Chapter 2 - Dead Man Walking

Dead man walking! Padfoot went over to the door, gulping down the food lying on the floor. The food tasted clean for a minute, sweet and succulent, before it lost all its flavor and sat in his mouth, rubbery and dead. One of the evil things passed by him, probably a long distance away, since he wasn't howling and could think. Padfoot wanted to bite it, but the part of him that was not dog thought this would be a very bad idea.

How long had he paced here? The sound of his nails clicking across the floor was so familiar. To Padfoot it felt like a long time. He wondered if he would age as a dog or a man. Seven years was one human year, so would he die earlier than normal?

He was a dead man walking, real smooth talkin, a blade blunted down to the bone. The song keeps playing over and over in his head. He doesn't think he made it up.

These are the things Sirius can't think about anymore...


When he first arrived, Sirius realized that it wasn't like he had thought, back when he had laughed viciously at all the Death Eaters being imprisoned for their crimes and their malice. But no one deserved this. He spent the first day huddled in the corner, trying to avoid the Dementors as much as possible. He curled up, nose pressed against his knees, desperately trying to avoid looking around. Damn him! The stupid rat betrayed them all! Bastard! Sirius wanted to smash things, but it was so hard to move. Oh James. Lily. Even as he thought about them, overwhelming horror threatened to smash him down. They were dead. When he tried to focus on the happier memories, they started to flatten and drain, slipping away from him. After that, he tried to stay away from his good memories as much as possible, preserving them for after his escape. Someday was a word that he held on to before that too slipped away from him.

Anger was easier, so he clenched onto it, feeding his anger and outrage at the Ministry, Voldemort, and the rat. Peter. And no wonder he had that form! The four of them had joked about it school, saying it only meant he was useful and able to go where others couldn't. What rot. But even as he thought the anger, it seeped out, only leaving gray and listlessness. He didn't have the energy to be angry, even at Voldemort. Everything was going flat and bleached.

This wasn't working. Sirius looked at the floor, at the stone blocks held together by magic. They were hungry for him, the stones were. The entire place was a strange combination of clean and clinical hospital and Slytherin dungeon. It was the kind of place you would call a facility, but wouldn't show to anyone out of fear they'd shut it down for rights violations.

There had to be a way to survive, to stay sane here. Sirius had been imprisoned in a farce of a trial, too mad with grief to be help himself. He wouldn't back down to the Ministry again. Every part of him that was stubborn, every bullheaded bit of his personality (and that brought back memories of McGonagall; she must be so disappointed) was resisting the pull of despair. But it was so hard; no memory was pure and happy, not so close to the Dementors. And with every pass of one by his cell, he felt worse and worse.

There had to be a solution, but Sirius couldn't think of it quite yet; if only he had his wand!


The forest grew less and less every day, and stumps were scattered across the land. It would have been better, perhaps, if there had been desolation all around, so that the healthy fields would not cast the stumps in such stark relief.

The farmer chopped wood every evening in the autumn after he had finished all the harvesting that he could before it got too dark. He worked every day until late, trying to build a stock for the winter. It became easy after he got the hang of it. A little muscle is all it takes: an unhinging of the shoulder, bringing it back, and then letting the momentum carry him forward. He did this even when the mosquitoes came and poked and bit at him in a million little stab wounds, sweat dripping down and stinging. His muscles burned, but he continued until the sun had sunk completely below the fields, the memory of his child's voice rising with the moon, beckoning him home.

He rolled his shoulders as he walked, the ache of fatigue brushed away by the tantalizing smell of food on the wind. But it was oddly quiet in the dark house, silence roaring in his ears. And then. A child lying on the floor. The baby, sleeping in a pool of thick black water – because that must be sleep and that must be water. He moved on down the hall, gripping the forgotten axe in one hand and jacket in the other, the zipper making an impression on the palm.

He passed his wife, but couldn't look. There was a man, ravaging the dresser, rifling through the clothes. A thief. So. A little muscle was all it took: an unhinging of the shoulder, bringing it back, and then letting the momentum carry you forward.

