Beautiful Day chap. 3

Beautiful Day
By Margot - cherry@time-stranger.net

A/N: Sirius makes it to Azkaban, only to find that his previous ideas about the wizard prison are very different from how it actually is. The cryptic messages of Aidan Dubois only raise more questions in his already exhausted mind- who is this mysterious man and what effect is he having on the other prisoners? There's a bit of inspiration in here from The Shawshank Redemption. It's a bit how I picture Azkaban, at least for the time being. Thanks again to Nicole the Beta Reader, and also to the reviewers: Private Show Girl, Lhoth, inyron (I know it was said that Harry was already a year, but I decided to make him ten months, therefore, the story right now is taking place in May of 1981. Good eye though ^~), Zeptron Zulu, Pleiades (again ^^), Ts, Lin-z (I thought it would end up getting much more violent, but it doesn't seem to moving that way), and Lily's Angel.

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Chapter Three - A Sinking Feeling

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"Insanity - a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world."

**

"Here's your cell, Black."

The Azkaban guard finally stopped in front of a thin door made of silver floor-to-ceiling bars. He jammed one key after another into the magical lock. With each key, his hand trembled more and more.

"Let's hurry this along, this place gives me the willies," he muttered to himself, shoving the final key into the lock. The cell door sprang open with a loud metal clang, the first sound Sirius had heard since entering the enormous prison, aside from the random mutterings of the guard and the quiet crackling of sporadically-placed torches along the walls.

"Home sweet home for the rest of your life," the guard announced, showing Sirius into the cell. The cell was essentially a great tin box, the ceiling just high enough to escape scraping the top of Sirius' head. At one end was a tiny sliver of a barred window no larger than a breadbox. Hanging underneath it was a small cot, suspended by silver chains and covered with a thin white sheet. At the opposite side was the cell door, wide enough to allow the average man to slip through when open and surrounded on either side by more dismally dark wall.

Sirius stepped into the cell and stopped when he got to the centre of it, examining his new surroundings. He didn't flinch when the door behind him slammed shut; he simply continued to stand still and stare at his cell in disbelief.

"One meal a day's all they're gonna give you," the guard said from the other side of the bars, "and you can get some water from that sink in the corner. There's a toilet over there, too, if you didn't notice that yet." The sound of shoes tapping against the ground, indicating that the guard was walking away, registered vaguely in Sirius' mind. He noticed a sink and a small toilet in the left corner of the cell, just as the guard had told him they would be there. And still, he continued to look around the empty cell, wondering when he was going to wake up.

*******

Time had passed. Just how much, Sirius couldn't be sure. Probably three or four hours at the most- the sun had only just begun to set; he had seen it in the light cast through the tiny window above his bed a few moments ago. He was lying sideways on the tiny bunk as he had been for the past few hours, periodically shifting between closing his eyes to shut out the light of judgment and opening them to desperately search the cell for anything of interest he might have missed the first few times. It was like waiting for something... an all too common theme in his life.

His eyes were closed. But not for long.

The ominous feeling that had been hovering over Sirius suddenly collapsed and fell on him, causing his eyes to jerk open. Otherwise staying completely still, he allowed his eyes to dart frantically about the cell. It felt like something was approaching, something silent and shapeless, that would soon descend upon him...

A sudden shriek echoed at the other end of the corridor. An odd chattering noise followed it. Sirius didn't realize that it was his own teeth. The shrieking continued, growing in volume and desperation, and was soon joined by the voice of another, then another; deep, desperate screams that chilled his soul.

Sirius stared out the cell door, a knot of apprehension and terror churning in his stomach. The screams continued to grow as more and more voices were added to the din. Outside of his cell, the light dimmed as if the torches had gone into hiding. Sirius' hands tightly gripped the thin sheet below him. He could feel his fingernails press into his palms through the thin blanket.

A mass of cloaked forms drifted by Sirius' cell while he stared out in fear. The mass was moving slowly, clearly in no rush to leave the corridor.

