Chapter Twenty-Five
A Serious Situation

Updated 2/22/2013
Last Update 3/15/2013

=ooo=

Harry longed for death.

It wasn't exactly true that he wanted to die. There were things he still wanted to see accomplished in his lifetime. He still wanted to bring about the Magical Singularity, he still wanted to live forever, and make it possible for everyone else to do so, too, Muggle and wizard alike. But those goals seemed so very, very far away and unreal now, considering where he was.

Azkaban Prison.

Almost every positive thought one had in Azkaban seemed unreal, because they tended to slip away from you, drained from your mind and your memories. The only way to keep such thoughts, Harry had found, was not to dwell on them as happy thoughts. Happy thoughts tended to disappear almost as soon as they formed, and the only things you were left with were the loss of the happiness and the hole in your memory.

Harry kept those thoughts in his head by thinking of them as hardships, things he had failed to achieve in his life. As failed goals they brought him no comfort, and the Dementors allowed those thoughts to remain inside him.

Harry was lying on his back on the dirty, ragged camp bed was the sole furnishing of his cell. There was no mattress — Harry lay directly on the rough canvas of the bed itself. He'd also been given two small blankets, neither of which was adequate against the coldness of the cell, which seeped through the walls from the freezing cold wind and rain that seemed to continually bombard the prison itself; if you put your ear against the wall of the cell you could hear the sound pounding against the outside walls of the prison. His stomach was rumbling; the near-inadequate amounts of food they were given seemed to come at irregular intervals. That, or Harry was no longer any good at estimating how much time passed between meals. Most meals consisted of a small portion of bread, a cup of broth with maybe a scrap or two of meat or vegetables in it, or on days when the guards were particularly hungry themselves, a bit of soup. There was usually a bowl of water with the meal, but one could not count on the bowl being filled; sometimes there was less than half a bowlful of water. The guards also provided another bowlful of water, alternating with the meal, and those times the water bowls were usually full. It was the only two interactions Harry ever had with the guards. The rest of the time you were left alone with the Dementors. And conditions in the prison these days were considered more humane than they had been in a long time! Ironically, they had been instituted by Harry's wife, Hermione, after she had become Minister of Magic. She had tried to get the prison shut down, and failed. She had tried to have the Dementors removed from the prison, and failed, though she had gotten the prisoners some respite: the Dementors were now required to remain at the base of the prison unless they needed to interact with the Aurors guarding the prisoners. The prisoners themselves (those who were still alive) had been relocated higher up in the intertwining spirals that made up the levels of the prison. It lessened, but did not remove, the deteriorating effect the Dementors had on them. Finally, Hermione had worked to improve conditions in the prison: making sure the prisoners were fed daily instead of whenever their families managed to bribe the guards into bringing them food; having beds placed in the cells instead of requiring the prisoners to sleep on the metal floor of their cells; and there were now small windows between adjoining cells, so prisoners could communicate with each other if they so wished. It was quite civilized these days, in fact, staying in Azkaban prison. There was a metal toilet along one wall that flushed automatically after use. On the opposite wall was a small metal sink jutting out from the wall, with a single faucet that dispensed a trickle of water. Somewhere under his cot was a small square hole in the wall that provided ventilation and air for heat, but the air was cold more often than not.

There were no visitors. The guards themselves generally stayed in their area, protected from the Dementors by their Patronuses. They would come around twice a day to pass out the food and water, but they didn't remain long. They rarely spoke directly to prisoners. The only guard that had spoken to Harry was the one that had put him in his cell. Now, other than the occasional guard's hand that would slip his tray of food or bowl of water through the small trap door at the bottom of his cell door, or the rats that would sometimes dart furtively along the walls of his cell, scavenging for food, he saw no one.

Harry did not know how long he'd been in Azkaban. They had brought him here from the Ministry after his trial and placed him in this cell, and here he had been since then. There was no way to tell time. The meal and the water came, but Harry had lost count of how many times he'd been fed; in fact he could not always force himself to eat or drink. His body tended to make those decisions for him these days. He ate when his body demanded it; otherwise he did not seem to care whether he was fed or not.

And it was only while he ate that his thoughts moved beyond his own miseries. Ginny was in Azkaban, too, somewhere. She probably did not even understand why she was here, other than because of the memories she had of killing three Aurors in cold blood, something Harry had never come to grips over, any more than he understood what had possessed him to murder James Monroe. Hermione, his wife, had been spared Azkaban, but she had resigned in the aftermath of the charges against him, charges that had caused her to undergo a mental breakdown. Where she was now, Harry did not know. It did not matter; he would never see her again.

Recently someone had been moved into the cell next to him, a person Harry had not yet seen. Harry did not remember him being there when he first arrived, but neither did he recall when the prisoner had been put in there. The window between the cell was small, only a few inches on each side, and an iron grate covered both sides of the window, which was perhaps three or four inches deep. Harry had even spoken through the window, trying to get a response out of his "neighbor," but no one had answered him.

And there was…something else that was with him in his cell. Not always, nor did it appear very often, but Harry never looked forward to its arrival.

It was "the Voice."

When Harry had been younger, much younger, he'd acquired a habit of forming "subpersonalities" in his mind. These different parts of his personality would debate his thoughts and plans in order to test their viability and soundness. It wasn't until he started attending Hogwarts, however, that he actually began naming them. His Internal Consistency Checker had been around for quite some time before he'd gone to Hogwarts, as had his Internal Critic, but he'd only named them after he'd found his four House personalities, his Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Slytherin and Ravenclaw sides, who had emerged after his talk with the Sorting Hat. Over time, Harry had integrated those parts of him back into his own mind, where if they spoke at all any more, it was in his own voice.

But the Voice was something he couldn't seem to control. It spoke whether he wanted to hear it or not. How long had he been here before it had appeared, whispering in his head? Harry couldn't say. It came and went; he had heard it only a few times, but those times had been unnerving. Was it a sign Harry was going mad? That was something he was afraid of, that the Dementors were draining his sanity as well as his happiness. He remembered, when he'd been here before with Professor Quirrell, hearing screams of pain, moans of agony and desperation, and it had torn at him like claws ripping at his heart. There had been nothing he could do then, though he'd almost had the opportunity to return and destroy the Dementors who caused all this misery, this suffering. But he had not been quite ready then, and he hadn't understood that the phoenix who'd offered its assistance wasn't Fawkes. It had been his phoenix, it had come to him. And he had sent it away, not understanding what he was doing and that he would never be given a second chance. That was not a happy thought, either, so it remained with him, gnawing at his soul.

