Chapter 26: A Visit from the Minister

Sometimes ministry officials came to inspect the prison. It always seemed against their better judgement, as if they had drawn the short straw. Sirius could understand. He tried to find a bit of joy in hearing Bellatrix prattling on about the Dark Lord's revenge, but joy was scarce anywhere the dementors were. He had seen Barty Couch come through- the bloke who had denied him a trial- and he had seen same nameless Unspeakables, but this was the first time he had heard of the new Minister.

Sirius was trying to ignore the visions and crying he always heard and felt by reading Best Western Poems of the 19th Century. After twelve years the book was tattered and worn, but he was rereading a poem by Emily Bronte. He preferred a few of hers because Calamity had made little dots and notes in the margin, as if reading and overcome with some emotion or thought that needed to be expressed. The writing was so worn now that he couldn't decipher it, only imagine what it had once said.

STILL let my tyrants know, I am not doom'd to wear
Year after year in gloom and desolate despair;
A messenger of Hope comes every night to me,
And offers for short life, eternal liberty.

He comes with Western winds, with evening's wandering airs,
With that clear dusk of heaven that brings the thickest stars:
Winds take a pensive tone, and stars a tender fire,
And visions rise, and change, that kill me with desire.

Desire for nothing known in my maturer years,
When Joy grew mad with awe, at counting future tears:
When, if my spirit's sky was full of flashes warm,
I knew not whence they came, from sun or thunder-storm.

There was a rise of noise indicating some outsider was coming his way. Lestrange let out an especially blood curdling howl of rage and a range of profanities that even Sirius was impressed by. Based on the few sane words among the rambling, Sirius guessed it was the new Minister of Magic. The old one had been Millicent Bagnold. Sirius had always appreciated her, though she had certainly not appreciated him, at least not the idea of him. She, like the others, thought he had killed all those muggles and the Potters. But, Sirius couldn't help but appreciate anyone who said "I assert our inalienable right to party," upon hearing of Voldemort's defeat. Sirius remembered that there had been talk of Dumbledore taking the spot after her. Of course, Dumbledore declined. So instead this small speck of a man had taken it.

Sirius leaned lazily against his bars, letting a hand dangle over the bar and resting his forehead against the cool metal. The Minister stopped and looked at a clipboard. His eyes widened, then he looked at Sirius, then back to the clipboard.

"Black," he said. His voice was firm, but Sirius could understand why Lestrange had been set off. There was something about being in Azkaban that revealed to others' weaknesses to you. The Minister was stern, but he seemed exceptionally vulnerable.

"Sirius Black," Sirius replied cheerfully. "Sir," he added. "And, you are?"
"Minister of Magic. Fudge."
"Fudge. And how long have you been Minister?"

Fudge seemed uneasy, which was fine with Sirius. He owed no one in the Ministry anything.
"Almost three years," he replied. "Doing a routine check up. Do you find your arrangements humane enough?"

Sirius looked around his dingy cell with it's lack of window and small toilet in the corner.
"Practically a humane society, sir," he said with a smirk. Fudge was not amused.
"What's that," he asked suddenly. He was pointing at the book, but looking at the Dementors as if it were a wand.
"Old book," Sirius said holding ti up. As if to prove his point, the page Sirius had been reading fell out and fluttered to the floor. He retrieved it. "Do you like poetry, Minister? I've got this Bronte memorized."

He handed the paper to Fudge and pointed to the stanza he had halted at upon hearing Fudge's approach. He recited:

"But first, a hush of peace–a soundless calm descends;
The struggle of distress and fierce impatience ends.
Mute music soothes my breast–unutter'd harmony
That I could never dream, till Earth was lost to me.

Then dawns the Invisible; the Unseen its truth reveals;
My outward sense is gone, my inward essence feels;
Its wings are almost free–its home, its harbour found,
Measuring the gulf, it stoops, and dares the final bound.

O dreadful is the check–intense the agony–
When the ear begins to hear, and the eye begins to see;
When the pulse begins to throb–the brain to think again–
The soul to feel the flesh, and the flesh to feel the chain.

Yet I would lose no sting, would wish no torture less;
The more that anguish racks, the earlier it will bless;
And robed in fires of hell, or bright with heavenly shine,
If it but herald Death, the vision is divine."

Fudge said nothing. Simply handed the page back to Sirius, drawing his hand away quickly as if afraid Sirius would infect him with... something. Madness? Well, Sirius could be mad, but certainly it would be more fun to be sane.

"It gets quite boring, you know," Sirius explained. "I heard American prisons have libraries."

"You would like a library," Fudge repeated. He looked to the dementor as if hoping to exchange an exasperated look, but finding only a void of a face he turned back to Sirius.

"A newspaper subscription would be nice," Sirius said. He pointed to the newspaper Fudge had tucked under his arm. "Maybe you could part with that one? I do miss doing the crossword puzzles."

Fudge again looked at the dementor to his side, but again found something less than appealing so he turned back to Sirius. He handed the newspaper through the bars and hurried on his way without another word. From down the hall, Sirius could hear Bellatrix cackling again and calling that the Dark Lord would rise again.

"Same old, Same old, cousin," Sirius muttered. He moved to the end of his cell, huddled in the corner as far away from the tormentors as he could be, though he still felt them pass. He opened the paper and turned to the crossword and looked it over. There were a few marks as if Fudge had attempted, then erased his guess. A few, like twelve down, had a permanent look of eraser. Must have been stumped by it. Sirius read the clue: "1269 – player gives Quidditch the bird."