Dementors.

There must have been twenty or thirty in that mass alone, all drifting silently down the hall, oblivious of the horrified screams following them. One Dementor stopped outside Sirius' cell. It turned towards him and peered into his cell, ignoring the departure of its companions. Black air floated gently on the spot where its feet should have been. It was otherwise motionless. Sirius stared at it, unable to move or react. It was as if there was a drain in his feet, slowly sucking all the hope, the last slivers of happiness that he had.

Frightened beyond his wits, Sirius pushed himself off the bed and crawled quickly towards the furthest corner of the cell, where he wedged himself between the wall and the toilet. He hugged his knees to his chest and buried his face in his cloak, mentally pleading with the Dementor to leave him alone. He was filled to the brim with a debilitating sense of loneliness; he could think of nothing but how lonely he felt, how alone he was, how completely empty his cell was, how much he had lost.

Sirius didn't know if the Dementor had left or not, but it didn't seem to matter. He could still hear tortured screaming through the corridor, only louder and closer. He soon realized that the closeness of the sound was because it was coming from his own throat. Tears seeped through the fabric pressed to his face and began to dampen the bare skin underneath his cloak. His screams pierced his ears until he couldn't even hear himself anymore, and still he kept screaming as complete and utter despair filled his entire being. He screamed and screamed until the blackness of the cloak pressed against his eyes consumed him and he knew nothing else.

*******

It was already daylight. Sirius blinked hard, then shut his eyes again and dug his face into his arms. A few moments later, he unfolded his legs and crawled towards the small food bowl in the corner.

"I'd save those bits for later if I was you. I mean, I'm not you, but it's just good advice."

Sirius stopped crawling and turned towards his cell door. Looking out between the bars, he could see into the cell opposite his. A man was sitting there, looking back at him. He was thin and pale, with sunken, dirty cheeks and greasy blond hair. His exposed arms were thin and bony. It struck Sirius how similar he looked to Remus on the days before the full moon, if, on top of his exhaustion and fever, Remus had been starved for several months. As miserable as his appearance was, however, his expression betrayed it all; starving and weak as he seemed, he still appeared quite serene. He was looking directly at Sirius.

"'Cause you know, that bread and gruel's all you're going to get until tomorrow morning, so if I was you I'd eat a bit now and eat some later. So then instead of being not so hungry now and starving later, you're only somewhat hungry for the whole day. That's what I do. It'll help you last longer. That's what everyone down this corridor does."

Sirius simply stared at the man in the opposite cell, weary and more exhausted than he'd ever been. The man simply smiled and nodded.

"You made it through your first night. I heard you yesterday during the Dementor visit. Sorry about that," he said earnestly, as if it had been his fault, "they don't come down this hallway often. We're all the way in the back, see, so they only make trips down here once, maybe twice a week. Too bad they had to come down here on your first day. What's your name?" The man said all this very quickly and matter-of-factly, as if discussing the weather.

"Black," Sirius said flatly. He wasn't in the mood to elaborate.

"Black? There's an odd name. Never known anyone with one name before. Although I guess I shouldn't talk about strange names, mine's Aidan Dubois. Weird, isn't it? But my dad was French, and my mum named me, and she was Irish, so I guess that explains it. I was raised in London so I've got the normal accent. What are you in for?"

Sirius felt depleted. He wasn't in the mood to talk, especially to someone who was so nonchalant about being in prison. "Don't want to talk about it."

Aidan nodded. "Well, I understand that. It's only your second day. You need a couple of days is all. S'all right."

Without a glance back, Sirius crawled onwards to the food bowl. He quickly finished the stale bread, but kept the gruel for later.

*******

The next four days passed without incident. Indeed, they passed without stimulation of any sort. Sirius spent the days alone, shifting between periods of sleep and wake. Voices from outside his cell registered vaguely in his mind but he could hear nothing, nothing at all. Why fight when you're bound to go mad after year one anyway? Better to surrender now and get it over with. Forget this pain. Leave this world.

