20 June 1995
Department of Mysteries
The last thing Sirius Black saw as he fell into the Veil was his cousin's face.
Over a decade of Azkaban had drawn the canvas of her skin so tight and gaunt that every contour of her face stuck out at defined angles. Her lips, just now curving into a smile of satisfaction, stretched deep lines around her mouth and almost made it seem as if her gleeful laugh would rend her own flesh apart.
Her hair, visibly dirty and unruly, swayed around her visage to form an inky backdrop that only further emphasized her features.
'It's almost hypnotic.' Sirius thought as he stared into his cousin's—and killer's—face. Generations of Blacks possessed the very same traits and, in his delirium, Sirius could see his lineage as if through a distorted mirror.
'It's ironic.' Sirius concluded. He would meet his death at the very hands of the legacy he'd abandoned.
It was his comeuppance; the culmination of the ever-hanging revenge for defying his heritage.
Toujours Pur, his family had said. His exodus from the House of Black was always going to come with a price. Sirius just thought he'd already paid it.
Yet, before his cosmic musing drew Sirius deeper into his mind, the living portrait in front of him regained his attention.
Bellatrix's most unique feature was her eyes; stark violet orbs made all that more vibrant by her pallid skin, that focused much too intensely to ever construe an expression of rationality. They pulsed with manic fervor and Sirius knew, somehow, that her gaze was not one of evaluation but of frenetic mirth.
All reason within her had long since been drowned in a sea of momentary escapades, an endless odyssey of whimsy that dictated Bellatrix Lestrange never adhere to propriety or reason. She had no forethought in dueling him today; she did not seek him out. Of that, Sirius was certain.
Her decision to confront him was the result of her latching onto the nearest chaotic thought circulating in her mind and executing it. Those mercurial windows of expression were what captivated Sirius as he descended further and further away from the Department of Mysteries.
The instant his back came into contact with the Veil, icy tendrils began to seep into his being, numbing him and dimming his sight. First, it cut through his spine, paralyzing him. Then, spreading out, Sirius felt as pinpricks slowly coursed throughout his body like water through cracks, bringing with them a final sensation of icy shock before stealing his sensitivity away from him. Eventually, the only thing left to Sirius was his head, but even that began to sink under the foreign power, and nothing began to make sense.
Bellatrix's flailing hair seemingly blotted out his periphery and filled his surroundings as darkness encroached on his vision. The strands of hair changed from emanating from around her pale visage to become lances of encroaching shadows that stole filled the outskirts of his vision. At the same time, it felt as if someone had thrown Sirius into a freezing river as foreign sensations continually washed over his form and drowned out his focus. The ephemeral current tossed him left and right until it felt like his unresponsive body was literally dissolving into the surroundings.
Yet he still couldn't tear his gaze from Bellatrix.
Sirius knew that he had died. He knew that he was no longer on the mortal plane; that the image he was forcibly fixated on was not moving in real-time. It was a perfect still image of the last thing he had ever laid eyes on.
A part of him was ashamed that he hadn't even considered looking toward Harry as he felt his departure from life.
Soon, even his cousin's face lost its clarity. Her hair, fully blotting out everything but the rictus it framed, became fuzzy and disjointed. Her face itself began to contort and shift.
Her skull decreased in size.
Her jaw thrust forward and began to elongate grotesquely.
Her deathlessly pale skin gained an ethereal quality.
Her eyes erupted into ghastly flames.
Sirius felt a new presence impede on his consciousness.
The face of Padfoot stared back at him.
Or it would be the face of Padfoot if not for the spectral whisps emanating from it and the literally blazing eyes sat in the hound's sockets. Despite that, there could be no mistake of what Sirius was forced to look at; it was a figure he was intimately familiar with.
What he was not familiar with, at least not from Padfoot, was the judging presence that threatened to crush him. The reason for such a feeling was incomprehensible to Sirius; it simply enveloped him and demanded that he give himself over to the probing sensation. There was no outward indication that the image before him was responsible for this sensation, yet Sirius knew all the same that it could be nothing else in the void where found himself.