But that was assuming he had a soul, which it seemed was not the case, from what he'd learned before coming here. The thing was, it wasn't any more comfort thinking it was merely gnawing at his mind.

Time passed. Food arrived, and Harry picked half-heartedly at it, chewing mechanically on the stale bread, sipping at the nearly tasteless broth. He drank the bowl of water, of course, because water was a more fundamental need than stale bread and tasteless broth. He no longer bothered to count how many times he had eaten, because it didn't really matter anymore; he was never getting out of here.

Every so often he heard movement in the cell next to him. Once he even got up from his cot, shuffled over to the small window connecting the cells, and tried to look around the cell next to him. Very little was visible to him; he could see the heavy iron door with a small door at shoulder height that opened from the outside only, so that the guards could look in. The same as with his cell. The Aurors could see the cot where he normally spent most of his day. The window in the cell wall, however, showed very little else. He could see some of the far wall of the adjacent cell, but not much of the floor or anything else. He had spoken into the window a few times, but if there was anyone over there they never replied. Harry had considered splashing some of his broth through the window, to see what would happen, but he hadn't done that yet. It just wasn't that important to him.

=ooo=

"Harry."

Harry's eyes opened. He recognized that whisper. The Voice was back.

He was lying on his back on the camp bed. He glanced at the window in the cell door, to make sure a guard hadn't spoken to him. The window was closed. He closed his eyes again, sighing. He didn't want to talk with the Voice right now. It tended to say annoying things to him. He didn't like that. That was probably why the Dementors hadn't sucked it out of his mind.

"Harry, can you hear me?"

"Of course I can hear you," Harry muttered. He had answered silently in the past, in his mind's stream of consciousness, but the Voice pretended not to hear him unless he spoke aloud. One of its annoying habits. "What do you want?"

"Just to see how you've been doing lately, Harry. We haven't talked in a while."

"It's been brilliant, just brilliant," Harry growled.

"Well, you've no one to blame except yourself, you know," the Voice whispered. "After all, you're the one who murdered James Monroe."

"You don't need to remind me," Harry snapped. That fact was burned indelibly into his brain, though he couldn't remember why he'd killed Monroe. He had to assume it had been a happy thought, though, and that the Dementors had taken it away from him. He desperately wanted to remember why he done what he did. "But why don't you remind me why I did it."

"It's not up to me to tell you what you already know," the Voice said, infuriatingly. "But otherwise, how are you getting on? Mental faculties still functioning?"

"It's not up to me to tell you what you already know," Harry replied, mockingly. "You're supposed to be in my head. You tell me."

"It will do you good to tell yourself how you feel," the Voice said, coaxingly.

"Will it?" Harry sneered. "Somehow I don't think so."

"You're being difficult about this, but you know you have only yourself to blame for your situation."

"Maybe," Harry retorted. "But I can imagine Draco Malfoy having a hand in this. He stepped right into the Minister of Magic position when Hermione resigned. It wouldn't surprise me if he had something to do with Monroe's murder and it got pinned on me."

"You confessed to the crime, Harry."

"False Memory Charm, I'd wager," Harry replied. "It wouldn't be the first time someone's tried that on me. The problem is, it may have worked this time."

"There is no way for you to prove that."

"I concede that," Harry admitted. "Short of a confession by Malfoy himself, and I'd need some pretty strong leverage to get something like that out of him."

"You would," the Voice agreed. "Even if he did do something like that, Malfoy would have no practical reason to admit such a crime. You have to be realistic with yourself about such things, Harry."

"Not that it matters," Harry said, resignedly. "I'm in here for life — there's no chance I'll be pardoned without buying off the majority of the Wizengamot, and some of them would cheerfully take my bribe and vote against a pardon anyway."

"You haven't really been considering something like that?" the Voice asked.

It was a strange question for him to ask himself, Harry thought, but he'd probably asked himself weirder questions over the past few decades. "No, not really," he said. "Hermione wouldn't go for it, even if it had the least chance of getting me out of here. At least I made sure she was set up before all this came crashing down on top of me."

"And how's that?"

Another strange question. "There's a vault in Gringotts that I filled with Galleons over the years. I gave her the backup key so she has access to it."

"Good thing you were thinking ahead," the Voice agreed. "How much do you estimate is in that vault?"

"Enough to last her quite some time," Harry said, a hint of irritation in his voice. "What difference does it make to you, Jiminy Cricket? I thought you were here to point out my failures as a wizard, not my successes."

"I'm not here to do either," the Voice said, patiently, though its voice seemed louder in his head. "I'm just trying to get you to face reality."

"The reality is, my life is going to stink for the foreseeable future," Harry said, loudly. "I don't need reality, I need a comforting fiction that the damned Dementors can't suck out of me!"

"You're getting frustrated," the voice said, soothingly. "Perhaps we should talk later."

"Wait a minute," Harry said, but the Voice didn't answer. "Crap!" he swore.

"Who are you talking to?" another voice suddenly asked. Harry looked around; the cell door was closed, but he could see a shadow in the window between his cell and the one adjacent to his, on the right.

"Nobody," Harry said, shortly. "Just talking to myself."

"If you say so," the prisoner in the next cell said. His voice was a wheezy rasp, barely above a whisper. "That's the most I've heard you talk since they moved me here."

Harry grunted, whether in assent or indifference he wasn't sure. "First time I've heard you talk since ever," he finally said. "How come you've never answered me when I asked who's over there?"

"Sorry," the voice wheezed. "I sleep a lot. There's not much else to do."

"Yeah," Harry agreed. He rolled into a sitting position on the cot. "How long have you been in that cell?"

"Dunno," the prisoner replied. Harry could see movement in the window between their cells — the man had moved over to speak through it. "Say, are you sure there wasn't someone in there with you?"

Harry looked around the cell. "No…" he said, slowly. "They only allow one prisoner per cell. Why do you ask that?"

"Something familiar," the prisoner mumbled. "Thought I…well, never mind. I guess my mind's playing tricks on me again. Sorry." He started to move away from the window.

