~*~*~*~
Living life is like walking a tightrope. You have to make exactly the right moves, exactly the right decisions, at exactly the right time. If you go wrong, make the wrong decision, you're falling. You may not know, before you make that all-important move, whether it will be just another step on your journey, or whether it will be the step which causes you to lose your grip and fall…
But hope is your safety net. When you are falling, it will catch you, and bounce you back. When you have nothing else, you will have hope. Most of the time… Hope is like a safety net, yes, but it is not a particularly good one. It doesn't stretch quite as far as it should do, and in places, there are holes in it. If you miss the safety net, and carry on falling, then you're in trouble. Without hope, you're nothing.
~*~*~*~
Sirius opened his eyes, and slowly looked around. When he realised where he was, he closed them again. He had been hoping like hell that this whole thing had been an awful nightmare… He couldn't believe it. Everyone he loved, everyone he'd ever cared about, they were all gone. Voldemort had finally been defeated, but at a terrible, terrible cost. Harry was dead; Ron and Hermione were both in St Mungo's, incurably insane after being tortured by Death Eaters. James and Lily, dead. Remus was in hiding somewhere. Sirius didn't know which country, which continent, even. And Peter was… well, to put it quite bluntly, Sirius didn't give a fuck what happened to Peter. He had betrayed all his friends, sent two of them to their deaths.
FLASHBACK
Sirius paced back and forth in the kitchen of his house. He was paranoid about Lily and James. He knew that was all it – paranoia. He'd made the right decision. He could trust Peter. He just needed to keep telling himself that, and maybe eventually he would believe it... He stopped the pacing, and went to the cupboard, to find something to eat. He wasn't particularly hungry, but eating would take his mind off everything. He grabbed a pumpkin pasty, but he couldn't eat. He had a really awful feeling about that night.
He knew it was just more paranoia, but he had to just go and check their house was all right, even if he knew he wouldn't be able to see them. He ran out of the house, grabbed his broomstick, and flew as quickly as he could to Godric's Hollow. As soon as he got there, he knew that not only had his gut instinct been right, but that he was too late. The house, Lily and James's beautiful house, was completely flattened. There was fire burning amongst the piles of rubble. Sirius ran towards it, knowing even as he did so that there was no way he would find anyone alive there. But… what was that? Over there… was there someone moving? It couldn't be…
"Harry! Oh my God… Harry. You survived! How did you do it? But you're cut, right on your forehead – how did you do that? Never mind – we've gotta get away…"
END OF FLASHBACK
Peter had Made harry an orphan, caused him an incredible amount of pain, during his all-too-short life. And Sirius had paid the terrible debt for the man whom he had once thought to be one of his best friends. Twelve years in this hellhole, and then, just when Sirius had escaped, just when he thought he might have a chance to prove himself to be innocent, he was captured, and put back here. Azkaban was the worst place imaginable, but he knew he would, most probably, be spending the rest of his life here, so he would have to find some way to put up with it. Looking around his cell, there was just a thin ledge, to be used as a bed (which was so hard that Sirius sometimes felt that it would be more comfortable to sleep on the floor. Or at least it would be if it wasn't for the fact that he would quite likely catch Pneumonia… which was, in fact, quite likely to happen anyway), and a rather disgusting 'hole in the floor'. Back at Hogwarts, they had all lived in luxury. He was so happy back then, one of the few times in his life when he had no real troubles.
FLASHBACK
Sirius walked across the Gryffindor common room for the first time, feeling out-of-place and incredibly scared, but determined not to show it. During the feast, he hadn't really being paying much attention to the other first years being sorted, but now he decided he might as well meet the others he would be spending the next seven years with. He went up the stairs to the boys' dormitories, and into the room with the 'first years' sign. There were two boys in there already – one was medium height, with dark, messy hair and brown eyes, the other was slightly taller, with light brown hair and blue eyes. The introduced themselves, then another boy walked in. He was an inch or so smaller than James (the boy with the dark hair), and had blonde hair and pale blue eyes.
"Hi! I'm Peter!"
END FLASHBACK
That was the one moment of Sirius' life that he regretted the most. If he had just not made friends with Peter, he wouldn't be here, in Azkaban. Remus wouldn't be hiding in some distant country somewhere. And Lily and James would be alive.
Just then, a Dementor walked past his cell, and Sirius felt the wave of depression sweep over him. What was the point in thinking about all of this? He was stuck in this place for the rest of his life, wasn't that fucking depressing enough, without reminding himself of how his life could have been? But, really, would it have been all perfectly happy? He very much doubted it – something always had to screw up his life. Nothing could ever really go how he wanted it to. It was stupid to expect it to. His entire life was hopeless. Hopeless…