The next thing Sirius knew, he was being dragged down another extremely long corridor. In this corridor, the walls were all completely whitewashed. There were many doors, all big and thick and seemed to be made of solid steel and with metal handles. In the middle of the doors there were small, thin slats, and near the top of the doors there were windows made of shatter-proof glass, and crisscrossed with thick metal bars. Sirius was dragged next up a flight of stairs to a much larger, wider, corridor, this one filled with guards in uniform, wands in their hands, and guns strapped across their backs, but still with basically the same setup, with only a few other differences besides the guards.

Right by the staircase he had been dragged up, there was a set of double doors, also made of several inches of steel, also with barred windows, but without these were much larger and did not have slats in the middle. In the middle of the left side of the corridor was a bank of elevators. Down at the other end of the corridor was a large, more open area, with a long countertop. Here, more doctors were stationed. Also, at the other end of the corridor, were several doors that were a bit larger than the rest, but these had many small locks going up their sides as well as humongous padlocks on the handles. However, the biggest contrast between this corridor and the others Sirius had visited was the screaming. Bloodcurdling screams of rage, pain, and sorrow, issued from the closed doors. Sirius wanted to cover his ears but whatever they had injected him with had not worn off completely yet; he still could not move.

The two men dragging him stopped a little more than halfway down the corridor, just past the elevators. Sirius noticed that only other person who remained from his original eight captors, besides the two men dragging him, was the blonde woman. She stepped in front of him now, removing her wand and tapping the door four times, once in each corner, then whispering something…numbers, Sirius believed, the numbers 7-4-7-4-8-7. The door seemed to shimmer for a minute, emitting a quick green glow. When the glow subsided, the blonde woman pulled on the handle of the door, opening it. As soon as she opened it, the two men hurled him into the room beyond the door. Seconds later, the door shimmered again and emitted a quick red glow. Even with the screaming, Sirius could hear their footfalls getting farther and farther away as they left, due to his increased sense of hearing, thanks mostly to his Animagi transformation in fifth year.

Suddenly, Sirius felt a tingling sensation spread through his body, and he realized it was the drug they had injected him with wearing off. "Finally!" Sirius muttered, getting to his feet and looking around at the room he'd been placed in.

Like the rest of the corridor, the walls of the room were whitewashed. The floor was hard, white tile, and there were no windows. The room was fairly small and spartanly furnished. There was a bed with stainless steel posts, crisp white sheets, and one pillow. On the other side of the room there was a stainless steel table piled with several thin white robes, similar to the one Sirius was currently wearing; Sirius supposed these were the uniforms for whatever weird hospital he was stuck in. In the middle of the room there was a circular white rug. That was it.

Sirius padded over to the door in unshod feet—his captors must have stolen his shoes—and glanced out of it, glad he was tall enough to do so. As soon as he got a glimpse of the corridor, a guard walked by, stopped in front of Sirius' door and held the barrel of a gun against the glass until Sirius backed away. Sirius felt around in the robes for his wand, but couldn't find it. He cursed. They must have taken that away too. Having nothing else to do, Sirius curled up on the rug and went to sleep, for some reason not wanting to use the bed.

Sirius was awoken some time later to a loud pounding on the steel door to his cell. Sirius sat bolt upright as one of the men who had dragged him there barged in. He glanced at the bed and, not seeing Sirius, looked puzzled, until he saw that Sirius was sitting on the carpet. The man frowned.

"Why weren't you sleeping in your bed?"

Sirius shrugged. "I didn't want to."

"You'll sleep in your bed next time."

"What if I don't want to?"

"Then you'll have to answer to me." The large man flashed him and evil grin, before reaching down and yanking Sirius to his feet. He pulled Sirius out of the cell, letting the thick door slam shut only centimeters from Sirius' fingers. "Recreation time, now. Then dinner. You eat what you're given and don't complain or else—"

"I answer to you?" Sirius drawled.

"Good, you're learning. After dinner is bedtime, you go to bed when you're told or else—"

"I answer to you, again?"

"Right, again. Mornings, you wake up, change your robe, have breakfast, have session—"

"Session?" Sirius echoed.

"You've been here before, X-8! Wow, you really must be a mad one. Session. Therapy—with group and singularly—coupled with mediwizard interviews, warden checks, medical exams…the drill. Then it's lunch, more session, quiet time, recreation, dinner, and the cycle starts again. That's life on the Hi-Sec Ward."

"Hi-Sec? High-security?"

"Yup." The man led him to the double doors, pushed them open, then shoved Sirius inside. "Any trouble, you get put in the Time-Out Room. Solitary confinement."

"Ooo, that sounds scary." Sirius said sarcastically.

"Oh, I'm gonna love seein' your face when they lock you in there. You'll be eatin' those words, boy." The man laughed as he slammed the door shut.

Sirius looked around and his jaw dropped. Suddenly, he knew where he was, and he felt like he wanted to vomit. The fear slowly crept over him, cold as ice, seeping into blood and bone, chilling him to his core. For the second time that day, he felt paralyzed by fear. He knew where he was and he knew he had been there before. It was his worst nightmare, the place he feared more than anything else. He would take a fight against a dark wizard without even having his wand over being back here. This place symbolized everything he hated about himself, that little nagging memory in the back of his mind that never went away. He had always thought he could repress that memory forever, that memory of this awful place, this place that he had sworn he would never return to, this place that not even Prongs knew he had been to. It was the worst memory of his childhood.

How did I get back here? I didn't do anything! Sirius thought desperately to himself. Who would do this? What's going on? All of these thoughts and more raced through his head and he hated it, because now he didn't know what was real and what wasn't. And it was all because he was here! Sirius gave an involuntary shudder.

He was back here and he didn't know why. All he knew was that this was real and he couldn't leave.

Sirius began to convulse.

He was at The Shady Run Asylum for the Criminally Insane. It was notorious for housing the most deranged of wizard-kind.

Again.

And there was nothing he could do about it.

Tears welled in his eyes and he gave in completely to the fear. He now understood why he was afraid of doctors, even muggle ones. It was because of this place.

He was in a mental hospital. He was insane. Criminally insane. Again.