"Hey," Harry called, though his own voice sounded dry and cracked; he hadn't spoken above a whisper in a long time. "Do you have a name? Something I can call you?"

"Um," the prisoner seemed to be thinking. Harry knew that people who'd been in Azkaban a long time sometimes forgot who they were. "I guess I'm Black."

"Okay," Harry said, wondering why the man would identify himself by his skin color. "I'm Harry."

The man barked a laugh. "Me too!" he said. "It's been a while since I've seen a razor or clippers!"

Harry smiled, but he felt the moment of levity draining away. "Is there anything I can call you other than black?" he asked.

"Black's my name," the man repeated. "I'm Sirius."

"Okay, if you insist," Harry muttered. He wasn't trying to start a fight with the guy. "I just thought we could call each other something than 'hey, you'."

"Fine," the man said, sounding short. "You're Harry and I'm Sirius Black."

Oh. Oh! OH!

"Wait a minute," Harry said, getting to his feet. He walked over to the window and peered at the man through two layers of iron grating. The man had a wild tangle of black hair on his head, and a full black beard. "You are Sirius Black?"

"Yeah," the man was frowning at Harry through the grates. "What's that to you? Do you know who I am? You don't look old enough to have been alive when I landed in here."

"I know who you are," Harry said tightly, his anger growing as he remembered. "You betrayed James and Lily Potter to Voldemort, and he killed them!"

"You don't know anything about it!" Black growled.

"I know enough!" Harry shouted back. Both of their faces were pressed against the iron grates of the window that separated them. "You not only betrayed the Potters, but you also killed the man who turned you in to the Ministry, Peter Pettigrew! They found you ankle-deep in his blood and the blood of twelve other people you killed when you murdered him!"

Black was breathing heavily on the other side of the window. "Kid, you've got it all wrong," he said through gritted teeth. "But that's not surprising — the Ministry never gave me a chance to present my side of the case. If you knew what really happened…"

"So why don't you tell me, then?" Harry challenged him.

Black snorted derision. "What for? It sounds like your mind's made up. And what the hell difference would it make, anyway? I'm still here and they'll never let me out, or give me a chance to clear myself." He shook his head. "It's been so long I'm not even sure what the truth is anymore."

"The truth would be important for me to know," Harry said, his voice tight.

"Why?" Black growled. "What do you care? What interest could you possibly have in something that happened so long ago?"

"I told you my name was Harry," Harry said, staring at Black through the window in the wall between them. "My last name when that happened was Potter — I was James and Lily Potter's son."

Black was silent for a long moment. Harry could hear him inhaling, exhaling on the other side of the window. Finally, "Bloody hell, Harry, it is you! What the hell are you doing in Azkaban?!"

Harry waved off the question. "Not what we're talking about right now. If you've got something to say about what happened with my parents back then, let's hear it."

"Holy shit," Black was muttering to himself. "I can't believe I've finally met you again after all these years, Harry! I remember playing with you when you were —"

"I don't need to hear about that," Harry cut him off. "First tell me your side of the story. If it doesn't sound like nonsense we can go from there."

"Okay, okay." Black sighed, a long, slow exhalation. "Let's see. It was October of 1981 and James and Lily had just escaped a Death Eater attack in London. It was rumored that Voldemort was waiting for them to be brought to him so he could personally execute them.

"Me and Moony —" Black stopped for a moment. "Er, 'Moony' was a nickname for Remus Lupin, a friend of James and mine —"

"I know who he is," Harry interjected. "He's the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot now."

"No shit?" Black actually chuckled for a moment. "Wonder why he's never come to visit me in here?"

"Because he thinks you betrayed James and Lily Potter, like everyone else does," Harry replied, coldly.

"Well, shit," Black muttered. "Okay, anyway, we were kicking around ideas to try and keep James, Lily and you safe, and we came up with the Fidelius Charm. It's a bugger to cast properly, but if you do it's an almost foolproof method of keeping yourself hidden. Almost," he added bitterly.

"I know about the Fidelius," Harry said. "It's not in any of the official stories about you, but Lupin told me about it."

"Stories about me?" Black sounded surprised. "What do they say about me?"

"That when the Aurors tracked you down they found you in a London street with blood splattered all around you, and eyewitnesses confirming that you had blown up Peter Pettigrew and twelve Muggles."

"Ha," Black said, humorlessly. "I didn't blow him up, but I wondered why he did it to himself; if Voldemort was gone he was in the clear — all he had to do was get out of Britain and hide from the Death Eaters. From the damage to James and Lily's house I was surprised that you had survived, but that's where I found you."

"You found me in my parents' house?" Harry said, skeptically. "Nobody's ever told me that."

"It's true enough," Black insisted. "I was supposed to be the Secret Keeper, remember? But then I turned into a bloody idiot — that's what cost your parents their lives."

"What did you do?" Harry demanded, his voice rising.

"I switched with Peter. He was the Secret Keeper."

"I've never heard that, either," Harry said. "Peter Pettigrew wasn't much of a wizard, from what Remus and others have told me. You were supposed to be a pretty good fighter back then. Why would you make Peter the Secret Keeper?"

"Harry, that was the point," Black said earnestly. "Nobody would think that Peter was the real Secret Keeper. Everybody would think it was me, and the Death Eaters would come for me, not him!

"But it turned out Peter was a rat," Black continued, his voice thick with hate. "That little fucker had become a Death Eater — Voldemort was looking a way to get closer to James and Lily — and I mucked things up by having James make him the Secret Keeper instead of me!"

"But you've must've known the secret, too," Harry guessed.

"Yes, of course," Black agreed, "but only the Secret Keeper can tell the secret to anyone else, and Peter went running to Voldemort with the news of where James and Lily were." Black pounded a fist against the wall; it rang throughout Harry's cell as well. "I showed up too late to do anything — the house was in shambles but the Fidelius was still in effect. I went in, looking around, and found their — their bodies." For the first time Black's voice broke. "It was my fault. My fault! If I hadn't been trying to be so clever Pettigrew would never have had the secret and your parents would have lived! Merlin, Harry, I'm so sorry!" He moved away from the window; Harry could hear him walking back and forth, like a man trying to figure out what he should do next.

