V.
Sirius is gazing out of his small, barred window. He has been in Azkaban for two years. Now and then, a cool drought of night air makes it past the bars, and he is glad of the clean freedom in the taste of this air. Pale silver light shines through the bars too, and casts barred shadows on Sirius' face.
What is it that you see, Sirius? Standing at your window?
One of them is standing in the center of his cell, swaying slightly, in the same slow, unending manner that kelp does in the tide. The dementors have taken to visiting him regularly, chatting with him, in their way. He does not relish the idea, but he can no longer doubt that they have become fond of him. Also in their greedy, grasping, horrific way.
They ask him questions, they poke through the odds and ends in his head, they want to know everything about him. They are smitten. He can resist their will, but he cannot repel their interest or their monstrous affection. Sirius doesn't know if the one observing him now has ever come to call before. Even after two years, he still cannot tell one from another among them.
"What would you know about it?" he asks, dejected. It's no good answering their questions, he knows that. But he has no one else to talk to. "Sightless thing that you are. Why ask?"
Why not? Perhaps you can explain it. Give us the benefit of your eyes.
He sighs. There is no explaining the sensual pleasure of beauty to his captors; their senses do not run that way, and their concepts of beauty, though definite, differ wildly from his own. He cannot explain to them that moonlight is hauntingly beautiful, nor why it is particularly moving for him. He feels this moonlight on his face like a touch, like many familiar touches that he once knew.
He sighs again. So very far away, so long gone. All for nothing. Love wasted and destroyed.
"There's a full moon tonight," he remarks, inconsequently, to his hideous guest.
The thing snuffles and sighs with delight. It runs its mental fingers through specific thoughts, through particular memories. It swallows all the loneliness and futile desire and chastened regret in each of them.
You are a creature to whom the senses are important. This sense of touch; this is especially important to you – it is an open wound in all your memories. Tell us about it, this touching. It is a continuous thread in your life.
Sirius turns away from the window and its light. He finds that he cannot stand the frail caress of the moonlight on his skin another moment.
"Go away," he says hopelessly to the thing. He moves to the corner of his cell that is furthest from the window, the one that is filled with the deepest amount of shadow. After a moment, he sits down in it.
But you are lonely. You wish for a missing companion. Talk a bit longer. Tell us about the moonlight.
"You are hardly an adequate substitute," he says to it, truthfully. "I'm not that lonely. Go away. Go pester someone else for a change."
Ah, but you are our favorite, Sirius. A moment or two more. This touching; it is something we are much interested in. Your impressions are inconsistent. Sometimes it is a good thing, sometimes it is everything. And sometimes it is neither. How can the same thing be either beautiful or grotesque?
Sirius registers that this is an interesting question in spite of himself. Captivity, it seems, has not dulled his mind anywhere near as much as he'd hoped it might, in time. He gives the question some thought, not quite completely unwilling.
"The difference. It's largely a matter of intent," he finally answers. The dementor comes close, eagerly; ready to suck up whatever memory will now be forthcoming.
