And so it has been and so it is written
On the doorway to paradise
That those who falter and those who fall
Must pay the price!
- "Stars", Les Miserables
Sirius didn't know religion. When Remus spoke sparingly of prayer, that some folks found solace in higher beings, he laughed. His diseased upbringing told him about Muggle religion: that it was the Christians that burned the pagans, after the pagans burned the Christians; that innocent witches became coal in the conflict between Muggles and their gods.
"I'd have to be out of my head to throw my lot in with religious types," he said. "Why even learn it, Moony? Has Muggle Studies gone that far left?"
"Religious script is actually quite poetic, objectively speaking."
"'Objectively speaking'?"
"Western Muggle writers are inspired by religious imagery all the time. John Milton wrote an excellent series on the rebel angels and the fall of man."
"We haven't fallen, though, have I? Look at James, standing perfectly upright. Even Peter can manage a good two-step, now and then."
"Really, Padfoot. Just read this part, here. Isn't it just brilliant?"
He contemplated brilliance upon his arrest. The explosion, what with the cries of Muggles in the street and parts strewn about like little fingers, reminded him a bit of the roar of Hell: the smell alone of the open sewer; the red of his world being torn apart; and his thoughts, bright with green curses and gore, gibbering with Chaos like the pit.
"Isn't it just brilliant?" He meant to repeat the one relevant line, but then the dust settled and he saw-truly saw-the bodies and the Aurors and himself in chains. "Brilliant?"
So, he laughed. From the root of his belly, he chortled and threw his derangement at his captors, at the Obliviated witnesses, at that damn little finger. James, dead? Lily, dead? Peter, dead by his own hands. Little Harry, parent-less? His life, his life.
Brilliant? Brilliant? It wasn't brilliant, not in the least. That moment was so much the antithesis of brilliance - so deep, so dark, so black - that he took leave of his self just in fathoming it.
The sudden death of hope, the gaping discrepancy between his youthful dreams and the dank of his reality, had broken him.
He didn't favor Muggle poetry, except for a few choice verses he'd memorized to impress girls in mixed blood bars. He knew nothing else of the work of John Milton. However, he could recall the epic of the archangel Lucifer's fall from grace-the play of fire, the burning and the stink of Hell, laid claim in some of the dark, tangled regions of his mind. The imagined heat of damnation spoke to him in his worst nights; he, chained to a wall in Azkaban, with only the cold incarnations of nightmares to visit him.
Sirius fell quickly, in those first few months. Nothing could keep him from the shock of waking from his psychotic break to imprisonment, persecution, and complete isolation. Some small pittance on the Ministry's part kept him separate from the other prisoners: solitary confinement. In the company of himself and his deepest horrors, he unraveled.
Every day, grayness, mold, grime; watery sunlight, fetid brine; night terrors, sleepless nights; waking.
After the eighteen months, deduced from the occasional Prophet, he stopped thinking about Hell. Convinced he was in it, he made a concerted effort to forget, to escape.
It took a late-night fall to find his first solution. A bump of the head, then blissful silence. Thus every night, he beat his head against his cell wall to force himself into blank unconsciousness; he dreamed of nothing.
Once, he slept for a day and a half. Not even the promise of food or recreation could wake him; nor did slapping, water, or generous hexing. It was hours of trying before the few human prison guards on staff dragged him from his bed, bound and unconscious, and threw him into a hospital. The mediwizard on staff undid his hard won oblivion, potion by potion. He woke to brightness, and saw the inferno. Convinced of poisoning, he attacked: rabid, snarling. He dislocated his own elbow and broke the man's nose. They healed what was physical, and threw him back into his cage.
Sirius hurt, constantly. Pain preceded him.
He delved deeper into his own subconscious, approaching something of an animal intelligence. Words, abandoned-had no one to talk to, save himself. His days passed with muttering, mostly, and sobbing. Some nights held plagues of disgusting, heedless energy. At times, he gnawed on himself to relieve the sensation of ants, crawling; he chewed his nails to the quick, at one point, and kept going.
Two years in his personal dark had him pacing, sweating, muttering, sometimes crying before he thought of his second trick. There were words that he'd replayed most often, memories the Dementors had no use for. Neutral thoughts meant nothing to them: "toilet", "food", "sleep". They could abuse memories of starving, of fears, of deprivation, of torturous life and hopeless complexity, but they could do nothing with such things as the simple statement of fact.
Hallucinations of Remus' voice spoke again that night, drifting from the corners and the cracks in the walls where loose memories liked to hide.
"Really, Padfoot."
Padfoot.
Padfoot.
It was madness and simplicity.
"Really, Padfoot. Isn't it just brilliant?"
Food.
Sleep.
Speak.
Wait.
Wait.
He hardly ever read the Daily Prophet anymore. The world turned with injustice, ran by pause-less evil. The rats, they triumphed over the lions. Filth murdered beautiful people in their homes. Bureaucrats decided to leave well enough alone. Innocent men went without trials. Sirius needn't see news of it-or worse yet, see it derailed by inane fluff pieces about families vacationing in-
"No. No."
In a flash, his insanity retreated. It was summer, 1993, and he felt imbued with fire. It raged, burning away his senselessness, and he saw his destination, written in the smoke.
"He's at Hogwarts."
It was his experience that only good men suffered. James suffered. Remus suffered, some. Sirius, good or no, clung to a faith in the existence of happiness; in the meanwhile, he suffered.
He wasn't a man of any god, nor of worship beyond the principles of good men. He vowed to serve only justice, in any form, even from the depths of Hell itself. He did little wrong by anyone except, perhaps, the deserving. Still, he was subjected to horror and insanity, to howling demons and rejection from his seat on the side of heroes.
Rat men - cowardly, dirty men - they prospered, if left alone.
Wait.
Wait.
Retribution.
On the first night of his escape, he crawled from the cold, gray sea. Hulking, black, sopping wet; his muscles gave, and he sagged into the sand, panting. Exhausted, unable to move his head, Padfoot took in the great expanse of stars dotting the heavens.
Oh, how they burned with righteous fury.