Chapter Five: Hope Arisen
Dear Remus,
Last night, I was as wakeful was I was that first night in the dormitory. The reasons differ, but I'll get there in a minute.
On that night in the dormitory ten years ago, I sat up and pondered my strange fascination with men. Why was it, I wondered, that they enticed me, caught my attention, haunted my thoughts? One look from the eyes of a handsome man and I longed to know his most hidden secrets. It occurred to me somewhere around midnight that I could conjure up no satisfactory picture of a life spent with a woman. I had nothing against women and was not nor am I now a misogynist, but the thought did not appeal to me. Around one in the morning I fell asleep, having drawn no satisfactory conclusions but finding solace in Lyrio's advice that one day I would figure things out.
Last night, my insomnia resulted from a dark and burning rage. I was reading over the letters I've written and I realized that they were all that remained of my former life. My sole reason for existing is to write fruitless missives to a person who will never read them. I flew into a fury and began to through whatever I could find across the cell. When I had thrown all that was there, I pounded the walls and wailed. The Dementors stood outside my cell, and I fell onto the floor, my worst memories flashing before my eyes. The icy water of the Hogwarts lake, entering my lungs and numbing my emotions with its frigid sting. The scar on your arm, marring that beautiful body and informing the world of the pain within. Peter screaming at me in the street, his every syllable sealing my fate. James and Lily's lifeless bodies, their eyes blank and devoid of all the joy and love that had once dwelled there.
"I DON'T DESERVE ANY OF THIS!" I screamed. "I'M INNOCENT! DO YOU HEAR ME? INNOCENT!"
And the Dementors took a step back.
I couldn't believe it. They retreated. They will be back, but they retreated.
Remus, there is hope that one day you will read these letters. I love you more than I can say.
Your Sirius.