After a minute or so he moved back toward the window. "I found you, Harry, with that cut on your forehead. It hadn't bled much, which should have meant something to me then but I was so relieved to find you alive. I got you bundled up and got you out of there. I didn't know what to do." He was babbling, Harry realized. "I sat there on the front porch, trying to figure out what I was going to do next, when Hagrid showed up."

"Hagrid?" Harry hadn't thought about him in a long time. "The groundskeeper at the school? Why would he show up at my parents' house?"

"He said Dumbledore sent him," Sirius answered. "He was wandering around in front of the ruins of James and Lily's home, looking confused, and I realized he couldn't see me because I was still within the Fidelius. When I went out to talk to him he said he was supposed to come check up on James and Lily. He was devastated when I told him they'd been killed. I had him hold you while I sent a message to Dumbledore telling him James and Lily were dead, but you were still alive, and he sent back one telling me to give you to Hagrid until everything could be straightened out."

Sirius turned away from the window. "I even gave Hagrid my motorcycle!" he said, "so he wouldn't have to use the Portkey Dumbledore had given him. He took you, got on my bike and flew off, leaving me to wonder just how deep the shit I was in was. If Dumbledore thought I was the Secret Keeper, how could I explain to him and the Order what had really happened? "

"Dumbledore knew about the Fidelius?" Harry asked, more sharply than he'd intended. The old wizard had never mentioned anything about it to Harry that he could remember.

"Yeah," Sirius nodded through the window. "He wanted to be the one to cast the Fidelius. He could be a nosy old bastard sometime." Sirius's tone was not unkind. "But James and I talked it over and decided we would keep it amongst ourselves. Moony — Remus — had taught the spell to James, and he cast it the day before Halloween. I left the house after that, and so did Peter, and I thought that would be them safely hidden."

"Wait a minute," Harry cut in. "Did Remus know the Secret Keeper ended up being Pettigrew rather than you?"

"No," Sirius said, his voice bitter once again. "Another bit of cleverness on my part. I suggested James cast it before Remus showed up, to get the spell in place as quickly as possible, and that Peter could tell Remus afterwards.

"What I didn't know was that when Pettigrew left, instead of finding Remus he went directly to Voldemort and ratted James and Lily out. Voldemort waited until the following night to show up in Godric's Hollow to —" Sirius's voice cut off.

"Okay," Harry said, quietly. He was leaning forearms against the wall, his head bowed. He didn't know Sirius Black, but the man's misery and sadness felt genuine, and the story made sense. For the most part. "But if the Fidelius was still active," he questioned. "how did anyone else get in the house if Peter was killed?"

"Because right after the attack he went to the Ministry to tell them what happened," Sirius spat. "Or what he wanted them to believe, actually. The Aurors who brought me in told me about it on the way to the Wizengamot. Peter walked in the Head Auror's office and told him he suspected I had betrayed James and Lily Potter, who were at their home in Godric's Hollow — you see how he worked around revealing he was the Secret Keeper, eh?" Sirius's voice was thick with rage again.

"Why didn't you tell them you weren't the Secret Keeper, then?" Harry asked.

"I tried that, but they decided I was refusing to tell them!" Sirius exploded. "To make it more difficult for them to investigate! I even suggested they use Veritaserum on me, and they refused! They were bound and determined to ignore everything I told them, the damned idiots!"

"So they brought you before the Wizengamot…" Harry prompted.

"Yeah. Probably the quickest trial in Wizengamot history," Sirius said. "If you could even call it a trial. Dumbledore was looking at me like I'd kicked his dog. The Aurors presented their evidence of picking me up in London covered in Pettigrew's blood, and it was a unanimous conviction after that. They might just as well have sent me to Azkaban without a vote, it was such a foregone conclusion."

"And you've been here since then," Harry said, shaking his head in sympathy. "At least 35 years now. How could you have survived that long?"

Sirius laughed, a guttural barking sound. "I guess I'm just a tough old son of a bitch."

Harry was going over what he knew about Sirius Black from the books he'd read as a kid. It was all a bit jumbled in his head, but: "There was a rumor at one time," he said, "that suggested you, James Potter and Peter Pettigrew became unregistered Animagi while you were at Hogwarts."

"Oh?" Black snorted. "Why would we do that, assuming we could even figure out how?"

Harry couldn't remember what he'd read about that. "I don't know. Are you an Animagus?"

Black barked a laugh. "If I was, Harry, I think I'd have figured a way out of here a long time ago!"

"Hmmm." Harry pondered a moment. "What about Pettigrew? Or James Potter?"

"James was my best friend from the day I first met him, Harry, on the Hogwarts Express," Sirius said. "I think I would have known if he'd managed to become an Animagus. And Pettigrew? That's a laugh! All he ever did was follow me and James around, trying to hang out with the cool Gryffindors. We let him, mostly because he'd do anything we told him to."

"There was another rumor," Harry went on, remembering more and more about the details. "That Pettigrew didn't die on that street in London. That he escaped, somehow, and ended up becoming a pet for the Weasleys."

"I know the Weasley family," Sirius said. "We're distantly related. But Pettigrew never became an Animagus, so if they ever owned a pet rat it wasn't Peter. Merlin knows I've had more rats in here than I care to remember."

"You mean as pets?" Harry asked, surprised at the idea.

"No, as lunch," Sirius replied. "Back when I first came here they didn't feed us much, and the rats made pretty decent snacks, considering the alternative."

"That's awful," Harry groaned, sickened at the idea.

"You asked how I survived, Harry," Sirius reminded him. "I did what I had to do to get by."

"But if you'd been smart," Harry said, remembering something he'd pondered long ago, "you would have run once you realized you were the prime suspect for betraying James and Lily, instead of going after Pettigrew."

"I didn't see it like that," Sirius disagreed. "I was innocent, as far as I was concerned. I figured I would find Peter and force him to go to the Ministry with me and explain the real situation to them. I didn't expect him to do what he did when I finally found him. Even now I'm still not sure what really happened."

"Well, either you blew him up or he blew himself up," Harry replied. "But I could never work out why you went after him in the first place. You should have gotten the hell out of Britain as fast as you could, whether you betrayed the Potters or not."

