A sliver of moonlight leaks into my cell from the thin barred window. As usual, the only sounds are the howling wind and the distant crash of the ocean, coupled with the occasional echoed scream or cackle. As a black shadow, I lay silently in the corner next to the gate. I've spent the past few hours in this position, watching the sunlight fade and the moonlight creep along the floor. I feel like I'm back at Hogwarts again, preparing for some huge prank to be set off. I can't move - I can't afford to mess this up or to waste all my energy pacing. But my heart is thumping harder than it has in years.
I suppress a shiver as another Dementor passes by too close for comfort. I remind myself that the guards have no reason to suspect I'm up to something. It isn't unusual for me to be lying around as a dog. My thoughts and emotions are easier to manage in this form. I'm very fortunate that I can choose to lose my humanity periodically, rather than have it drained from me over time. Plus, I don't think the Dementors can sense me very well like this; they probably think I've lost my mind like everyone else.
Unfortunately, they can still detect stronger emotions, even from a dog.
I freeze as the Dementor pauses and turns its hooded face toward me. Maybe it can sense that something is different about me tonight. No matter how languid I act, my muscles are ready for action, my lungs are craving fresh air, and my paw pads are itching to trade this frigid floor for the prickle of dirt and grass. I know I can't live like this any longer. Either I escape tonight, or I die trying.
The nonchalance accompanying that thought disturbs me a little. I've stopped fearing death over a decade ago, maybe even before Azkaban. Sure, the idea of having my soul sucked out is terrifying - that would terrify anyone. In comparison, death is much kinder, and it's a certainty at that. The only thing that changes is the when and how. And maybe I'd even see some old friends.
But I can't let myself think that way anymore. I have a reason to be alive now. Peter is still out there. Harry is in danger.
Hot anger floods through me, so I try to focus on the concern underneath it all. I wonder how the little lad has fared all these years with his Muggle aunt and uncle looking after him. I really hope he found some good friends at school, like I did.
Well, most of them were good, anyway.
A little too late, I realize the Dementor is still observing me from beyond the bars. It draws a rattling breath - a sound that permeates my nightmares. I squeeze my eyes shut and curl in on myself, bracing against the bone-numbing cold.
Dammit! You're a dog, Padfoot! Stop being so emotional!
Though a bit too vulgar, the scolding voice in my head reminds me of Remus. I picture his knitted eyebrows, his pinched pale green eyes, and that wry frown he used to wear whenever James and I landed ourselves in detention. A stab of remorse sickens me. Merlin, I miss him. If only I'd trusted him more - if only I hadn't let that rat sway my judgement.
Stop it.
Even as a dog, bottling my emotions is proving to be much harder than usual tonight. You should be an expert at that by now, considering your childhood, I think to myself. More familiar faces flicker across my mind's eye - faces I never wanted to see again. I picture Mother's cold black eyes, Father's scowl like stone, and Bellatrix's sadistic smile. My chest hurts as another Black face swims into my thoughts. My brother's expression is similar to the one I imagine on Remus, only his dark eyes are wide and pleading. His desperate voice sends chills down my spine:
You need to keep yourself together, Sirius. It's not just your soul on the line.
I close my eyes and count to fifty, pacing my breathing on counts of five. No emotions. No emotions. No emotions.
Finally, the Dementor gets bored of me. I hold my breath as it drifts away. Then I exhale and try to collect myself. Dealing with the Dementors hasn't been this difficult since the first few months of my imprisonment. Having a purpose is quite the hassle…or maybe apathy was too easy.
What must have been an hour later, I hear the creaking of doors being opened one at a time. I tense like a runner at the starting line. Finally, a Dementor carrying a stack of metal trays drifts toward me. Bile rises in my throat as I watch its long grimy fingers open my cell door. As it slides the food tray in, I dart through the gap between its hand and the bars. Before the Dementor so much as turns, I've set off through the dark corridor and down a winding stairway.
By some miracle, it doesn't follow.
Tingling excitement shoots through my paws with every step. The feeling is more anxious than happy, but I do my best to bottle it anyway. It's hard to believe that I'm outside of that miserable cell after twelve years - but I can't afford to let my guard down now. This is only the first step of many. I'm not free yet.
Azkaban is more like a fortress than a prison. The complex is a walled pentagon, with the actual prison blocks contained in a relatively small tower in the center. As if the five wizard-manned watchtowers and the copious Dementors patrolling the prison yard aren't enough, it's also surrounded by the raging ocean on all sides. This place is a pain in the arse to get to, not to mention get away from. But I'm not discouraged. I'll just do what I (used to) do best: rely on my quick thinking to keep me alive. And if those soul-eating demons come after me…well, I can only hope that they don't have an appetite for dogs.
