Chapter 3 – Despair
Absence from whom we love is worse than death, and frustrates hope severer than despair – William Cowper
A slight scraping noise brought Sirius' attention back to the present. One of the things, dementors was placing a plate on the floor. Sirius was ravenous. As soon as the dementor had withdrawn its scaly hand Sirius practically threw himself at the plate. There was a slice of old bread (which Sirius shoved in his mouth in one go) and a weird mush that Sirius assumed had once been vegetables. Mind you, he wasn't really in any condition to turn his nose up at food, no matter how disgusting it looked. He scooped it up with the spoon he'd been given and poured the slush into his mouth. It was disgusting. It tasted suspiciously of peas, and he'd never liked peas. He could remember giving Harry peas once, and having them thrown back at his face almost instantly. He smiled, and then the smile fell off his face.
It hurt to think of Harry. That poor little boy whose life had been ruined by none other than yours truly. He could never forgive himself for that. He may not have held the wand that killed them, but he was the reason that the Potter's were dead. All because he'd trusted the wrong man. Peter. That rat. They should have known. It was obvious really, but they'd missed all of the signs. So really, the only ones to blame were themselves.
But nobody knew. He was the only person who knew the truth. Everybody believed the lie that Peter had set up. And there was nothing he could do about it. Not that he hadn't tried. He'd tried to tell Remus the truth, but he'd stormed out when Sirius told him that his supposed victim was the guilty one. He hadn't believed him and he'd made Sirius really start to hope. The pain of that failed hope was almost too much to bear. He'd thought that Remus was his life ring, but now he'd left Sirius to drown.
It was all so unfair. But then, as his mother had always gleefully reminded him, life wasn't fair. Not to Sirius anyway. He'd had eleven years of dislike and abuse and then ten years of relative happiness. That was if it could be called happiness in the middle of a war. There were so many things they'd all missed out on. But then the war had brought them things too. It had brought them all closer, it had brought Lily to them and probably most importantly it had brought them Harry.
He couldn't let himself think like that. He'd go mad if he just sat in here, dwelling on what he could and should have done. What he'd lost. He had to focus on the fact that it wasn't him. He wasn't the traitor. That was Wormtail. He couldn't even bring himself to say the name. He was out there somewhere. He was finally getting the last laugh.
OoOoOo
The cold was so intense that it made him want to cry out. It was as if his blood had been replaced by icy water and his heart replaced by a shard of ice. It was so cold that he was surprised that he hadn't caught hypothermia yet. It made it even harder to move, because he didn't have enough reasons not to bother. His knee, as usual, felt like it was going to fall off. He almost wished it would. That was another souvenir from the war. He'd been stabbed in the knee during a raid; severing the tendons, ripping the muscles and puncturing the bone. He'd been off his feet for over a month. His body was covered in these little 'souvenirs' from the war. His back was damaged from when he'd been thrown into a wall and his hands were covered in scars.
Despite all the injuries and the cold, and the anguished screams and pitiful whimpers of the other inmates, there was something worse in Azkaban. The dementors. They drained all the happy memories and emotions out of a person, leaving them with only their worst thoughts. Sirius could see the faces, and the broken bodies of all the people that he should have saved during the war. They followed him wherever he moved, dead eyes staring at him. They didn't even leave when he fell asleep, infesting his nightmares, always mocking, accusing.
It was enough to drive a man insane. Many of the prisoners had gone insane. Not Sirius though. He knew he wasn't meant to be here. There were things he should be doing. Like finding the rat and making him pay. Like raising his beautiful godson. But there was no way out of here, he'd lost his one faint hope. Sirius couldn't help it. He despaired of ever getting justice.
A tear made its way down his face. It landed on his hand and he stared at it like he'd never seen anything so beautiful or perfect before in his life, and yet be so heart breaking at the same time. He couldn't help himself, once the first tear fell he couldn't make them stop. Soon he was shaking as sobs tore from his chest. He cried for James and Lily, and for Harry. He cried for Remus. But most of all he cried for himself. "James…I-I'm so sorry…I did everything…everything I could think of… but it wasn't enough" It never was where Sirius was concerned.
At least nobody could ever say that he didn't try. He tried, he really did, to make Remus see the truth, but even he knew that it sounded absurd. Didn't make it any easier to deal with. All he wanted was for the Ministry to realise what a cock-up it had made and let him out. He wanted the chance to see his godson, to tell him about his mother and father. But none of that would ever happen. That is, unless they caught Peter. That wasn't very likely though. Even Sirius didn't have a clue where he might be. It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. It would be near impossible.