Just as Sirius felt himself giving in to the pressure and slowly beginning to drift away, the effigy morphed again. The edges blurred and even the hound's fiery orbs lost their clarity, smearing upwards and shifting into a myriad of reds, blues, and greens. Eventually, those colors were all that remained as they eventually tapered to curved points and Padfoot's silhouette vanished into the backdrop.
That was not to say that Padfoot's presence receded, however. Sirius could still feel a lingering gaze that was meticulously examining his subconscious, inducing a sense of paranoia that everything he does or had ever done was under scrutiny.
In an effort to distract himself from that unsettling feeling, Sirius tried to decipher the new object in front of him—it certainly didn't appear to be any kind of animal or strike the same sense of intimate familiarity that Padfoot had, but there was something in what he saw that tugged at a nearly forgotten memory. Just what it was eluded him, but Sirius was sure that there was a meaning to what he was seeing, something more than a random assortment of colors streaking across his vision.
Then he realized. The colors, the shape, the familiarity: it held a prominent spot in Grimmauld—and the other Black properties—during his childhood. So important was it to his family that the sigil almost acted as a second family crest for the Blacks. Until now, he had forgotten about it entirely; it was just another worthless piece of family history that he never planned on renovating after escaping Azkaban.
If only he could remember what exactly the image meant.
It seemed to hover before him, as if waiting for the acknowledgment that Sirius was woefully unable to give it. So long had the silence stretched that he had even begun to wonder if this was his fate in the afterlife, if he was destined to forever remain fixated on the past he had run from.
It was, thankfully, not to be the case.
After an indeterminable amount of time, Sirius noticed a difference in the pervading presence that had taken the form of Padfoot. Specifically, he noted that there were now two distinct individuals applying themselves onto his conscience.
Padfoot's remained the same: serious, attentive, and judging to the point of disdain. The second entity's nature, however, was much harder for Sirius to divine. It was elusive, yet blatant; fixed yet adaptable.
In and out of his senses, it drifted like a scent that, once accustomed to, dissipated into the air while remaining just as noticeable to the unfamiliar.
Racking his brain for any clues as to the context behind this icon, Sirius soon began retracing everything he knew about his family. Obviously, he wasn't going to be able to pull a comprehensive history out from the depths of his memory, but surely there was something that could jog his memory.
'Think, Sirius! Why is this so damned familiar! What on earth does this remind me of!'
The image certainly exuded a sense of self-confidence and regality that even should Sirius not have had that strange sense of familiarity; he wouldn't have had any difficulty envisioning it adorning the mantle of an illustrious family. Indeed, Sirius would call the sight pretentious—and the awareness of its relation to the Black name only cemented that belief in his mind. The only thing that could make the symbol gaudier in its flamboyance would be if it had come from a lesser family seeking to embellish their own importance in front of their peers.
Suddenly, it struck him: 'Malfoy!'
It was the newest House acknowledged in the upper echelons of wizarding Britain and tied to House Black through his cousin, Narcissa. Sirius recalled the celebration of his cousin's wedding to the man in the months before his incarceration. Of course, he hadn't actually attended the event, being the disgraced and rebellious son of Black that he was, but the Daily Prophet had spoken about it for weeks, nevertheless. It was impossible not to hear about the expenses that went into Narcissa's ceremony.
'If one didn't know any better, they'd think that Lucius was ascending to kingship given his family's desire to flaunt their opulence before the public.' Sirius thought derisively.
But what really brought his mind back to that distant relation to House Malfoy was their notorious propensity to maintain peacocks on their estate. Peacocks! They couldn't even bother to attain a magical creature to act as their mascot, so fixated were they on the muggle bird's colorful plumage.
That is what the effigy now looming above him resembled—feathers. They were nowhere near as extravagant as the peacock's design, yet still emitted a sense of nobility that Sirius wasn't sure resulted entirely from the presence currently adopting the symbol.
As he peered closer at the design and furiously tried to dredge up which mysterious avian these feathers belonged to, a wave of barely decipherable emotions from the foreign entity assaulted him again. It washed over him completely and left a vague feeling of amusement and… pride?
