A/N: Thanks to twibe for reviewing and Sarapha for the kind PM I received.

Disclaimer: The Harry Potter universe belongs to JKR.

Chapter One: Escape

1993

"Hogwarts," the sleeping man muttered restlessly, "He's at Hogwarts. I've got to get to Hogwarts!"
A familiar ratty face swum before his vision and he jolted awake as a tortured scream came from somewhere below him. Sirius Black rolled over and hugged his arms around himself for warmth, the torn newspaper clipping that was forever clutched in his right hand crackling. In the darkness the sound it made was loud, and it rung in Sirius' ears as he sat up, straightened the clipping and traced the familiar rat sitting on the ginger boy's shoulder.
Peter Pettigrew, the traitor, was at Hogwarts. As was his godson, Harry Potter, the boy who lived. Sirius was an intelligent man. He could put two and two together and he knew that Harry wasn't safe while Pettigrew was there, masquerading as a rat.
"S'about time I fulfil my duties as godfather," Sirius muttered to himself, as a strangled scream came from close by. He hated nights in Azkaban, and the incessant screaming that came with them. As the thought passed his mind, the cell that had once been Flint's shook with the nightmarish howl of the man within.
"Shut up!" Sirius yelled through the bars, to no avail. The man was a screamer, and in the seven years he'd been there it had steadily gotten worse and worse. Flint hadn't been a screamer, Sirius reflected. She'd sung for hours on end sometimes, the same song looping over and over again and as annoying as it had been she'd had a sweet voice so it was tolerable.
None of the screamers had sweet voices.
"I'm coming for you, Peter," Sirius whispered to himself, shivering. "I'm coming for you, just you wait."
The Minister's annual inspection of Azkaban had been several days before, the portly little man in the bowler hat and his entourage of Aurors passing past his cell. Sirius had lent through the bars on his door and called out to Fudge, and even dared ask for his newspaper. Fudge had looked mildly alarmed, but nevertheless handed over his paper, and there on the front cover was a whole family of gingers, and Peter.
Peter.
It was three days before Sirius managed to work up the courage to transform into Padfoot and slip past the Dementor bringing him his tray of food. It didn't even notice the large black dog that padded silently past him, although later Sirius was amazed that it hadn't been able to hear his pounding heart.
Sirius remembered the day he'd been brought into Azkaban perfectly clearly; they'd taken and snapped his wand at a guard station at the end of the corridor, where they also kept the wands of those who would eventually be released, and a set of keys, and after hours of brainstorming ways to escape with Flint over the years they shared a wall he also knew that the only way he'd be able to escape the fortress was to blow a hole in the wall with a wand stolen from the guard station and jump into the sea. It wasn't ideal, Sirius mused, but it was all he had.
Inside the guard station a single human guard was reclined in a plush chair, asleep, a Patronus keeping him company. If he'd been a human, Sirius would have grinned. It was too easy. He changed back to himself and for the first time since he'd been imprisoned he was glad he was barefoot because it made it easy to noiselessly cross to the filing cabinets labelled 'wands'. Sirius reached in, pulled out the first one his finger's came into contact with (which bore the label 'Marchbanks, Robert, sentence: 1990-1995').
Sirius turned and had just opened the door when he heard singing, familiar singing, drifting down the corridor.
"Blackbird singing in the dead of night,
take these broken wings and learn to fly,
all your life you've been waiting for this moment to arise."

Sirius knew that song. He knew that voice. A wicked grin broke out onto his face. What had he been thinking, escaping alone?