Those four days were possibly the worst of his life until that point. The indescribable loneliness and isolation, so thick you could almost punch it. The hunger- desperately wishing for a bit of butter whenever you swallowed down the stale bread and a pinch of salt whenever you drank the gruel. And the guilt.

The knowledge that James and Lily were dead... dead. One moment they had been living, breathing, and the next, they had ceased to exist. He'd turned the idea over in his mind countless times- dead. Death. The end of living. The end of being. The knowledge that it was his fault. All this... this loneliness, this hunger, this knowledge... he'd brought it on himself. He'd done this to himself.

That was the worst.

He couldn't escape from any of it, couldn't do anything to soothe himself or ease his mind. The emotions were always with him; through sleep and wake, they were his only company.

That was pretty bad, too.

But all things must come to an end, even days. And they did end. On the fifth morning, the seventh day of his sentence, he crawled towards the food bowl like on all other mornings.

"Hey, Black. Glad to see you're still alive and all that. How're you holding up?" The familiar voice of Aidan Dubois trailed into Sirius' cell and he stopped, grateful for the sound of another human being's voice. Sirius crawled towards the cell door and looked into Aidan's cell.

"Mmmm," he grunted quietly.

"Good. Feel like talking at all? S'always nice to have friends in here, you know. Helps you last longer. Myself, I've been in here 'bout a year. I think." Aidan smiled.

"A year?" Sirius spoke his first intelligible words since coming to Azkaban.

"Surprising, eh? Everyone on the outside thinks people in here go crazy after a few months. Not so. Well, sometimes so. It all depends, really. I mean, where they put you, what kind of person you are. Takes a strong mind to last." Aidan tapped his forehead. "If you've got a strong mind, you'll last a long time no matter where you are. One bloke lasted for damn near twenty years down here. What'd you say your name was again?"

"Black. Sirius Black."

"Sirius? Black?" Aidan asked incredulously.

"Yeah. Why?"

Aidan shrugged and started along a different vein.

"So, what are you in for? You're doing life, right?"

"Yeah."

Aidan smiled in spite of the grim response. "Thought so. Everyone who gets put away back here in this corridor is doing life or a really long sentence, usually. What'd you do?"

Sirius leaned against the cell door bars and took a deep breath.

"I was accused of murdering my best friend and his wife. Selling them to You-Know-Who."

Aidan's back straightened. "James and Lily Potter, right? Yeah, right! White - he's in that cell down there - got an issue of the Daily Prophet in here few days ago and we read all about it. D'you really kill all those Muggles?"

Sirius scowled bitterly. "I did not. I was framed."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." He turned his head away slightly, no longer facing Aidan. "Backstabbing fuck."

"Eh?"

"I was framed by someone... I thought was a friend." He shrugged, feigning offhandedness. "I suppose not. So much for friends," he muttered.

"What makes you say that?"

Sirius paused a moment. He was sitting in the most horrible place a wizard could be, about to spill his feelings to someone he'd known for what seemed like mere seconds. His stomach quivered slightly. Why? Why was he so willing to tell his secrets to a stranger?

Because he needed someone, anyone to tell them to. Because it was nice to have friends. They help you last longer.

He sighed again. "One friend died on me. Another stabbed me in the back. And another hates me." He tried to laugh but it only came out as a shrill, bitter sound. "Some friends, eh?"

Aidan became stern. "Now Black, don't go saying those things. Friends're important. They keep you alive. Can't live without friends. At least, not in here. Let me tell you, Black, you can't give up on friends because you will be an empty man and you will never do anything and you will never go anywhere."

The unintended irony of Aidan's statement wasn't lost on Sirius. He already was an empty man.