No, that wasn't quite right. While the entity certainly seemed to be conveying amusement at Sirius's ignorance, its second emotion wasn't pride; it was much too patronizing. Sirius almost felt as if he was a child again, with a figure patiently coaxing him along his path of mental reasoning.
He wasn't sure whether to feel insulted or grateful that he was getting these ephemeral indications from whoever had dragged him here.
'What does it matter, anyway?' He thought fatalistically. 'I'm dead and gone from the world; what use is history and context for the dead?'
Immediately after having that thought, two separate emotions seemed to collide against him. One was vindictive and unrelenting, as if to force Sirius to accept that thought as his reality. The other was much lighter yet still stained with a hint of mischievous pettiness.
'Irony,' Sirius realized. 'The damned pair of feathers is emitting a sense of irony unto me!'
If anything, the contrasting emotions only seemed to heighten the agitation of the first presence. Sirius got a feeling that whatever power was behind those feelings didn't much like him, which was odd considering they decided to base their appearance off of Padfoot—his animagus form.
The oppressive aura emitting from his surroundings suddenly increased, seemingly at random.
Then, in a resolute moment not too different from the clock's final toll or the decisive judge of an emperor deciding the fate of his gladiators, Sirius's body—which he had thought dissipated at some previous point in this illusion realm—was suddenly forced upright. Starting just under his throat, an invisible force bodily dragged Sirius upwards, kicking and flailing under the foreign grasp, until he hung there perfectly erect.
However, while he first imagined the pressure around his throat to act as a sort of noose, it remained solid instead of constricting. He was completely at the mercy of whoever held the reigns to this invisible instrument, but he no longer feared that it was about to choke him to a second death. Instead, it acted as a guiding tool. 'Like a collar and leash,' Sirius's bemused mind helpfully supplied—'or a pillory.'
As that force held him in place, completely unable to move even his gaze from the blazing insignia before him, Sirius felt as the two entities observing him finally acknowledged each other. Whereas before, they had been happy to ignore each other in an effort to impress themselves onto Sirius, now he realized that they had made a decision. A decision that presumably fell in his favor seeing as he could feel Padfoot's presence lose its intensity, could feel it acting like a cowed hound subserviently backing down at its master's command.
And then Sirius felt it.
Unbearable, overwhelming force blanketed his body as something slammed into him. Sirius let out a broken cry at the pain but hardly had time to regain his breath before the blow repeated with twice as much force. The following interval did not allow him time to recover half as much. A third strike speckled his vision with stars and nearly sent Sirius falling into oblivion. The fourth lash accomplished that goal, making the previous stars explode in a nova of whiteness that overloaded his brain and mercifully sent him into the abyss.
Sirius Black woke with a gasp.
His panicked eyes quickly took in the stygian fabric fluttering before him. It was so dark and ghastly that he had trouble seeing whether it was a single color or if there was a deeper meaning, a more complex depiction, dancing within the folds of cloth.
Soon, however, the fabric was torn away, and a new sight greeted Sirius. It filled him with just as much dread and shock as the macabre cover preceding it.
Deep amethyst eyes stared into his soul.
Framed by a face resembling a ruined temple, with its obvious characteristics of nobility made all the more blatant by the gaunt and pallid skin, they blazed like smoldering coals, inferring that, while still enchanting and, at one point would not be out of place in the center of wild infernos, now the spirit behind those eyes had left their peak and were slowly fading out of existence, threatened to be consumed by the shadows that fell across her cell and already blanketed some of her body.
Fear's cold spikes had slowly lessened from the dementor's absence, but the tendrils drove themselves back into Sirius all too easily.
He was staring into the face of Bellatrix Lestrange, his killer.
Yet, the intensity of Sirius's revelation brought with it a heightened sense of detail that quickly rendered him confused. The Bellatrix he fought in the Department of Mysterious was lively and animated, throwing back taunts just as easily as she took them and laughing in that manic pitch that any who had witnessed her trial would be hard-pressed to forget.
This version of her was just a husk of what he'd seen in his last moments.