"Blackbird singing in the dead of night –" Jem broke off, startled, as she heard a set of keys jingle in the lock of her cell. The last time that had happened –
"Hey there, Flint," said a familiar voice, and the door swung open to reveal a tall, scrawny man with tangled elbow length hair and dark grey eyes, standing there with two wands clutched in one hand and the master key for the cell doors in the other.
"Sirius?" Jem asked weakly, struggling to a sitting position.
"I finally figured out how to break out of this hellhole," he told her, grinning wildly. "And I very nearly left you behind. Count yourself lucky."
Jem rolled her eyes, but a giddy smile was in danger of breaking onto her face. "Took you long enough," she scolded, ignoring the part about 'leaving her behind'. Evidently, Sirius was still a prat. And for some reason that made Jem smile.
"Took me long enough?" Sirius spluttered, mock-outraged. "I don't see you breaking us out!"
"You're the smart one," Jem shrugged, crossing the dingy cell and pulling one of the wands from his hand. "I never finished school, remember? I've got both the mental and magical capabilities of a fifteen year old."
Sirius snorted, muttered something about wasting time, and pulled her by the wrist into the empty corridor.
"I'm glad they downgraded your security," Sirius muttered. "Or this would be very difficult indeed."
"How'd you get out?" Jem asked, struck suddenly with the realization that Sirius was a maximum security prisoner and it should have been impossible for him to escape. "You've got Dementors outside your door twenty-four-seven."
He glanced at her but didn't answer, and Jem curled her lip. "Fine, Black, don't tell me. Do they know you're gone?"
"No," he said shortly. "But they will soon. Bombarda!"
They had stopped in front of a blank brick wall at the end of the corridor, and as Sirius spoke he raised the stolen wand and blasted the wall open with a mighty bang, opening a sheer drop down into the churning grey sea below.
"We jump now, don't we?" Jem muttered, frowning.
"Yeah," said Sirius warily as Dementors began to swarm the corridor behind them, and he unceremoniously shoved Jem out of the building and jumped after her.
Jem felt the wind rushing past her ears, and she had a second to hope she didn't land on rocks and resolve to kill Sirius for pushing her before she hit the water and went down. Even from underneath the churning grey waves she could hear a large splash as Sirius landed next to her, and as a strand of seaweed wrapped around her foot, Jem kicked up with all her might, and her head broke the surface.
Next to her Sirius did the same, and the two prison escapees wasted no time in beginning to swim furiously toward the hazy grey shape in the distance – the mainland.

Sirius pulled himself onto the rocky island with a gasping heave, tearing a gash in his arm in the process but hardly noticing the blood that trickled down his wrist as he pulled an equally bedraggled Flint onto the tiny rock island with him.
"Reckon we're out of the anti-Apparation wards yet?" Flint asked through torn breathes, running a hand through her messy dark hair in an attempt to push it away from her face. Sirius shook his head.
"I heard the Minister talking to one of his Aurors on their inspection a few years ago. They extended the wards all the way to the mainland in case anyone ever escaped so they couldn't Apparate – Expecto Patronum!"
Flint ducked as the large silver dog burst out of the end of Sirius' wand and charged down the Dementor that had swooped out of the clouds and was heading for Flint. The dog pawed away the swopping horror and it glided away over the sea, no doubt to get a few of its fellows to recapture the two.
"What's that thing?" Flint asked weakly, gesturing to the silver dog that was fast fading away into thin air.
"A Patronus. They fight off Dementors," Sirius answered, feeling rather like he'd run a marathon, only without the sense of pride.
"Come on," he muttered, casting two quick bubble-head charms and two warming ones on himself and Flint, before wading back into the water. "We've got to get to the mainland before they catch us."
"Oh, joy, more swimming," Flint growled under her breath as she stepped into the water. "This is fan-fucking-tastic, Black. Couldn't you have had a magic carpet waiting for us?"
"Magic carpets are illegal," he pointed out as he ducked under water, ignoring the murderess who was silently fuming at him as she did the same, with a muttered, "We just broke out of the most heavily guarded prison in the world and you care about breaking the law?"
Yes, Flint decided, Sirius Black was definitely a prat.

It was late afternoon by the time Sirius and Flint managed to reach the mainland. The coast was rocky and sandy, and the moment they were both ashore there was a flurry of movement to their right.
Sirius had already anticipated the fact there would be Aurors waiting for them, and he already had a destination in mind as he grabbed Flint's arm and Apparated. There was a peculiar tugging sensation on his left side and he smirked when he realised the Aurors must have set up an anti-Apparation ward on the shoreline that the current had carried them clear of.
One of the Aurors gave an outraged shout as the two vanished into thin air, but Sirius didn't hear it. Neither did Flint, for they had just arrived at a peaceful hillside where birds were singing sweetly, and to Flint the air tasted like freedom.
But they weren't free yet. By tomorrow the whole country would know their faces and their crimes, the Dementors would begin their hunt, the Aurors would track them, and there would be a period of their lives that would be too unpredictable to fathom.
"Well," said Sirius eventually. "What now?"
"Now we prove your innocence," Flint said softly.
"And how do we do that?"
Flint shrugged. "It's your innocence. You tell me."
Sirius nodded, his mind whirling. Where was it that Petunia lived, he asked himself. Somewhere muggle and ordinary.
"Surrey," the animagus said. "We need to get to Surrey."

Aaand that's the first chapter. Next chapter we learn a little more about Flint's past and the circumstances that lead to her family's murders.
Until next time, GNU xx