Sirius sighed again. "Yeah, I hadn't quite worked things out myself before I found Peter. I had some idea I was going to turn him over to the Aurors, but not before I worked him over a bit — he'd killed my best friends, Harry! I wanted to kick his arse all the way from London to Godric's Hollow! But when I found him he shouted that he'd already told the Aurors about me and that I wouldn't get away with betraying James and Lily, then everything blew up — literally. The only thing left of him they found was a bit of one finger. And there I was, left holding the bag for thirteen murders, including the bloke I'd gone to capture. It was so stupid I couldn't do anything but laugh — laugh at my own stupidity. By the time I stopped laughing the Aurors had me pegged as the murderer of Pettigrew and the betrayer of James and Lily to Voldemort, and what the Aurors believed in those days was as good as the word of Merlin himself."

His voice was beginning to sound tired. "Look, Harry… I need to rest for a while. And I'm sorry you've ended up here, but maybe we can make the best of it, somehow."

That was almost funny, Harry thought. "We'll see," he said, noncommittally. "I'm going to rest for a while, too — wait for dinner to be served," he added in an ironic tone. "I'll talk to you later, Sirius." He slouched back over to his cot and rolled tiredly into it, his face to the metal wall next to his bed. Now that he was alone with his thoughts again, he could feel the Dementors draining him, drawing out his happiness and his magic. And this is the way it would be for the rest of his life. Harry closed his eyes, shuddering, and once again wished for death, sort of.

The sound of the trap door closing brought his eyes open again. After a while Harry rolled over, seeing the tray of food on the floor in front of the door. A while later he pulled himself into a sitting position on the cot, then slowly rose and walked over to get the tray. The food bowl was only half-full this time; Harry sniffed it, smelling beef broth and vegetables. A watery stew, then. He frowned at the half portion, but carried it back to his cot and began to spoon it into his mouth. When it was mostly gone he used the piece of bread on the tray to sop out the bowl. He drank the water, putting the empty bowl in the sink and turning the faucet on to start a trickle of water filling the bowl. Hopefully it would be full by the time the guard came for the tray, and Harry could drink the water before giving up the bowl. He put the tray on the floor beside his cot, stretched, then rolled onto his side. He pulled his legs up onto the cot, then found himself drifting back to sleep. Strange, he didn't usually feel this sleepy after eating. Before he could ponder it further, though, Harry was soon snoring.

=ooo=

Harry awoke not feeling rested or refreshed, which certainly wasn't unusual. In Azkaban one nearly always felt tired when awake, so it wasn't unexpected.

What was unexpected was the Auror leaning over him, watching. Harry flinched away from the man, then glanced around the room, looking for other Aurors before he asked, "What?" in a clipped, annoyed tone.

"Wondered when you were going to wake up, Sleeping Beauty," the Auror said, a smirk on his whiskered face. He seemed to be glowing until Harry realized that the Auror's Patronus, a shining silver dog, was sitting behind him. That was the glow the Auror seemed to be emanating. That was a relief, at least — the unhappiness and depression the Dementors generated with their presence was lessened somewhat; the sensation was almost enjoyable in comparison with how Harry normally felt. "Come on," the Auror said shortly, straightening up. "It's Moving Day."

"Moving?" Harry repeated. For a moment the word didn't register. "Why would I move? The cot is fine right where it is."

"No, genius," the Auror growled. "We're moving you to a new cell."

"Now? What for?" Harry asked, greatly disappointed by the news. What incredibly lousy timing! He'd just been put next to the one person who might be able to keep him from going insane in here, if only because he wanted to find out all the despicable things Sirius Black had done in the course of getting his parents, Peter Pettigrew, and twelve Muggles killed.

"Don't worry, you're not going very far," the Auror said, jerking a thumb toward Sirius's cell. "We're moving you next door."

"Into his cell?" Harry said, incredulous. This didn't happen in Azkaban, as far as he knew; you just didn't put prisoners in cells together. With the depression and madness that could result from prolonged exposure to Dementors, prisoners could end up maimed or killed by one another. "You're not supposed to do that, are you?"

"Relax," the Auror said, brusquely. He took Harry's arm and hoisted him to his feet. "You're not going in together, he's exchanging cells with you."

"What for?" Harry asked again. "What difference does it make?"

"Because Black wants this cell, and he's been here long enough that we allow him a request every so often." What the Auror didn't say was that a wizard showed up every month or so and left a bag of Galleons with the Auror guards, to make sure that Black was given extra portions of food and water. That had been happening almost since he came into the prison, and the guards at Azkaban didn't mind the extra money that came their way every month to make sure Black didn't have it as rough as some of the other prisoners. If truth be told, it was probably the main reason Black had survived in the wizards' prison for the past 35 years. "Now come on," he said, taking Harry's arm. "We're wasting time standing here."

He tugged at Harry's arm, but Harry held his ground. "I need my blankets," Harry said, reaching down for the two ragged sheets he'd been given when they put him in this cell, but the Auror pulled him upright again.

"Leave them," the Auror warned. "There'll be blankets in your new cell."

The Auror led Harry outside the cell into the corridor beyond, his Patronus going before them. Two other Aurors were standing nearby, their Patronuses, a rabbit and an owl, next to them glowing brightly. The three Patronuses seemed to be generating the only light present in the corridor. And behind the two Aurors, Harry could see the thin, ragged form of Sirius Black himself.

He didn't look too bad, Harry noted, for a man who'd spent 35 years in the most oppressive prison in the world. He was born around the same time as his birth parents, Harry remembered; that put him in his mid-50's. Still in the prime of life for a normal wizard, though the man was by no means normal. His black hair was a tangled mess around his head, going down past his shoulders, and his beard hung over his chest. The robe he wore was old, faded, and tattered, though it couldn't have been what he was wearing when he came into Azkaban — that would have disintegrated long ago. Whoever was bribing the guards must make sure he got a change of clothes every so often.

"What's going on, Sirius?" Harry asked, loudly. "Why are we —"

"No talking," the Auror holding his arm commanded. He pulled Harry in front of the door leading into Sirius's cell. "Get in there," he said, pushing Harry forward.

Harry staggered into the room, then stopped and turned, looking back at the Auror, who was shutting the door to the cell. A few moments late he heard the door to his old cell slam shut as well. He shuffled over to the window between the two cells.

"Sirius, what the hell's going on?" he demanded in annoyance. "They said you wanted to exchange cells. What the hell for?"