Then Sirius woke up, muscles in his back jerking. He had nothing to defend, nothing to avenge. And he didn't have his wand anyway, or even an axe. He spent the rest of the day as Padfoot.


He was a dead man walking, real smooth talkin'. A Muggle singer played on the radio in Lily's house. Sirius sat at the table, shifting uncomfortably. Lily had invited the four of them down to her parent's house for New Years, and they had all accepted eagerly. Lily's parents were really nice people, he knew; they had first met at the train station two years ago, when all the Gryffindors of their year had gotten off the train together. They had been so afraid of the Slytherins then, but they had no idea what a threat Voldemort would become later.

Knowing Lily's parents, Sirius had been expecting a warm, merry New Years complete with hot sister to flirt with and a little partying with good friends. Petunia wasn't quite what he had anticipated, but neither was the vacation. Lily and James had spent most of the last weekend cloistered together in her bedroom or cooing over each other, Peter had been acting strangely ever since that owl from his mother had arrived, and Moony was coming down with a cold. Damn.

So here he and Petunia sat, awkwardly looking at the kitchen table and not each other, listening to the radio. The plastic tablecloth was white with a red checkered pattern, and Sirius traced the lines with his fingertip, feeling the ruts where knives had scraped the surface and where something, maybe grape juice or wine, had spilled and stained the white purple. He was a dead man walking, a blade blunted down to the bone. Sirius knew she was attracted to him, could tell by the way she wasn't sneering at him like she had at his friends. Lots of women were attracted to him though; it wasn't a bad deal, but he wasn't interested in a cow like Petunia.

They sat there for a while. He was starting to be amused by her nervous fidgeting. Her hands clenched and unclenched around the edge of the tablecloth, and he knew she was going to break the silence right about - "Sirius? Do you, er, like the music? Or should I change it? Because I could always change it? Unless you like Billie Holiday, that is. I think it's Billie Holiday." Called it in one, Sirius thought with no small satisfaction. He amazed himself sometimes.

"No Petunia, I think the music's fine. Keep it on." He was a jet black man, and without him the streets are colder. Yesterday will always linger. Whoever it was, the voice was melancholy and smooth, and rich in a way such a damaged voice shouldn't be. Petunia's timidly hopeful expression was no longer all that funny, so Sirius got up. He had never been deliberately cruel to anyone but Snape. "I'm gonna go outside and smoke. Don't let them eat without me, eh?" With that he walked out, wishing for some robes to cover his tight jeans. They made his ass look hot and there was no point in tormenting the poor thing.


The only reason it occurred to Sirius to change into Padfoot was that the Dementors had all gathered near a far-away cell, where there had been an attempted break out. Sirius could hear screaming, and all he wanted to do was know what was going on. Changing into Padfoot, he tried to use his superior hearing and smell to get a good impression, but all he heard was intensifying screaming and then silence. There wasn't even any blood. The Dementors didn't ever smell like anything.

But through the sudden fearful silence throughout the prison, away from their stifling presence, Sirius realized something; he didn't feel as sad. Dogs simply weren't equipped for the kind of despair that humans were capable of, and lived in the moment. If he could let go of the past, there would be less rotten, less spoiled, less to grieve. This was the birth of Sirius' hope.

There are things Sirius doesn't let himself think about, at least when he can help it:

His mother and father and their varied arguments.

McGonagall, who he had always actually liked, deep down. Dumbledore and Hagrid.

How long has he been in here? (He thinks it might have been five years, but really it's more like one).

The boy who lived.

Moony and what he must think.

James and Lily.


Padfoot thought about the Rat, and imagined its flesh squeezing between his teeth, bones crunching and joints popping. When he ate his food, he tore at it like it was the Rat. He tore at it like it was a snake. He tore into it and it sunk down his throat.

When it was the real thing Padfoot wanted it to wriggle down the whole way.