That was not to say that it was totally lacking in comparison. Dull and faded as she may be, the person in front of him held a serenity that he could almost mistake as contemplative and perceptive if not for the obvious strain caused by years of torment that acted as visible indications of her forced passiveness. It was shocking to even think for Sirius, but Bellatrix appeared sane, if not cognizant, as he examined her morose form.
Regaining his composure, Sirius noted more of his surroundings, quickly recognizing the dreary gray stone, the bars, the dimly lit corridors and long, twisting shadows.
In a rushing conclusion, Sirius realized that he was back in Azkaban which, for all of his claiming it to be Hell on Earth to any that would listen, never expected to actually be proven correct in that statement.
"Did poor little Siri have a nightmare?" Bellatrix cooed, realizing his gaze on her and immediately breaking any notions Sirius held in regard to her state of mind.
"Do you need big cousin Bella to sing you a lullaby?" She mocked from across the hall.
"If I wanted to hear a harpy screech, I would have never left Grimmauld, Lestrange." Was the instant, unconscious rejoinder.
Responding was a mistake. His confused mind was in no state to engage in any sort of mental challenge as it desperately tried to make sense of what he was seeing. The instant Sirius entered into conversation with Bellatrix, her spirit seemingly reignited as a wild grin stretched her face and her eyes shone with new vigor. The tortured mask that made her a silent figure of degradation cracked to reveal that, indeed, her malevolence burned just as bright as it always had.
"Shameful, Sirius!" She cackled in delight. "Don't you know better than to disrespect the dead—and your own mother too! I'm sure dear aunt Walburga is rolling in her grave, because of you."
"She certainly is." He affirmed, though quick to remedy her statement. "But I doubt my opinion of her is the cause. I like to think actions speak louder than words." He replied absentmindedly, cautiously surveying the cell across from him and comparing it to the foggy memories he held of his past imprisonment.
"I bet she was delighted to hear that you joined us in following the Dark Lord. Truly an action worthy of our House!"
"Yes," Sirius drily responded, realizing the futility of his efforts, "she must have been so proud to learn her son was thrown into Azkaban."
"Undoubtedly." Bellatrix eagerly nodded her head. "Only the most devoted of His followers chose to maintain our cause in His absence."
"The devoted and the maniacal." He corrected. "Which one were you, again?"
Before she could retort in what Sirius could only assume would be nonsensical drivel about her beloved Voldemort, the prison's temperature suddenly plummeted as a dementor approached their cells. Looming just outside the bars of Bellatrix's chamber, it reached forwards, grasping at threads only it could see with a skeletal hand.
In response, Bellatrix seemed to age before his eyes as she slumped inwards and faded in every aspect of life, heaving with laborious breaths in tune to the death rattle of her warden.
All in all, Sirius took vindicative joy in seeing her sapped of life.
He knew it was wrong, but after working so hard to escape this hellhole and rebuild his life only for her to wrench it away from him, Sirius did not have any moral restrictions left to care about the suffering of someone who truly deserved the worst.
Then, the dementor turned and brought the full weight of despair to bear on Sirius. He couldn't even flinch away from the terror, so draining was the creature's power. Sirius's only repose was to curl in on himself and hope that everything would get better once his torment was over, a mindset that only prolonged the presence of the dementor for, like a leech, it would remain attentive to its host until it sucked out every fragment of hope.
Surviving the dementors' presence is not based on will and determination but on regeneration and the ability to piece yourself back together once they've left.
A dementor will win against its prey every time no matter how sturdy their mental fortitude. The only matter of uncertainty was whether or not the victim would be able to come back from their pit of despair after the parasite had finished glutting itself.
The unnatural chill was so daunting that Sirius lost all awareness of his surroundings. The corners of his vision dimmed, the stone beneath him lost all texture. He could not tell if he was screaming, or sobbing, or simply helplessly mute as the nightmare molested his psyche once again. Not even his thoughts were coherent, sludging over in his mind and repeating themselves over and over again.
Failure came with a face of raven hair and large spectacles resting on the bridge of a pale nose.
Loathing drowned out his weakness and turned it against himself.
The black-haired man returned, a pitiful and famished parody of its prior self.
