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A/N: Inspired by the song Where's the Girl from the musical, the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Drunk on Dreams
i.
Days fade into days, weeks into weeks, months into months. Only snow falling keeps him separating the seasons; it has been snowing for weeks now: winter. He can't remember when it had snowed this much. Winter had always been bleak and dark, but now frosted gardens from the past have turned into pillows of white. He likes the snow much better than the drizzle they usually got.
Sometimes he'll forget the year and think he's back in his schooldays and wait for Regulus or his mother to storm through the door. Or his father, shooting him an icy glare from his chair next to the fire. But then he'll think: Sirius, get a hold of yourself; and goes back to cleaning some obscure room to keep him sane.
He looks forward to the comings and goings of Order members. They bring him tid-bits of the outside world, little snatches of rumours, small morsels of information that he covets and puts away in a treasure chest of thoughts. Sometimes he'll wait for the puzzle to emerge, connecting two obscure events; except he doesn't take it seriously, acting like these scraps of news are nothing to him but simple pastimes.
ii.
Christmas has past and the only twinkle in his life has left him; he loves Harry like a son and wants to protect him from anyone and anything. But he can't, not when he's cooped up in this god-forsaken house. No, he can only watch while the real word skirts by outside, longing to be one of them.
iii.
Remus brings him the newspaper, ashen faced and hesitant. He really doesn't know why, but he doesn't want to be bothered. Not now, not in the middle of a decent breakfast. Hestia Jones just left: Sirius finds her pretty and good company; she was talking to him, a break from his monotonous life.
Sirius, Remus says, you have to read this.
He sets down the newspaper, pushing it towards Sirius. He doesn't really care, but he picks it up and scans it anyway; Remus is his friend, after all.
Antonin Dolohov, Rodolphus Lestrange, Rabastan Lestrange. He knows their faces; they were all once heartthrobs of Hogwarts, the lust of all the Slytherin girls. But each had their own beloved and didn't care for anyone else.
He had been with them in Azkaban, a comrade in betrayal in the eyes of the ministry. But while they went mad, he held onto shreds of his sanity.
But her face, hers was different than her fellow Death Eaters. She would always be beautiful, to him at least; even if Azkaban had taken away the starkness of her beauty. Its subtly remained; her eyes slanted slightly upwards like a cat's, her high cheek-bones, her lithe body.
He knows every part of her, years after abandoning her; or maybe she abandoned him. But those days in his life are long over, he thinks as he hands back the newspaper to Remus, scowling.
I would never lead them out of anywhere, he mutters and Remus understands; Remus always understood Sirius much more than James or Peter.
iv.
Sometimes he hears memories, not imagines them, actually hears them. That's when he thinks he's going mad, but he would never tell anyone. He wishes he could go back to his memories, to live perpetually in a state of bliss. Where he was not locked up in a prison, where he was surrounded by his friends and where his lover still loved him.
He spends time with Buckbeak in his mother's bed-room, just sitting with the creature and reliving his past. Concentrating all his memories into a list and replaying them one by one, making the most vivid ones last the longest. Sometimes memories fade into fantasy, or maybe they're all fantasy and he just can't remember.
Here he once kissed her, before she went down to be formally engaged to Lestrange. He smudged her lip-stick and mussed her hair and she had laughed, pulled a strap of her dress down to add to the effect.
"I'll tell them Kreature attacked me," she had said through a devilish smile, before he Apparated to James' house.
v.
It's better to forget memories; he dreams are full of her face, now, to the point of obsession. Bellatrix, Bellatrix, he moans; he wants her, needs her and he doesn't care if she's working for the man who killed his best friend. He knows somewhere she still loves him, beneath the madness and loyalty to her lord.
Just like he loves her; she would come back to him and she would smile like she always did and tease him until he gave in. That's how it always was, always since the beginning when they were fourth years and still virgins.
vi.
Obsession has spurred him since winter and now it's June. With his wand raised he wants for his Bella, wanting to duel with her, to see her again. Chaos streams around him but his mind is clear; if he could just see her…
A jet of light flashes past him; he turns and there she is, still as beautiful as she ever was. He doesn't see her haggard appearance or the maddened gleam in her eyes. He only sees her as she was in the past, in his memories, in his dreams.
Sirius doesn't know what he's saying, but he sees her face twist into a sneer. Take me, corrupt me, I am yours, he mutters as he feels a bolt of energy hit him.
Before he closes his eyes, he can see her smiling. And that is all that matters.
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