"It was said, 'We call that person who has lost his father an orphan, and a widower that man who has lost his wife. But that man who has known the immense unhappiness of losing a friend, by what name do we call him? Here every language is silent and holds its peace in impotence'." Aidan nodded somberly, the only evidence of his pride glinting in his eyes. Then, he faltered, forcing the wall of eloquence and wisdom he had erected around himself to crumble. "Er, forget who said that. Joe Something. Not important, what's important is the message, don't you see? The man who has lost his friends, it's terrible, it's so terrible it's unspeakable. That's how terrible."

"Thanks for reminding me," Sirius bit.

"But there's the thing," Aidan continued, "you've got to pick yourself up and move on. Don't ever forget your friends but don't dwell on them either. Or the terrible memory will take over you and you will be hollow, the bad memory will be the only thing left in you."

"Look," Sirius interrupted with biting impatience, "can we, you know, not talk about it? It's nice that you're giving me advice and everything, but save it until you've lived it, all right?"

Aidan barely skipped a beat. "Sure, all right-"

A voice from down the hall sounded loudly. "You, Black, you telling Dubois to shut his mouth? Don't do it, boy, t'aint smart. You listen to what he says, Dubois's the smart one 'round here and you'd do well to listen. He's helped th'rest of us before, we's lucky he's got life, eh? Just 'cuz he ain't lived it don't mean he don't know 'bout it. He's real wise, that Aidan Dubois. Smartest of any of us."

Voices of agreement could be heard from a number of the other cells. Sirius craned his neck to look down the hall, then looked back up at Aidan. Aidan simply shrugged and smiled modestly.

"They like what I've got to say."

Sirius simply stared for a moment, then finally found his voice again. "How do you know? What to say, I mean."

Aidan smiled another secretive smile. "Books. Lots and lots of books. I used to read a lot. Taught me lots of things, only no one'd ever listen to me. The way I speak, it's crude, it's common. No one listened to me on th'outside. My common way of speaking kept them from hearing what I've actually got to say. Don't want the gift if it's not wrapped up in a pretty package, see? That and I tend to blabber. Just means I've got a lot to say, I suppose, although it really depends who I'm talking to, doesn't it? Never spoke a word to my teachers back in school. But the people in here, I've got lots to say to. And they listen to me. S'pose it's the only nice thing about being in here. And the people I've met aren't so bad neither."

Shouts echoed down the hall in agreement. Sirius shuddered. He knew they had meant to be in cheerful agreement, but they had sounded like a song from a choir of skeletons. He surveyed Aidan carefully. Aidan had a light expression on his face. His skin was stretched across his cheeks like it would on the skull of a rotting corpse, but for what it was worth, he seemed perfectly content.

"What are you in for?"

"Hmm? Me? They say I was a Death Eater and killed a bunch of wizards and Muggles on various occasions."

"Is it... is it true?"

Aidan grinned and nearly laughed out loud. "'Course not. Don't you know, Black, everyone in here's innocent."

Sirius stared.

"Hey, Radford," Aidan shouted, turning his head to face down the hall.

"Yeah, Aidan," the replying shout came back, a deep, thick male voice. It rang with a thick African accent.

"What're you in for?"

Sirius could hear a few quiet laughs and chuckles from some of the closer cells. When Radford spoke again, Sirius could almost hear the smile in his voice.

"Didn't do it."

"Y'see, Black? Everyone in here's innocent."

Sirius continued to stare and examine Aidan's expression. Aidan's comment didn't tally well with Sirius's past beliefs about Azkaban but no evidence of lying or joking was evident on his face. He simply wore a pleasant smile. Sirius felt another question spring forward in his mind.

"When you said that people in the back don't go mad as fast as the others... did you mean it?"

Aidan nodded placidly, a smile still spread across his face. "On my life." There was a long pause. "Wondering if you're going to make it in here?"

Sirius was silent.

Aidan tapped his chin and turned away. "Never know who's going to make it in here."

Absolute silence echoed down the hall and into Sirius' cell.

"You just never know."