But there was no answer. Through the window, he could hear Black repeatedly breathing deeply. "Sirius!" he shouted through the window. Again there was no response.

"Fine!" Harry said, thoroughly annoyed by now. "Don't say anything! But don't expect me to talk to you until you tell me what's going on!"

There was still no reply. Harry thought he meant it — he wasn't going to talk to Black until he found out the reason the man had changed cells with him.

He looked around the cell. The sink and the toilet were on opposite sides of his old cell, but the cot was in the same spot. Underneath he could see the small ventilation hole that let air flow into the room, though it usually made the cell colder than warmer. There were no blankets on the bed, though. Harry groaned inwardly, imagining how cold it would get sometimes, but as he looked around the room he found what Black had done with the blankets: they were in the corner next to where the window between cells was, nearly below it, and were flattened like Black had been lying on them. But why the hell would he lie down in the corner —?

Harry went to the window, trying to see the corresponding corner in his old cell, but there was no way to see the corner from the window. Harry looked back at the door to the cell. It didn't look like an Auror could look through either the trap door or the door view window to see the corner, either.

So if Black laid down in this corner, Harry saw, nobody could see him unless they came into the room. He picked up the blankets, shaking them to remove any dust on them. There were a lot of short black hairs covering the blankets. That was odd, Harry though, especially since Black's hair was shoulder length or longer. Where would the short black hair come from? Harry could think of a rather disgusting example, but that didn't seem to make sense.

"Black!" he yelled, shouting through the window, but there was still no answer from the other side. After calling his name several more times Harry kicked the wall in frustration — not very hard, because the Dementor-imposed depression was upon him once again, then dropped the hair-covered blankets back in the corner and sank onto the cot. He lay there trying to work out what such a pointless move was about, but it really made no sense. Unless… Black was just messing with him, trying to establish some kind of dominance position between them. Like the Auror had said, Black got his way around here, sometimes, because of the time he'd spent in here. Harry wondered if there was something more to it than that…

Thinking about it was getting to be too much bother. Harry rolled onto his side, wrapped his arms around himself, and began the wait for his next meager meal.

=ooo=

Time once again melded into a progression of tasteless food, restless sleep, and crushing depression and hopelessness. It no longer mattered to Harry that Black had taken his cell — what did he care where he was in Azkaban? No matter where you were, the wounds in the world were still there, slowly devouring your life, your soul, your very identity. Harry wondered how he would feel after he'd been here 35 years, if he could even survive that long. How Black had done it was a mystery, even with whatever help he was getting. Harry sometimes wondered, enviously, why he had never planned for such a contingency, on the chance he might end up here someday. That possibility had been remote, of course, but given that he was actually here, now, it seemed like he should have taken it more seriously.

How long would he last? Harry had no idea how he'd already been here, but it seemed like years. He had taken to sitting on the edge of his cot, head in hands, trying to remember how many meals he had eaten since he'd come here. He wished he'd thought to make a record, somehow — he could have scratched a mark on the wall for each bowl of gruel he'd been given. But even that wouldn't have helped him now that Black was in his cell and he in his. The only thing he had now was the two tattered blankets that lay in a heap in a corner of the cell.

He'd left them lay there, unused even in the coolness of the cell, until one morning he awakened shivering uncontrollably. It must have gotten particularly cold outside, and the tiny hole that was supposed to deliver warm air to the cell was instead blowing air that felt even colder than the air in the cell.

Harry rose, slowly, and shuffled over to the corner, to gather up the blankets. He turned to walk back to the cot, but decided that it was warmer in the corner where he was. He sank to the floor, pulling the blankets over him, and huddled there for warmth.

After a while he glanced up toward the window between his cell and Black's. Black hadn't spoken to him since they'd switched cells, despite Harry's demands that he speak to him. Black had never answered, and Harry hardly ever heard him move lately, even after their food was delivered. Whatever Black was doing in there, he was making very little noise going about it. Harry pulled the blankets closer around him; this side of the cell seemed slightly warmer than where his cot was; perhaps it was because it was an inside wall he was huddled against. The corridor he'd been in when the Aurors moved him and Black had been less cold than the outside walls. Harry dozed, waiting for the next meal to show up, trying not to think about his increasing depression and despair.

"…"

Harry's eyes fluttered open. Had Black said something or was he merely hearing his own breathing? There was no other sound for several seconds, and Harry closed his eyes again.

"… …"

The sound he thought he'd heard seemed a bit louder that time, but it was still so indistinct that Harry wondered if he'd dreamed it.

"Harry Potter."

Harry groaned inwardly. It was the Voice again! Go away, he thought. I don't have time for your shit today—

"I hear you," another voice whispered, and Harry came immediately awake. That was Black's voice! "What do you want?" he heard Black whisper.

What the hell?

How could Black hear the Voice if it was in Harry's head? Harry wanted to jump up and shout through the window, but he dared not move lest Black or the Voice stop talking.

"I just wanted to see how you are, Harry," the Voice was low again; Harry had to concentrate just to hear it.

"I'm fine," Black's whispered reply came a few moments later. "In fact, I'm doing better than you THINK!" Black's voice had risen to a shout by the last word. There was a startled gasp and the sound of someone being dragged across the floor. "I knew I smelled you, you miserable little rat!" Black rasped.

Harry heaved himself to his feet and pressed his face against the metal grating of the window, straining to see what Black was doing, but he was still out of view.

Then the Voice spoke again, this time in a normal voice. "S-Sirius! I'm so pleased to see you again! I — I thought you were dead!"

"You hoped I was, you mean," Black snarled.

"Black!" Harry shouted. "What's going on in there?!"

"Harry!" the Voice squeaked. "Harry, you have to explain to him! I'm here to help you, Harry!"

"Oh, that's a bloody likely story!" Black snapped. "You've never helped anyone except yourself, Peter!"

"Peter?" Harry said through the window. "Peter Pettigrew? Sirius, who the hell's in there with you?!"

"Who d'you think?" Black said, bitingly. "Yeah, it's Pettigrew! It looks like you were right, Harry — the little rat managed to survive that meeting with me in London back in 1981. And now I see why! You cut off your own goddamned finger, didn't you?"

