Disclaimer: I own nothing. Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling
Last time:
"A Dementor is-" Sirius was cut off by a sudden sense of cold and the feeling that he would never being able to be happy again.
The Dementors had come to do their rounds of Azkaban.
The last thing that Harry heard was the sound of a woman screaming before his world faded into darkness.
Chapter 3:
"-ry? Harry? Wake up Harry." Sirius said.
Harry stirred at the sound of his name being called repeatedly.
"That's it Harry. Easy does it." he said, helping Harry get up off the floor. "You had a pretty bad reaction to the Dementors."
"I wish I had some chocolate I could give you." Sirius said aloud, though it seemed to be directed more to himself than to Harry.
"What happened?" Harry asked Sirius, still slightly dazed from passing out. "Who screamed?"
"You fainted when the Dementors passed by my cell. You seem to be badly affected by them." Sirius answered. "No one screamed, Harry. It must have been your imagination."
"But… It sounded so real." Harry said insistently. "What exactly is a Dementor anyway? You never got a chance to finish what you were saying about them."
"Dementors are the guards of Azkaban. They are these black cloaked beings that fly around and feed off of good and happy feelings. When the pass by, it feels as if you will never be happy again." Sirius shivered at the thought of the Dementors. "People with really bad memories get affected the most by them.
"That sounds horrible!" Harry exclaimed.
"But it gets worse. After they feed off of all your good memories and there are none left, they will suck out your soul. If this happens you don't die, you simply live on, emotionless, a complete shell of the person you once were." Sirius said sadly. "Most people go crazy within a month or two. I think that the only reason that I am still sane is that I know that I am innocent and that it was Peter who did it, who should be in here, not me."
"Why do they allow these things to be here? People don't deserve to be treated like that, even if they are criminals." Harry said, thinking that the Dementors seemed like a rather strange, cruel, and unusual, continuous punishment that no one should have to endure.
"The Ministry does not care about us. At the time of my incarceration, anyone they suspected to be a Death Eater was thrown into Azkaban without a trial whether they were guilty or not. And even some of those who were guilty of being a Death Eater escaped imprisonment in Azkaban through their connections to the ministry and a little bribe." Sirius sneered disdainfully. "Lucius Malfoy is a prime example of these people. The ministry is corrupt and it does not look like it will be changing any time soon."
"When I get out of here, I will find some way to get you a trial so you can be released." Harry said passionately. "It's not fair that you have been stuck in here for all these years and yet you are innocent of the crimes you were sentenced for and the real murderer is on the loose somewhere."
"Thank you Harry. I know that you will try your hardest. But speaking about getting out of here, how are you going to get out of here?" Sirius asked him. "It would look strange if one of the few human guards here saw you in here with me. There would be a lot of questions that they would ask."
"I am not quite sure. Maybe somehow that portkey that brought me here will somehow take me back. But I am not even sure how it brought me here of all places." Harry said, clearly confused and frustrated all at the same time.
"Do you have the mirror with you Harry?"Sirius asked. "It might give us a clue about how to get you back."
"Yeah, I think that it is back over there." Harry pointed to the spot where he had first landed. "I'll go get it.
Harry got up from where he was sitting in the cell floor with Sirius and walked over to the dark corner. Now that he was seeing the cell for the second time he noticed some smaller details he missed when he first arrived in Azkaban. One of the first things he realized was that the entire cell seemed to be filled with cobwebs. It looked as if it had never been cleared up in a long time and it added to the rather creepy effect of the cell. He also noticed a small puddle of water in the ground that seemed to becoming from a crack in the fall. The smells of the ocean air lead Harry to believe that Azkaban was in the middle of the ocean on some undiscovered or abandoned island.
'Well, that eliminates another way to get out of here. There is no way I would be able to swim back to London. Even if I could it would take days to get there and then some in order travel on land back to Diagon Alley.' Harry thought sullenly.
Harry observed all these details in a matter of the few seconds that it took to reach the mirror. He picked it up and took it back to where Sirius was sitting waiting to see the mirror.
Harry handed Sirius the mirror for him to observe.