Regret burst forth from his mind, leaving a gaping crevice straight into the depths of his conscious.
Failure returned, taunting Sirius as he stood just out of reach, analyzing the tortured man and his many faults as he constantly strove to protect his loved ones.
It was never enough. Everyone Sirius had ever cared for was either dead or headed to their execution—and he could do nothing to save them.
The dementor pulled away from Sirius and slowly glided down the corridor but its effects remained; Sirius clutched at his hair in agony as he slowly became accustomed to the hollowness expanding within himself.
"Is poor little Sirius feeling guilty again?" Bellatrix croaked out. It was obvious that, despite her resumed taunts, the dementor's return had also affected her. "If only you didn't kill your friends. Maybe you would have had someone to vouch for you."
"And maybe if you weren't a psychotic bitch, you'd actually have friends to begin with. Not even your sister wants to associate with you!" Sirius snapped back with fervor, to which she only responded with a shrieking giggle.
The dementor's treatment taught Sirius a lesson that he thought he'd learned long ago. Azkaban's wardens feed off of joy and, in the situation that two people are sadistic enough to take continued pleasure in the sufferings of others, they would take turns feeding the dark creatures until one of them broke the loop, either through death or conscious action.
Sirius would not indulge in Bellatrix's petty games, no matter how much he craved to do so. Besides, he had more important things to consider than the inane babble of his demented cousin. Casting his focus back to the surroundings, Sirius took account of the rest of the cells and tried to put names to the faces languishing there.
On Bellatrix's right was one of the Lestrange's cells, Rabastan's if Sirius had to guess, though it was hard to tell given the conditions and his own lack of interest in differentiating between the two. The man had pressed himself into the corner of his cell, shivering in fits and murmuring incoherently. Upon feeling Sirius's attentive gaze, Lestrange looked up but shifted his attention away just as quickly.
Rabastan was one of the livelier inmates in Azkaban, still capable of nervous action and sporadic movement.
All Sirius could see of the next prisoner down the line were the man's legs strewn along the floor, but he had memories enough to know that particular inmate was as emotionless as they came.
Augustus Rookwood, in all of Sirius's time in Azkaban, had never broken. He did not scream; he did not cry; the man was completely silent—and that terrified Sirius because it meant that he was either the most resilient and sturdy person Sirius had ever encountered or that he was so emotionless that not even the presence of dementors could garner a reaction from him.
Even freed, for the miniscule amount of time that Sirius had to observe him before his death, Rookwood was as stoic as marble. Nor was he a dullard. His reputation as a former unspeakable aside, the man had never made a fool of himself, either in action or words. He was quiet, attentive, and precise; perfectly able to blend into a crowd yet captivating and unavoidable when presenting.
Had Karkaroff not sold him out, Rookwood would have remained free without the slightest bit of suspicion. As far as Sirius was concerned, Augustus Rookwood was the consummate Slytherin, bound so tightly to society as to be near irremovable while avoiding any prying or suspicious thoughts. He was the man none had ever heard of while still being known to everyone of importance.
That was the extent of Sirius's vision down that side of the corridor. Clumsily shifting to the other side of his cell in an uneven and shaky crawl that had him scraping his hands and knees against the rough stone, Sirius glanced down the row to verify that, indeed, everything seemingly remained the same as he remembered.
To Bellatrix's left was a nameless inmate that had inherited Barty Crouch's cell after the man's early death— 'or at least his assumed early death'—Sirius bitterly tacked on.
And didn't that fill him with rage...
As he was wasting away, an innocent man, a convicted criminal gets smuggled out of his deserved sentence simply because his parents were in a high social position.
The problem with Wizarding Britain wasn't blood purity; the body was corrupt and tainted without the need for examining lineage. Sirius Black was an example of that misconception.
The next cell down, and the final one in view of Sirius, seemed empty but, thanks to his enhanced hearing, Sirius could make out the choked moans and whimpers emanating from the cell. It could only be a death eater due to the very nature of the prison's structure and security, but their identity remained a mystery.
