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Please remember that anything you recognise is not mine.
Sirius was awake early the next morning, after having several nightmares about James and Lily. He glanced at the cell across from his, and saw an unruly tangle of brown hair, though of course it wasn't nearly as matted as his own hair. The girl was sleeping fitfully, and shivering slightly. Sirius wasn't surprised. Even though it was almost summer, the nights were still horribly cold.
Suddenly, the girl sat bolt upright, eyes wide open and terrified. When she saw where she was, she seemed to relax slightly. It made Sirius wonder. What dream could be so terrifying that Azkaban could be reassuring to wake up to? Then again, his own were nothing to boast about.
"Good morning," Sirius called mockingly.
She blinked at him. "G'morning," she replied, somewhat vaguely. She yawned and stretched. "Sleep well?"
He scowled, thinking about the dreams he'd had. "Think you're bloody funny, do you?"
"Well, you started it. I was just being civil back."
"You need to learn the meaning of sarcasm," he muttered.
She ignored him, and he decided to start his daily staring at the wall rather earlier than normal. It was Peter's fault. He would get that bloody little rat. When he caught Pettigrew, he'd—
"Going at it with the wall again, are you?" she asked, interrupting his thoughts.
"Shut up."
"Oh. Pardon me for interrupting your fascinating conversation with the third stone to the left. Rather presumptuous of me, wasn't it?" she asked sarcastically.
"Would you just go insane already?" he hissed. He didn't need to be exchanging remarks with a convicted Death Eater.
"Why? You're already insane enough for the both of us."
"I am not!"
"What exactly are you doing staring at the wall then? You look exactly like every other person in this madhouse."
"Give it a year and you'll be staring at the wall, too!"
She was about to reply, but broke off with a shiver. The dementors were coming again. She scurried to the back corner of her cell, her arms over her head again. Sirius did the same. When they passed, she took her cross-legged position on the floor and closed her eyes again.
"You know, you look just about as insane as I ever did," he commented.
"Really," she replied mildly without opening her eyes. Sirius was reminded painfully of Remus. "Are you admitting you looked insane, then?"
He dropped it, and went back to brooding at the wall in silence, imagining exactly what he would do to Pettigrew when he caught up with the traitor. He stayed that way for several hours (the process of making Pettigrew pay would last several hours, and Sirius had a very detailed imagination), until the guards came with their food for the day. He immediately faced the door, but waited quietly as always for them to give him the food and shut the door again. When they moved on to the cell across from his, the girl sat quietly also.
"A little better behaved today, are we, Rosier?" one of the guards sneered. "Good. That means you'll be even better when we give you your food tomorrow."
Rosier. He recognised the name. More than that, he remembered Evan Rosier from school, a Death Eater that Mad-Eye Moody had killed. This Rosier must have followed in her family's footsteps, then.
Sirius imagined the girl--Rosier's eyes widening in protest at the guard's comment. He knew she must be ravenous, but he also knew that this was a game of sorts the guards played with the newer prisoners. After all, they were still all well-fed and fattened up. They could survive missing a few meals, and who could say they didn't deserve it?
He expected the girl to protest, to bang against the door and yell until the guards had to fetch another dementor. He didn't expect her to remain quiet until the guards had moved on.
She stared across at him. "But—I was quiet," she said painfully.
"You're still new. They won't care if you miss a few meals," he said quietly. "It's their idea of fun. Something to liven up their day."
She blinked, and he could tell that she was trying not to cry. "How can they do that? How can they have fun watching someone else in pain?"
He looked at her coldly. "That's what the Death Eaters do, isn't it?" And she was one, after all, so she should know. Even if she seemed a bit naïve at times for a follower of Voldemort.
She stared at him, uncomprehendingly.
"Just about everyone in this end of the prison is here because they enjoy seeing other people in pain," he clarified. "Like Death Eaters and murderers."
"And which one are you?" she asked.
"Neither," he growled.