I carefully pad to the bottom of the tower. The few prisoners who notice me shrink away from the bars. That surprises me. At peak health, I resemble a black bear-like dog with pointed ears. But right now, I probably look like a shaggy coyote that's gotten into one too many fights. My fur is a tangled mess, and I'm malnourished and unsteady on my feet. I imagine that I look too pitiful to frighten anyone, but evidently my stature is still intimidating.
At the bottom of the stairs is where I meet my next obstacle. A heavy wooden door bars my passage to the prison yard. It's clearly meant to be opened by a wizard. There is no handle, just a solid slab of enchanted oak. I pause, glancing around, but there are no cells on this floor, and only one Dementor patrols the inside of the prison block at a time. With any luck, that one is still finishing dinner duty.
I take a moment to gather my energy. Then, in an instant, I'm a man again. I close my eyes as my calloused fingers brush against the rough wood. Traces of magic fizzle along my fingertips, much fainter than I expected. It's a fairly simple lock - I suppose they figure the Dementors are deterrent enough. A flickering in my chest responds to the magic in the door - a warmth that has lied dormant for far too long. Wandless magic is difficult to control and almost impossible to master, but I've picked many magical locks in my lifetime. I breathe deeply, in and out, and I concentrate on a single word: Open.
The door shudders, and one end splits away from the wall with a soft groan.
A smirk tugs at my parched lips. The expression feels wrong. I wonder how long it's been since I felt genuinely happy. As if in response, a familiar voice barrels through my emotional dam, as abruptly as a talented Seeker pulling out of a nosedive. I can hear his smile and see the glitter of mischief dancing behind his glasses.
See, Padfoot? I told you we know enough lock-picking spells to break out of Azkaban!
For the briefest moment, my smile widens. Then I wince, and the weight in my chest thuds back. This is no schoolboy prank. I have a mission to finish. And my first order of business is escaping this place with my heart still beating and my soul intact. For Harry. For James.
I transform into a dog and open the door just wide enough to slip through. I'm aware of what I will see outside, but it still sends a shiver through me. Overhead, hundreds of Dementors circle the towering prison block, the courtyard, and the surrounding wall. Five fortified citadels shine magical spotlights onto the tall iron gate or out into the sea, with highly-trained wizards watching diligently. I really hope they're more concerned with threats from the outside.
The moon is bright tonight - a full moon, in fact. Moony…dammit…I hope you're alright, wherever you are. I shake off that dull stab of guilt as I scan the whitewashed yard. The long shadow from the prison tower intersects the outer wall a few hundred feet from the gate. With a silent prayer that my luck would hold out, I travel in this strip of darkness, stalking stealthily at first and then breaking into a nervous trot. What seems like hours later, I reach the gate. Mercifully, these heavy bars are spaced far enough apart that I can worm through them. After a few more painstaking seconds, I'm outside the walls.
I should be rejoicing, but all I feel is terror urging me on. The presence of the swarm overhead seems to constrict me. I know that the longer I'm away from my cell, the sooner the Dementors will come looking for me - and the more horrid my punishment is likely to be. I doubt my Animagus form would save me from a Dementor's Kiss, and I certainly don't have it in me to produce a wandless Patronus.
I grit my teeth and remember my resolve. I'm innocent. I'm going to be free of this place. I need to finish what I started.
A metallic groaning tears through my thoughts. Two ten-foot-tall automatons close in on me from opposite ends of the gate. They look like suits of armor designed for Hagrid, if Hagrid was part arachnid. Dark purple mist leaks out from gaps in their armor, and their eight arms dart toward me with impossible speed. I vaguely remember seeing these monstrosities when I was first brought here, positioned stoically on either side of the massive gate. I'd thought they were someone's dreadful idea of decoration. Apparently, there is more to them than meets the eye.
As soon as they grab me, I know I'm doomed.
I swallow a yelp as sixteen clawed gauntlets lock around my legs, my shoulders, my neck, and my muzzle, pushing me into the craggy dirt. The impulse to struggle is overwhelmed by a higher instinct for self-preservation. I'm sure these things could tighten their grip and kill me if I gave them a reason to…but maybe I already did that by slipping through the gate.