"That's easy," said Sirius. "It's obviously Bragge." He put on his best James impression, pushing up imaginary glasses. "The Chief of the Wizard's Council releases a Golden Snidget bird and offers 150 Galleons to whichever player can catch it. This added a new dimension to the game, with the result that Snidgets became endangered."

His smile slowly faded as a dementor passed and he can suddenly see the wreckage- sees Hagrid moving piles of rubble, can hear Harry crying and he can see Prongs.

Sirius shook his head and opened the paper looking through the news. Quidditch stats (Chudley Cannons are still miserable), International news (Healers without Borders opens hospital in Costa Rica), and finally the domestic gossip. He spotted a picture of a group of six smiling freckled children and their two parents in front of a great pyramid.

Arthur Weasley, Head of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office at the Ministry of Magic, has won the annual Daily Prophet Grand Prize Galleon Draw. A delighted Mr. Weasley told the Daily Prophet, "We will be spending the gold on a summer holiday in Egypt, where our eldest son, Bill, works as a curse breaker for Gringotts Wizarding Bank." The Weasley family will be spending a month in Egypt, returning for the start of the new school year at Hogwarts, which five of the Weasley children currently attend.

"Weasley, eh," Sirius said, looking at the picture again, finding the stout mother in the center of all her beaming and waving children. That must be Gideon and Fabian's sister then. She seemed right happy.

"Good for them," Sirius said.

"The Blood Traitor has gone mad," called Bellatrix from a few cells away. "Talking to himself in his guilt. Misses his little friends," she cooed.

Normally, Sirius would have cursed at her, perhaps even found something to throw her way, but now he ignored her. He looked closer at the picture.

It couldn't be.

One of the younger brothers was very tall and lanky with a long nose and there, on the boys shoulder, was Peter Pettigrew.

Sirius could almost imagine Remus before him, tutting as he always did when Sirius had an idea, just like he had tutted when Sirius insisted he wanted nothing to do with Calamity in 6th year- all those ages ago. Remus would have stood there looking skeptical and said, "How do you know it's him? Can you even be sure?"

"Course I can, Moony," Sirius snapped. He looked again and spotted the missing finger. He gave a roar of rage, throwing the paper across the room where it fluttered in an unsatisfying way. To make up for it, he threw the book in the same place. It made a satisfying clatter.

"He's alive," crowed Sirius. "He's alive and in Egypt! This whole time with some child! That no good scoundrel, that-" Sirius let out a strong of cuss words to rival Lestrange. Here Sirius was for ages- ten, eleven, twelve years- and that traitor had been out and free. Hanging around some child's room in Hogwarts as a rat- reliving his glory days perhaps.

Sirius froze.

He scampered to the paper and found the article again, rereading it hurriedly. "...Returning for the start of the new school year at Hogwarts, which five of the Weasley children currently attend."

"That's where Harry is," he hissed, now twisting the paper in thought. Something moved in his chest, where it had nestled more than decade before.

I'm innocent, it whispered. Harry needs me.

It was hard to tell how time passed in Azkaban. Without light the hours and days melted together into nothingness. All Sirius knew for sure was that he had the same dream every time he closed his eyes to sleep. In the dream he was outside the Hogwarts library and he felt the need to enter. It had never been a desire in life, but dream Sirius always went in and found a table where Calamity and Lily were sitting. Calamity's books were thrown about on the table as they had been when they studied for NEWTs. Sirius would try to greet them, but they ignored him. Prongs walked by and kissed Lily, sitting next to them and opening his Charms book, mussing up his hair as he pondered the assignment.

"Prong," Sirius called. Still, nothing.

Moony came next, sitting in the chair next to Calamity and lazily resting his arm on the back. Sirius felt a familiar pang of jealousy. They had never dated. He knew better.

"Calamity," he said.

For a moment she looked up, as if seeing him, and her face broke into a smile, but it faltered. Sirius would feel a shadow looming behind him. He turned and saw a large figure. The scene changed: it wasn't the library, but a muggle street with a crater in the center, so deep that it cracked the sewer below. There were bodies everywhere and muggles screaming and Sirius could hear a laughing, his own laughing, all around. But it wasn't coming from him- it was coming from the figure. Sirius could see Moony in the wreckage; Calamity with her head turned at an unnatural angle; Lily slumped over at the edge of the crater. And then the laughing stopped and was replaced by loud crying- the same crying the night he had found Godric Hollow wrecked. Harry's crying.

"He's at Hogwarts."

Sirius looked down to see James, glasses gone and face bloody. "He's at Hogwarts with Harry."

"He's at Hogwarts," Sirius repeated.

He woke up in a sweat, still in the same cell with the same newspaper in his hand. The Weasley family waving happily while Peter Pettigrew sat on the lanky boy's shoulder.

The dream was disturbing and Sirius was loosing sleep. He couldn't eat. He was only safe when he slept as a dog, but he couldn't risk that too often. He paced the floor as a dog one night after the dream trying to forget it. he was trying to get the voices and the images-Harry's crying- out of his head.

He was so tired he didn't even realize he was standing at the cell door until he had been standing there for five minutes. The space looked wider than before. He put his head through, then his legs, then his body. He felt the warmth in his chest pump energy through his body. He was suddenly awake.

I'm innocent, the warmth in his chest shouted. Harry needs me. He's at Hogwarts! I'm innocent. Harry needs me. He's at Hogwarts!

The voice chanted over and over as Sirius ran through the prison and into the freezing ocean.

I'm innocent. Harry needs me. He's at Hogwarts!

A/N: Okay, honestly, I thought this was over, but I couldn't stop thinking about it, so, here we go! Don't forget to review!