"Sirius," Peter's voice was shrill and squeaky. "I — I had to! The Death Eaters would have killed me if they found I was the one who —" his voice faltered.

"You were the one who betrayed James and Lily!" Sirius finished for him. "I was there to bring you in! They would have killed you because it looked like you betrayed Voldemort —"

"Ahh! Don't say his name, Sirius!"

"Voldemort Voldemort Voldemort!" Sirius shouted. "Still afraid of a bloody made-up name, are you? Tell me what you're doing here!"

"I — I came to see how Harry was doing…"

"Why?" both Harry and Sirius asked the question at the same time.

"M-minister Malfoy s-sent me," Peter stammered.

"Who the hell is that?" Sirius demanded. "Wait! Damn! Don't tell me that blond-haired ponce is Minister now!"

"It's his son, Draco," Harry said through the window. "He replaced my wife as Minister just before I was sent here."

"Your wife?" Sirius said, surprised. "Harry, you're marr— Oh no you don't!" There was frantic squeaking and Sirius cursed loudly. "Bite me again, you fucking little rat," he said, threateningly, "and I'll snap your bloody neck! Now change back before I do it anyway!"

"I'm sorry!" Peter's voice squeaked pleadingly a few seconds later. "Please don't kill me, Sirius! I'm only doing what I have to do to survive!"

"And what the fuck do you think I've been doing for the past 35 years?" Sirius demanded. "Harry told me it's been that long since they threw me in here. Because of you, Peter, because of YOU!" There was a loud metallic thud as Black slammed Peter against a wall of the cell.

"Sirius," Harry said through the window. "See if he has his wand."

"Right," Sirius said. "Good idea. I'll bet you do, Peter — you'd never be without it, would you?" There was a rustling of clothes as Sirius rummaged through Peter's coat and pants. "Here we go! Yep, it's the one I remember from Hogwarts. Managed to keep this all those years, did you, Peter?"

"Sirius," Harry heard Peter pleading. "Please — not my wand! I need it to get back, to tell Mr. Malfoy how Harry is doing!"

"Maybe I'll tell him myself," Harry said, through the window.

"So let me get this straight," Sirius said. "The Minister of Magic sent you here to check up on a single prisoner, and you're sneaking around in your Animagus form to do that? That smells pretty fishy, Peter." Sirius turned his head toward the window. "Why would this Malfoy want to know how you're doing in here, Harry? Were you and he friends or something?"

"Not exactly," Harry muttered. "It's a long story, though, and we don't have time for it now, not even the 'long story short' version. What are you going to do with Pettigrew? Oh! And by the way, you said that he wasn't an Animagus!"

"Yeah, I lied about that," Sirius said matter-of-factly. "About myself, too. Sorry, Harry, but I couldn't trust you with that information, not after I just first met you. That's the only way I've been able to survive here all these years. When you're in Animagus form the Dementors don't affect you nearly as much as they do when you're human."

Harry nodded to himself. "Not a problem," he replied. "I had it about figured out, anyway. You slept on these blankets in the corner, didn't you?"

"Yeah," Sirius admitted. "The guards couldn't see me unless they came into the cell, and I could transform back to human before they came in.

"So what should I do with you, Peter?" Sirius returned his attention to Pettigrew. "You betrayed James and Lily and caused their deaths, you orphaned their son Harry, and you murdered twelve people to frame me and get me sent here. And you're a Death Eater. Merlin knows what other shit you've done since then! Do you think I have any reason to show you mercy — any reason at all?"

Harry heard a gasp, then Pettigrew's voice, "Sirius, please! D-don't kill me with my own w-wand!"

"Why not?" Sirius snarled. "How many have you killed with it, rat?"

There was a part of Harry — almost the only part he had left now: the angry, vengeful part that the Dementors hadn't taken from him — that wanted to see Pettigrew dead as much as Sirius did. But the Dementors hadn't taken everything from him, yet, and he spoke through the window. "Sirius, give me the wand."

"Think I'm going to kill him, Harry?" Sirius said, his voice raw with dark emotion. "I'm pondering it, that's true enough."

"Sirius, please!" Peter gasped. "Harry, help me! He wants to kill me."

"Sirius, give me the wand," Harry repeated. "You can pass it through the window, it'll fit through the grates."

"I don't need this wand to kill Peter," Sirius growled. "And he knows it!"

"Sirius, you don't want to kill him," Harry argued. "You need him alive, to prove that you didn't betray James and Lily Potter or murder those twelve Muggles back on that street in London. We need to turn him over to the Aurors!"

There was silence for a moment. "Even if that does get me out," Sirius said, slowly. "What about you? You're not here because of anything Peter did, are you?"

"No, I'm here because I killed someone."

"Who?"

"A man named James Monroe," Harry sighed. "I deserve to be here, Sirius, but you don't. Use Peter's wand to call for the Aurors, or pass it to me and I'll do it."

Harry waited breathlessly for Sirius to respond. Neither he nor Pettigrew spoke for some time. Finally, Harry heard Sirius.

"Ex-expecto P-Patronum." Nothing seemed to happen.

"Expecto Patronum!" Sirius repeated, louder this time. But still nothing happened.

"Expecto— I can't do it." The end of Peter's wand slid through the window. "Go ahead, Harry, take it — before I change my mind."

Harry took the wand, pulling it through the grate. It felt strange to have a wand in his hand. He'd never expected to hold one again.

"It's not going to do any good, Harry!" Peter's voice came through the window. "Mr. Malfoy will get me out of this! Neither you or Sirius are getting out of — oooof!" There was a thud of fist on flesh.

"Shut up," Sirius said. "Don't you worry about what Malfoy's going to do — you worry about your own arse, rat. You're still in here with me."

"Don't hurt him, Sirius," Harry warned.

"Gonna call the golden boys?" Sirius asked, plaintively. "Don't worry, I'm not going to murder the little rat. But hurry up, will you? I'm tired of looking at him."

Harry said nothing. He was getting his mind right; no small feat now, given where they were. The repressive, foreboding darkness of the Dementors was bearing down on his mind, making it hard to form the mindset he needed to cast the spell he intended. He would never embrace Death, and he hoped Sirius would never embrace it, either, even though a creature like Peter Pettigrew might rightly deserve to have Death visit him and send him on his way to whatever lay beyond, be it paradise or oblivion.

