Inside the freezing walls of Azkaban, where time and thoughts stretch on forever, most prisoners would kill for a fur coat and a dulled mind.
Sirius Black, having spent most of the past few years in his dog form, knew that he'd probably be insane if he couldn't slow down his mind when he needed to. But right now, he sat fully human, fingers tapping impatiently against the concrete walls of his cell.
For one hour every day, Sirius always made sure he was human, because he needed his thoughts to be clear for a few precious minutes.
Charged with multiple murders, he was supposed to have a dementor outside his door at all times. However, for about five minutes every day, during the changing of the guards, they would briefly meet out in the halls and leave him alone.
For five minutes, he would feel a few happy memories seep back in with the dark ones. The dementors were still close, and the good memories hurt worse than the bad ones, but he still clung desperately to those brief moments.
He heard the dementor's rattling breath outside his cell door; he still had about five minutes to go.
He used wonder if it was worth the pain of staying human, just for five minutes of sunny memories that cut him like glass. But when he had stayed a dog for too long, he found he started to forget things. His birthdays, a day they'd spent together, the colour of his eyes. When he woke up one morning and spent five terrifying moments trying to remember Remus's face before the image came back to him, he started clinging to those five minutes.
Sirius had thought his heart broke the day he decided not to trust Remus, when he had decided he was the spy. That day, where Sirius had looked for the wolf and ignored the man.
He knew his heart broke the day he realised he'd been wrong. His best friend was dead, and that… traitor, that rat, was still alive and free.
Remus, who could still made his hands tremble and his knees weak, was thinking that he had betrayed them all.
He wondered if Remus was still hurting, or if he had found new friends (new lovers) to take some of the pain away. Both ideas left a bad taste in his mouth.
He heard another long, rattling breath from outside his cell, and then he felt the dementor leave.
Perfect memories surged back to him, too many to sort through. He felt them taunt him, showing him the past he could never go back to.
The man he would never have again.
He remembered sunny days by the lake, laughing and cracking jokes with James. The whole time, Sirius was glancing back at him, waiting for him to laugh at one of his stupid jokes and make the whole day perfect.
He remembered what it was like to want him so bad that his stomach hurt, that his hands trembled. He remembers his knees almost giving out every time Remus turned to him and smiled that special smile.
With the memories come the desire, the need. He wants to feel Remus's hands in his hair again; he wants to feel that special smile an inch away from his lips. He wants to whisper "Remus, Remus, Remus," to him again and again like he used to. He wants to feel Remus tremble when he says his name.
He wants to hear Remus scream his name again.
The memories cut him like a knife. He feels a twisting in his core, a need that will never assuaged.
He sees a man (a boy) smile just for him.
And then the dementors are back, and the memories are sucked away again.
Years later, Sirius stands in that old, crumbling shack. He's out of Azkaban, looking at Harry, and about to kill that rat bastard who took everything away from him.
With things looking up for him like that, he shouldn't have been surprised that he got to see Remus again.
Surprise, however, is all he feels when he first sees him. He is so much older; his eyes look like an old man's and his hair is full of gray.
Soon, Sirius sees, he understands, he figured it out. He knows that it was Pettigrew, that he's been caught.
And then, he looks at you like he used to, and before you can even react he's hugging you tightly. Suddenly, you're sixteen again, hopelessly in love and feeling your heart beat so hard against your chest you're sure he can hear it.
"Sirius." He whispers, hurting and loving and hoarse, into his ear. Sirius feels that old weakness in his knees, that same desperate, painful want balled up in his stomach.
And finally, as his hands start trembling, as Sirius feels that body against his own (skinny as ever, if not skinnier), he doubts that an army of dementors would be able to rip this feeling from his chest.