Satisfied as he could be with his reconnaissance, Sirius feebly crawled onto what even the most miserly being would hesitate to call a mattress and reflected on what he was feeling as he collapsed onto his stomach.
Key among the emotions swirling within him were contempt and uselessness.
For all that Sirius could laud his achievement of escaping Azkaban, in the end, none of it mattered; the prison would prove futile in holding anyone once Voldemort returned.
And what had he done with his two-year head start? He hid in his family's dilapidated townhouse worrying about the safety of his godson. It had all been a waste. He would have been better off staying in Azkaban than trying to achieve revenge on Pettigrew. At least then he wouldn't have led a horde of these soul-sucking monsters straight to Harry.
'Or have been used as bait to lure Harry into the Department of Mysteries.' His mind treacherously added.
Where had it all gone wrong? Sirius couldn't have done any better at the time. He'd escaped, proved himself to the people that mattered, namely Harry, Remus, and Dumbledore, and pledged everything he had to the defense against Voldemort and his followers.
Was his destiny to forever be an exile to the world? Even now, when this entire façade could be nothing more than a post-death illusion, he was friendless and desolate. Sirius didn't know what was worse: the realism of his situation—he could almost convince himself that the past couple of years had all been a terrible dream—or the recognition that of all the inmates dwelling here, he was the only one that didn't benefit from gaining freedom.
Suddenly, molten rage consumed him. His agitated mind desperately tried to look for an avenue to relieve his guilt and, as he trembled in his cell, the simplest of epiphanies blanketed his reasoning.
It was all Dumbledore's fault.
He advised James and Lily to go into hiding. He told them about the Fidelius charm. He let the ministry cart Sirius away, not lifting a finger in his defense. Dumbledore allowed Harry to go through a childhood of trauma all in the name of youthful ignorance. Dumbledore was responsible for the continued renewal and sustainment of Voldemort's followers. If he had only ensured the entirety of Voldemort's cabal faced retribution, reaped the consequences of their actions, then there wouldn't be a support base eagerly waiting for the Dark Lord's return and a continued sentiment of his ideals brewing in Hogwarts itself.
Dumbledore was impotent.
He rested on his reputation and the occasional feat of magic to keep his position in magical society. But that only ever covered Dumbledore himself. In his striving for the Greater Good and complete equality, he had leveled his friends with his foes, paying no heed to their own conflicts and struggles.
Snape was gifted one of the most prestigious positions in his field; Sirius was sentenced to Azkaban.
Malfoy and his ilk profited off of Dumbledore's leniency; The Potters, the Longbottoms, the McKinnons, the Prewetts, and nameless others, hardly got more than a passing acknowledgment in the history books. They entrusted their lives to Dumbledore and, like a vulture, he tore everything away from them until they were just a corpse, rotting in the sun of Dumbledore's auspicious glory.
'If you want to achieve anything,' Sirius sullenly realized, 'you have to do it yourself. Dumbledore wasn't ever going follow anyone's plan but his own.'
Despite the presumed victory of the Light over the Dark that Halloween night, the only ones to truly suffer were those unable to act for themselves. Dumbledore didn't bury the opposition, he turned his back and let the dust settle.
Thus, Malfoy was able to wipe himself clean and fill the gap he himself contributed to in Wizarding Britain while those of the Light floundered without the guiding hand of Dumbledore to direct them.
It didn't matter anymore.
All of Sirius's rage was futile. His revelation came too late. He trusted in the safety net of Dumbledore and, when that proved useless, paid for his foolishness the same way countless others had: in death. There was nothing more he could do now but hope that, eventually, this nightmare of an afterlife would end. He'd rather an endless void or an eternity of physical pain than the mental torture of reliving his most hated memories.
As Sirius turned his back to the rest of the prison, both in an effort to get more comfortable on his threadbare mattress and to create some measure of solitude, he noticed a crumpled piece of paper innocently poking out from under his mattress. Curious, he reached for it and, discovering it to be an edition of the Daily Prophet inquisitively glanced at the front page.
[LINE BREAK]
The Daily Prophet
Sunday 7 June 1992
Boy Who Lived Saves Hogwarts From Evil Professor! Dumbledore Found Slacking?