"Hmm… "Sirius muttered. "It looks familiar. But it can't be. Could really it be? No. But how would it have gotten there?" By this point Sirius was talking mostly to himself, harry wondered if Azkaban was affecting him more than he had let off in the beginning.
"Well there is only one way to find out." Sirius said a little bit louder, intending for Harry to hear and listen to. "I want you to hold this mirror and do not let go. If this works you should get back to where you were before."
"If it should work, why don't you hold on too? This way we will both get out of this horrible place." Harry said, wanting Sirius to be able to leave as much as he himself wanted to leave.
"I suppose we could try. The worst that can happen is that this mirror is not what I think it is and nothing happens." He said. "Alright, hold on tightly. This should work like a portkey. Okay on three. One. Two. Three. Mischief Managed."
The air around them swirled in a circular motion as they felt the all too familiar pull of a portkey being activated.
'It's working.' Harry thought 'Now all I have to do is get Sirius a trial from the Ministry and then he can truly be free. I am sure I will be able to do so. Like Sirius said, the ministry is corrupt. They want me on their side, a poster-boy, supporting the Ministry fully. Being the Boy-Who-Lived will have finally paid off for once in my life.'
At that moment both Harry and Sirius crashed to the floor as the portkey brought them to their new location. Looking around, Harry realized that they had returned to where he previously was.
"This is the same place I was earlier." Harry said excitedly. "It really worked then. What was that mirror anyway? You seemed to know what it was before when we were back in the cell."
"That was your father's mirror. We each had one and we would use them to talk to each other. They were really helpful and we were stuck in separate detentions. We tried to add a spell to them which would allow us to be able to reach each other. When we tested it, it did not work. Then things got so crazy that we never tried to improve it and kind of forgot about it." Sirius said sheepishly. Suddenly Sirius's face changed as he realized something of great importance. "Thinking about it now, I believe that we would have needed to be in a situation that we desperately needed to get out of. That's probably why it did not work for us when we tried it."
'I wish that we realized this earlier. It could have saved James and Lily that day. I would not have ever even been in Azkaban in the first place.' Sirius thought sullenly. 'If only we had realized…'
Sirius seemed to be lost in the past. Harry, realizing that they were still in some random store that the Malfoys shopped at, decided to interrupt Sirius's own chain of thought.
"Sirius we need to get out of here before someone notices us."
Sirius snapped out of his trance. "You're right Harry. We need to get out of here." He looked around the room. "This looks like it is Borgin and Burkes."
"Borgin and Burkes? I have never heard of it before. Is it in Diagon Alley?" Harry asked. He could not remember passing a Borgin and Burkes before.
"It is located in Knockturn Alley, which is like Diagon Alley only where dark wizards and witches shop. I don't want you to ever come here again. It is extremely dangerous." Sirius warned, concerned over Harry's safety. "I am going to transform into Padfoot, my animangus form, and we are going to get out of here. I show you the way out. Just follow me."
"Okay, but what will happen when we get back to Diagon Alley? What should I say? How will I explain why I suddenly have a dog with me?" Harry asked.
"When we get back to the alley, you can tell your friends that you ended up in Knockturn Alley, got lost, and could not find your way back. That will explain the hour or so I imagine that you were gone." Sirius reasoned. "You can say you found me on your way back and have decided to keep me or something similar to that."
"That sounds believable. Okay let's go." Harry said; ready to get out of this creepy shop.
Sirius transformed into Padfoot and the two of them set of into the heart of Knockturn Alley. Harry followed Padfoot passed many shady figures until he stopped suddenly. He barked signifying that they had reached the entrance to Diagon Alley. They walked through, back to the safety of the alley.
AN: Hey guys. Happy Ides of March. Here's a chapter to celebrate. It's my longest chapter yet. Just shy of 2,000 words. Sorry it took so long, lack of inspiration and mountains of homework can do that to a person. Reviews would be totally awesome. Like always next chapter will be out eventually. I seem to be posting once a month. Maybe it's a pattern. Anyway, I'm ranting now. Thanks for reading everyone. You're all awesome.