draughty alleyway, the disembodied remains of several Muggles strewn about him, blood caking his tongue, flowing into his eyes.
Staining his vision red.
While the rat had escaped.
Again.
He kneeled to the floor, that cold, blood-covered cobblestone, and howled in agony until his throat turned raw, a gruesome requiem to all the innocent lives that had been stolen by one man's cowardice.
The laughing began once the screaming ended.
Hysteria enveloped Sirius in its comforting chokehold, like he'd been dipped in a cauldron-full of Elixir to Induce Euphoria. He'd laughed until tears streamed down his face: laughed until his cheeks ached and burnt with salt-water, until his eyes were red-raw.
He laughed when the Magical Law Enforcement Squad and Aurors arrived, the former to do damage control, and the latter to—
To arrest him for mass murder.
He threw his head back, and positively guffawed.
That was the root of his psychosis, one that was to plague him for the rest of his miserable life.
There hadn't been a trial.
And Wizards dared to deem Muggles a bunch of lawless barbarians.
He had, once the mania had lifted (howsoever temporarily), protested his arrest, if rather half-heartedly (for, he knew, even then, that it was a lost cause). But his words fell on deaf ears- the Minister, riding on the wave of long-suppressed outrage that Voldemort's demise had given impetus to, dared not back away from making such a monumental arrest.
Crouch, the bastard that he was, would've thrown him into Azkaban all the same, judging from the way he nearly shat himself when Sirius looked him in the eye.
Cowards. Cowards, everywhere.
Sirius spat at Barty Crouch's feet as an Auror was instructed to bind and Side-Along him to Azkaban Prison.
His escort was Mad-Eye Moody of the bloody Order, no less. It seemed he was the only one who could stand Azkaban without quaking.
He gritted his teeth and let himself be carted along.
He had nothing much left to live for, did he? He was Magical Britain's most notorious mass-murderer, subordinate only to Voldemort himself. It looked like he would be carrying on the Black family's legacy, after all.
What a fucking crime against humanity Azkaban Prison was.
Colour ceased to exist in the place; air, elsewhere rich and light, here was sluggish and seemed to be infused with that sense of wrongness that permeated its very walls.
Even breathing here felt unnatural.
His wand was snapped before he crossed the prison's threshold, by a sneering warden whose eyes took on a sadistic gleam at the utter agony evident on Sirius' face.
The last piece of his heart fragmented along with the dangling remains of his cherry-and-unicorn-hair wand.
The fucking Dementers made him cry.
He sniveled like a little boy, seeing the mangled faces of the dead Muggles, as if the memory wasn't recent or raw enough. He saw limbs bent like rubber, contorted at unnatural angles. He saw bloody lips parted in a final swansong. He saw James sprawled before the staircase, protecting his wife and son even in death. He heard Harry's cries— a constant tattoo against the membranous cavity of his skull.
He saw Lily's bottle-green eyes reflecting the mobile above Harry's crib— a cluster of slowly-rotating stars and broomsticks, moving, moving, moving; cyclic, spinning like his mind, circling steadily towards a thunderous crash.
He woke in the cell that was fated to be his home until the end of his days.
Oh, look, he thought, an odd sort of detachment possessing him, a room with a view.
They'd given him a tiny rectangle with rusted rods barring it—enchanted to burn anyone who touched them. The miserable thing could barely be called a window. It opened onto the grey sea, the waves of which beat an incessant, maddening rhythm against jagged rocks, white sea-foam spitting and snarling, resembling the watering jaws of a rabid beast.
He glanced around the cell.
A chamber pot and the rigid cot upon which he currently lay on were its only occupants.
He looked down at himself.
They'd stripped him of his leather jacket and jeans, evidently. Didn't they wonder, he mused dryly, why Voldemort's right-hand was garbed in the most atrociously Muggle attire imaginable?
He now wore threadbare grey robes, patched at the elbows, which matched his eyes perfectly. His mouth twitched.
The ratty thing did nothing in the way of shielding him from the chilly draught of sea-breeze that the window brought in. This, layering over the Dementors' perpetual mist, created a miasmal fog so dense it would be a miracle if he didn't die of over-exposure before he'd had the chance to lose his sanity.
His stomach emitted a low growl. He exhaled softly, dropping down to his knees, head cradled in his hands.