By: Rita Skeeter
"The Daily Prophet has found, through numerous sources, that the famous Boy Who Lived, Harry Potter, was sighted in the Hogwarts infirmary and has missed out on the final quidditch match of the season! (See page 3 for results and highlights) While not extraordinary on its own that a student has been sent to the resident nurse, details suggest that Harry left his house's common room days earlier, forcibly attacking a student who tried to get in his way, on a mysterious mission, and hasn't been seen since. Along with him for this adventure was the remainder of the newly termed "Golden Trio," consisting of fellow first-year students Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger (pictured below).
"Another source claims that they saw the group approach a recently forbidden section of Hogwarts: the eastern corridor of the 3rd floor. Why the headmaster had decided to cordon off this specific section of Hogwarts, none have been able to deduce—and it seems that young Mr. Potter was tired of waiting for an answer.
"Interestingly enough, witnesses also sighted Professor Quirinus Quirrell in the area on that same evening. However, unlike Potter, there has been no sign of Hogwarts' most recent DADA professor. When approached, Headmaster Dumbledore made no comment on the vacancy, but the Daily Prophet does note that, as of today, Hogwarts is advertising a new faculty opening for "a suitably skilled witch or wizard in practical applications of magic and field experience." It appears, to this reporter at least, that there was a confrontation between student and teacher that led to the disgraced ousting of Professor Quirrell!
"The only question that remains is the role of Albus Dumbledore in these events. As brilliant and talented as Harry Potter no doubt is, why does it appear that he is the one risking his life for the safety of Hogwarts? Is there any competence to be found under the headmaster's direction when he allows (perhaps even encourages!) young and innocent students to solve his conflicts? Do note that Mr. Potter and his friends were seen without any adult supervision and that they were even successful in overpowering their fellow housemates without the timely arrival of a faculty member or even the older prefects! Truly, what is the future of Wizarding Britain shaping to be when none are willing to guide our children and ensure they learn in a safe environment?"
[LINE BREAK]
'Who indeed?' Wondered Sirius as he set the article back down and glumly stared into space. The remorse was back. Was it not enough that he seemingly had to relive the worst years of his life? Was Death so cruel that they'd constantly remind him of his failure in protecting the most important person in the world to him?
'No.' Sirius resolved. 'I will not allow that to happen. Not again.'
Life or Death, it didn't matter. Sirius had failed his duty as Harry's godfather once. He would not fail again. Not if he could do anything about it.
Fittingly, it was the words of Dumbledore, spoken often enough in the somber atmosphere following battles and violence, that rung in his head and solidified Sirius's determination.
Death is but the next great adventure and, as a Marauder, Sirius could never turn down the opportunity of an adventure.
A/N:
I'm going to say it now so others don't have to: there is no way Sirius was the most prominent prisoner in Azkaban. As much as it tickles our fancy to paint him as such, he was accused of betrayal… that isn't even a crime! I know that I've likely manipulated the architectural design of Azkaban to best fit my story, but I cannot, in good conscience, contribute to a narrative that would have Sirius unnecessarily punished purely because it would be more symbolic when he reunites with Harry.
Speaking of Harry, he will come into the story, so don't worry. He's listed as a main character in this fic for a reason. Let Sirius have his time in the sun for a bit and get the ball rolling so Harry has some stuff to interact with.
Next on my agenda for things to cover: yes, this is a time travel fic; no, Harry does not travel back in time as an accomplished wizard capable of completely out showing everyone around him. Nor does Sirius have that level of ability. Is anyone else tired of that formula yet? This fic tries something new: what would happen if the world changed, and Harry had to react to it like everyone else? Or, what if time traveler isn't instantly aware of everything that's going to happen and able to magically resolve it? Or, and this even sounds scandalous to my own ears, what if an adult actually helped a struggling preteen find his way in the world?
That's all. Hope you enjoyed, all criticism welcome, remember to favorite and follow, etc.
Oh, and I'm considering a beta, so if anyone is interested, send me a PM and we can discuss what I'm looking for more in-depth.