"Then why are you here?"
"Because they didn't give me a fair trial," he spat. His throat was tight with bitterness.
Rosier sat for a moment, contemplating this. "Isn't that what everyone says?" she asked quietly. "Don't all the Death Eaters claim they're innocent?"
He glared at her. "No, they bloody well do not!" He turned away, facing the wall again. He thought of Bellatrix, who still wore her loyalty to Voldemort like a badge on her sleeve, like it was an honour. What a shame Peter hadn't been so proud of his true loyalties.
It was all Pettigrew's fault, the little rat. He'd pay, Sirius would swear it on his own blood. They should have known, he thought bitterly, painfully. He would never stick up for himself, always crawling to the more powerful people for help. And then he'd turn around and betray them, given half the chance. He'd betrayed James. He'd killed James.
The girl in the cell across from him was quiet for the rest of the afternoon. When the dementors came by, they would both move to the back of their cells. Then he would resume staring at the wall, and she would sit with her eyes closed. More than once, his ears picked up the growling of her stomach.
She remained silent as the sun set once more, and as the darkness gathered, Sirius could make out her outline moving to the window to stare out at the stars again. He wondered why she bothered. They were always the same. And staring at them through bars hardly made anyone feel better.
He tried to ignore her. He focused on the stone with the odd, reddish-brown stain. It was shaped in the vague form of a rat. Little rat, it was his fault. Peter, I'll kill you if it's the last thing I do. Then he imagined proving his innocence to Crouch, throwing Crouch into this miserable prison to see how he liked suffering in innocence. Not that Crouch was innocent, stained with ambition as he was.
Abruptly, Sirius felt the obsession drain from him. It really was no use. He would never escape this place, and Peter would continue to go free. He, Lily and James' betrayer, would be free, while Sirius would rot in Azkaban. And Remus . . . Remus hated him. He didn't know they had the wrong man. Dumbledore didn't know either. Dumbledore didn't know Peter had been the secret keeper, and he didn't know Sirius hadn't gotten a fair trial. If only they'd told Dumbledore about the switch, Peter would be in here. Then again, if Sirius had only kept to the plan, none of this would have happened at all. Lily and James would still be alive. Little Harry would still have his parents, and Sirius would still have his best friends.
Sirius felt a cry of pain well up in his throat, until his breathing was constricted because of it. When he could stand the burning in his eyes and the lump in his throat no longer, he broke down. Tears ran down his face, and silent sobs wracked his form.
Lily and James. I'm sorry. It was my fault. If only I'd known it was Peter, if only I'd been secret keeper. It's my fault, all my fault. And no one'll never know, because I'll never get out.
By now the moon was shining in through his tiny window. He moved into the light, and looked up at the moon, almost full, but not quite. In just a few nights' time, Remus would be facing the full moon again, and it would be without him. Remus was alone now, just as Sirius was. All Peter's fault. Remus should have someone with him on the full moon. If not Sirius, then James should at least have been there. James had been the one who would never abandon his friends for anything. Sirius remembered with bitterness the night he'd all but betrayed Remus, telling Snape about the Whomping Willow's passage. It seemed he could never quite escape the role of the traitor. James would never have let that happen. James had been the one to pull Snape back, after all. James should have lived. It should have been Sirius that died.
Sirius let out a cry of agony and sobbed into his arms. He knew he shouldn't show this much emotion, knew the dementors would come if he couldn't stop. But he couldn't help it.
Sure enough, the cold came. I'm innocent. I'm innocent, he thought, and he was able to get his thoughts back under control.
As the dementors went away again, the cold receded, and he took deep breaths as he savoured how warm the spring night air felt when the dementors weren't at the door to his cell. He gathered his ragged robes and tattered cloak about him, curled up, and went to sleep.
He couldn't be sure, but just before he drifted off, from across the dark stone corridor, he thought he could see the moonlight reflected off of a pair of eyes gazing at him.