Death, on the other hand, did deserve to die.

Harry had done it, once upon a time, the very first time he had successfully cast the Patronus Charm. He had killed a Dementor, a thing theretofore though unkillable and undying, though he hadn't realized it until his Patronus faded and the Dementor he had cast his charm at was gone, leaving only its tattered cloak as evidence it had ever been there. This time, he would not kill a Dementor. At least, not unless they came to kill him.

But he'd considered that once before, the first time he'd been in Azkaban, all those years ago with Professor Quirrell, to rescue someone from this place. That had turned out to be one of the worst mistakes of his life, for more than one reason. But the worst thing he'd learned in the aftermath of that benighted adventure, the one thing that that he regretted not doing, was coming back here and destroying every Dementor in Azkaban, even if it might have cost him his life. He'd been given the chance, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and he had not realized what he was being offered. He'd turned down the phoenix that came to him, offering to bring him here and help him in his quest to rid the world of Dementors, thinking he could do that thing later, when he'd been better prepared. He had been wrong. And now he was suffering for it. But this was the end of it, Harry resolved. From now on, if he ever got out of this place, it was going to be no more Mr. Nice Guy when it came to Dementors.

But for now all he wanted to do was push back the darkness, to give him and Sirius a moment to recover from the oppressive sensation of the Dementors draining of their happiness and their magic. Very few people, even today, knew the form of his Patronus, and he didn't want anyone else to know — especially not the Aurors guarding this prison, given that he would be remaining here even if Sirius was set free. Sirius was innocent of the crimes he'd been accused of — he was not.

Harry closed his eyes momentarily. Those kinds of thoughts wouldn't do. He thought of his wife Hermione, his friends the Weasleys — even Ron, who never did like him much, first because Harry dared be friends with Draco Malfoy, and later because of his closeness to Hermione. He thought of his parents in Oxford, his father now a Professor Emeritus. He thought of phoenix song, which hadn't heard in so very long, though its memory reverberated through his mind now that he'd remembered it once again; he thought of the Earth, a blue and white oasis of life in the cold lifelessness of the Solar System, an oasis that would soon be the center of a Civilization stretching across the galaxy.

Harry's fingers moved into their starting positions on Peter's wand; he twitched it once, twice, thrice, and then four times, moving it at exactly the right relative angles to each other, he shifted his forefinger and thumb exactly the right distance across the wand, and said the words.

"Expecto Patronum!"

Light burst from the wand, moving forward and forming itself into a corporeal image: a figure with two arms, two legs and a head, standing in the center of the room, blazing so bright it nearly hurt his eyes, accustomed as they still were to the dimness of the cell.

"What the hell?" he heard Sirius say from the next cell. "What's that light — ?"

"I've cast the Patronus," Harry said, feeling the depression and the weakness fall away from him. "Do you feel it, Sirius?"

"Yes, yes!" Sirius's voice was stronger now. "Merlin, I feel good again! I don't know how long it's been since — auughk!" There was a clang of metal on metal, and a shrill squeal of fright. "Peter, you little — rrrrowll!"

"What happened?" Harry shouted, but the sound of angry growling was all he heard from the next cell. The squeaking continued, louder than ever, but suddenly cut off.

He needed to get in there. Harry looked around the room, trying to decide what he could do. His eyes fell on the tray of food he had finished before falling asleep in the corner, then on the wall separating the cells. He knew then what he could do. He just hoped he could do what he needed to do while keeping his Patronus up.

He grabbed the empty food bowl off the tray, dropping it on the floor. He pointed his wand at it. "Engorgio," he said, and the bowl expanded until it was over 18 inches in diameter. Big enough, Harry judged.

The wand swept around, touching the cell wall, and Harry visualized turning part of the wall to viscous oil. Not a large part of the wall — it need only be big enough to crawl through. As it was, it took almost three minutes of concentration before a rough circle of the wall suddenly flowed into a puddle of brownish fluid.

"Wingardium Leviosa," Harry muttered, one of the first spells he'd ever learned, and the puddle of oil rose into the air, congealing into a wobbly sphere of brownish liquid that floated over above the enlarged food bowl. Harry lowered the oil into the bowl, then leaned down, looking through the hole.

A large black dog stared back at him. In its mouth was a dead rat.

"Sirius?" Harry said, uncertainly, and the dog cocked its head at him. "What happened?"

The dog shook its head, worrying the rat a last time, though it was hardly necessary. Harry could see that its neck was broke. "Put him down, Sirius," Harry said, in a commanding voice ("his Master's voice," a very old slogan for a phonograph record company echoing through his mind). "He's dead."

The dog set the rat on the floor in front of him. As he looked up again his features flowed, transforming into Sirius Black sitting on the floor. Harry could see a trickle of blood coming from Sirius's side. Beside him Harry now saw, was a silver knife, its blade stained with blood.

"He stabbed me," Sirius said, unnecessarily. "While I was distracted by your — your…whatever that is." Sirius peered through the hole in the wall, looking at the Patronus in wonder. "He tried to get out through the vent hole." A hand pointed a finger shakily at the small hole in the wall. Harry saw now that it was just big enough for a rat to crawl through.

"I just reacted, Harry," Sirius said, his voice shaking. "I couldn't let him get away, and my Animagus form is a lot faster than I am. I grabbed Peter as he tried to disappear down that hole and I — shook him until he stopped squealing. I didn't realize I'd broken his neck until…"

"It's alright," Harry said, softly, putting a hand on Sirius's shoulder. He trembled but didn't pull away. "He brought it on himself, attacking you."

Sirius nodded slowly, then sat up straighter. "So now what?" he asked.

"Well…" Harry paused. He glanced behind him, and his Patronus moved forward, stepping through the wall as if it weren't there. He and Sirius were now being bathed in its light, and that light was making Harry feel a lot better.

Having his Patronus close by was doing other things as well, he discovered. Memories were coming back into his mind, memories that had been repressed, hidden, pushed back into his unconscious, unavailable to him until now. He remembered who Draco Malfoy really was, and what had actually occurred between him, Ginny and James Monroe. He had not killed James — Voldemort had, and had framed both him and Ginny for crimes they never committed. He wasn't going to let things stand like that.

"Now," he declared forcefully. "We break out of here!"