A/N:
Another thousand word one-shot. This is the conversation between Sirius and Fudge in Azkaban at some point during Harry's second year.
Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge was not in a good mood.
It was that time of the year. The time in which Fudge would be visiting Azkaban Prison.
There was one prisoner he did not want to see.
And that man went by the name of Sirius Black. Death Eater, betrayer of Lily and James Potter to Voldemort, godfather to Harry James Potter.
Fudge would have to be leaving soon. He had to begin early, or would be forced to spend the night on Azkaban Island.
Fudge was one of few people keyed into the wards against apparation, and so apparated right to the prison.
Waiting for him there was the head guard, a tall, broad man with dark, sunken eyes and greasy black hair. Alexander Podomore.
"Good yer here. We've got 'til sundown before we're fair game for dementors. That's the deal. If we're not outa the buildin' by sundown, they can suck from us." He said.
Fudge nodded. "Of course, Auror Podomore. Let's get to it." He said.
Fudge was glad he was going to be checking Black's cell as one of the first.
But when Fudge went in to speak to the fellow, who was lying, trembling beneath the thin ragged blanket.
"Alive," the form muttered. "He's alive, I know it!"
"Up!" Podomore growled. "You've got a visitor, Black. Don't kill 'im!"
The ragged form shifted, and what Fudge could then distinguish as a head rose.
The form yawned sleepily. "What the bloody hell didja wake me for!" He said in irritation. "First non-dementorised sleep I've have in ages, and you disturb it!" He then noticed who it was.
"Minister," he said. "Do I get my trial now?"
"Err, no. 'M'fraid not, Black."
"Then why didja wake me!? Say, you wouldn't want to be givin' me that paper, now wouldja? I do love those crosswords. Might I have a pencil?"
Fudge frowned in confusion. "No offence, Black, but how are you sane. After a month, everyone looses it. You've been in this hellhole for eleven years! It's a record, made the papers everywhere after you were sane after two months!"
Black turned his icy eyes on the minister.
"Because I'm innocent!" He snapped in irritation. "Now can I have the damn paper already!"
Podomore and Fudge exchanged glances. " Suppose it couldn't do harm." Said Podomore.
Fudge handed the copy of the Daily Prophet that had been sticking out of his briefcase to Black.
The clearly sane, but very annoyed, man unfolded it and as soon as he saw the front page, his eyes widened.
"How would them Weasley's get that rat on the youngest boys shoulder?"
The simple question was incredibly random.
"Err, I s'pose they bought it."
"Nah, I don't mean that. The rat, where would they find it? Damn things s'posed to be dead! And it says it's already eleven. Rat's ain't live that long, Minister."
Fudge considered the logic behind this argument. True, the rat in question, Scabbers, was rather old, but it was odd that the killer even cared.
"Whys it matter ta you, Black." Podomore growled.
Fudge shot him an irritated look. "Stop provoking him!" He hissed.
"Nothin'," he mumbled. "Thought 'e looked like someone I once knew."
Then Fudge questioned Black's sanity.
After leaving the man to the paper, with a pencil, Fudge moved onto look at the other cells.
In one a Death Eater was writhing and twitching beneath his blanket, mumbling softly.
In yet another the man sat huddled in the corner, muttering incoherently to himself.
A third was screaming in his sleep and several others were growling at him to 'Shut your peephole or I'll crucio you!' in annoyance.
Podomore stepped in. "Non a the lot a ya have wands! Ya can't crucio someone!"
In countless other cells people were muttering in the dark, and in more than that, there were just bodies, clearly long dead, just rotting away. Victims of the dementors kiss.
One man was muttering to himself "Weak... Too weak to kill 'im."
While another wailed as a dementor passed by.
A third figure tried to escape, but Podomore stunned him fiercely, before leaving him in the cell.
Fudge passed countless hundreds of cells, about five-hundred of a thousand full, still thinking of Sirius Black.
How was he still sane?
Why didn't the dementors seem to affect him?
What was with him about the Weasley's rat?
Why did he want the paper?
Was he truly innocent?
Why hadn't he had a trial?
The list of questions continued on. Maybe fifteen in all. But the first was the strongest. How was he sane?
That evening when Fudge apparated back to his home, he failed to sleep. The thought of a possibly innocent man- though most likely not -stuck in Azkaban haunted him, the entire night.
Only the next day did Fudge clear his mind of thoughts of Azkaban, but then he saw it in the Daily Prophet a few months later.
Sirius Black Escaped!
Today, the murderer and traitor Sirius Black's cell in Azkaban was discovered empty! Within was a shred of an article of the Daily Prophet from several months ago, with scribbled on it 'Had to do this. Can't let that rat, Wormtail run free with 'im in there.', a seemingly incoherent message, but Head Auror Podomore thinks it had meaning.
"Wormtaill," he says. "As in a tail like a worm. A rat. This shred was from an article Minister Fudge gave him months ago. The one with the Weasley's story on it, the one with that rat sittin' on the boys shoulder. He's been mutterin' in 'is sleep 'In 'Ogwarts, in 'Ogwarts,' over and over again. Drives a man mad after a while."
Has Black broken out to hunt down Harry Potter? We can only hope he fails.