My pulse thumps in my throat as the enchanted suits of armor stand over me like cruel slave drivers. I'm barely breathing, bracing for crushing pain or the blaring of an alarm. Before I even begin to brainstorm my way out of this predicament, I feel the guards' grip loosen. Robotically, the smoking metal monsters return to their posts. As they straighten, the violet mist fades, and they fall silent again.
For a few seconds, I'm paralyzed with dread, as if the monsters were still pressing me down. I've experienced too much misfortune in my life to believe that I could be this lucky. So, I wait. The wind howls, and the sea roars. I don't move. Neither do the automatons. Then I think of the Dementors soaring above me, and the desire to leave this horrible island supersedes everything else.
Very slowly, I stand. The automatons remain like statues - menacing, sure, but much less frightening than when they were leaping at me. At last, I let go of the breath I was holding in.
Then I hear hushed voices ahead.
Cursing wordlessly, I bolt behind a nearby boulder as two wandlit figures approach from outside the walls. Beyond them, a beaten path sinks below the cliffside: a harrowing descent to the only part of the island that's accessible by boat. In my case, that path is my ticket out of here, unless I want to take my chances jumping off a cliff and swimming with a broken leg.
I watch from the shadows as a guard witch examines the motionless automatons. Her wand emits a purple glow, but the eerie mist doesn't return. "Interesting. Something set them off, but they must not have detected anything of importance."
The wizard accompanying her frowns at the scrapes in the ground where I'd been pinned down. "Doesn't look like there was much of a struggle."
"Of course there wasn't," the witch muttered. "If there was, we'd have a body for evidence."
"Could it have been a bird?" The other guard suggested.
The witch shook her head. "They aren't supposed to target animals."
Keeping low to the ground, I creep away while the two guards are distracted. As soon as they're out of earshot, I make a run for the water. Jagged stones dig into my paw pads as I navigate the treacherous path. As soon as I reach level ground, I launch myself into the sea. The wounds on my paws sting as the icy water envelops me, and it is all I can do to keep my muzzle above the raging waves, but I hardly notice. I keep my eyes locked on the black ridge on the horizon where the moonlight isn't reflecting off the water, and I swim.
They say that Azkaban is situated so far from the mainland that only a professional swimmer could cross these frigid waters. I guess they didn't calculate for desperate, adrenaline-fueled dogs. I keep swimming long after my body goes numb and begs for me to quit, and long after I've forgotten the reason for this madness. I want so badly to give up, to rest my battered body, to let myself sink to the bottom and let death claim me - but I cling to my purpose by a thread.
Don't stop now, chants a firm voice in my head. You're almost there. Just a few more feet.
I'm so exhausted that I'm not even sure if the voice belongs to me.
At long last, I collapse onto a sandy shore. Past my gasps of relief, I feel my thoughts clouding. I focus on the crisp sting of the air and on my own uncontrollable trembling - anything to stay conscious. I didn't break out of the most secure wizard prison only to die of hypothermia.
I'm not sure how I scrape up enough energy to transform, but I do. As I perform a feeble warming spell, I notice that my shaking fingertips have turned blue. I'm not surprised, and I'm too fatigued to feel alarmed. Trusting my magic to take hold, I stagger a bit further from the spray of the sea before slipping into a compulsory, dreamless sleep.
Some time later, I jolt awake to the roar of waves and the rush of water inches from my head. Shakily, I push myself off the sand. The full moon is high, and the night sky above me is still free of Dementors. It seems like I was only passed out for a few minutes or so. I flex my fingers and sigh in relief. I'm still exhausted - my brief nap did nothing to curb that - but at least I'm alive. My warming spell did the trick.
Then I look out over the sea, past the churning strip of moonlight on the water, to the tiny fortress silhouetted against the midnight blue sky. For a long moment, I can't stop staring. The wind howls in my ears, and the sea rages on. But those sounds seem different now. They're powerful and exhilarating, as they should be. The stifling hopelessness that used to accompany them is all but gone. I become acutely aware of the sand beneath my bare feet, the chill of the wind in my hair, the soft chirps of night bugs. I close my eyes and breathe in the fresh air. All I can smell is the sea - no rotten stench of Dementors, nor of bland prison food, nor of sorry souls who have long forgotten the meaning of hygiene. I want to commit this intoxicating scent to memory.
This is freedom. This is what being alive should feel like.
I wish I could linger in this blissful feeling forever - and I do linger for a little while. But I need to put more distance between myself and that wretched island, before all of Wizarding England hears of my escape. Besides, there is work to be done. There are old friends I need to see.
And I think I know which one I'll drop in on first.
With one last look at the island on the horizon, I turn my back on it and begin my next journey.
