It took quite a while before the Aurors went away completely. Sirius did manage to get The Grim seen a few times by Aurors on patrol at night. It made them even more terrified to know that such a creature existed but they could not catch it. He dodged their spells with ease and was too quick to catch. He could blend in with the shadows and use his heightened senses to detect where the Aurors were trying to lay a trap for him.

He even started to be able to smell magic.

That was a kicker for him. Just because magic degraded quickly around all the dementors didn't mean there was none. One night, he was about to cross into the stairwell when he stopped, sniffing towards the first step. It smelled wrong. The fortress normally smelled like mold and wet stone; but now there was something extra, something he couldn't quite place. If he had to give a name to it, he would say it smelled like a sticky scream.

There was a cell nearby, so he snuck in and stole a chess piece from the resident, carrying it in his mouth back to the stairs. Standing far enough back, he tossed it towards the stair, only for it to activate a caterwauling charm, and a red barrier snapped into place on the step, catching the chess piece in mid-air after it bounced. Sirius made a hasty retreat back to his cell.


He had to be on his guard from that point. No more carelessly running through the halls of the prison. He needed to sniff out all the traps that were laid for him. As a result, he only managed to pull off around four murders a year for the next few years. He was able to clear out other Death Eaters and allies of Voldemort from the medium-security prisoners, and some had even slipped through the cracks.

The Aurors had started to get wise to his tactic of targeting those with the least amount of time left on their sentences and put round-the-clock surveillance on anyone with less than two months remaining on their sentences. Sirius made sure to remember their names. They were in Azkaban for a reason, chances were that they would be back sometime, and he was here for the rest of his life. If he heard about it in advance from The Prophet, they wouldn't live through their first night after returning.

A few times the Grim of Azkaban was mentioned in the newspaper when someone with a connected family was killed and they wanted to raise a fuss. Sirius tried to make sure the ones with connections were fed to the dementors rather than outright killing them. It was a lot harder to blame an unkillable soul-sucking wraith. What were they going to do? Dock their pay?

The big feather in his cap came at the end of his seventh year. Typically, there was only one murder every few months, so there was a period of relaxation for the other inmates after someone was killed and they thought they were safe. Inmates got antsy and stayed awake all night after there hadn't been a murder for too long. So Sirius decided to change that up.

One night, he went to the top of maximum security and killed off a man named Joshua Turner. He had used the Imperius Curse to assemble a harem of muggle women to serve him for years at a time. When he was done with them, he wiped their memories and dumped them in the street. Sirius was almost completely sure that Turner had nothing to do with Voldemort, but he still deserved to die. He was a recent addition to the prison, and according to the newspaper article that Sirius read regarding his arrest, he was universally hated across the wizarding community. That he was a muggleborn made the hatred that much greater by the powers that be. He would not be missed.

The aurors had slowed down their investigations of the murders as well. They pretty much understood that if they didn't catch The Grim in the act, they wouldn't catch him at all. So while there were plenty of wards to avoid and alerts to keep from being set off, he didn't have to worry anymore about running into an auror in the hallway at night.

Sirius caught his target with his back to the door, in a compromising position. He obviously missed having a dozen women catering to his every need and took matters into his own hand. Sirius understood the urge, that's why he subscribed to the Playwizard Magazine, after all. He waited patiently for the man to be done, then knocked him down and ripped out his throat. The aurors would have an interesting time when they discovered this body.

The following night, after the news had broken, and the other residents breathed a collective sigh of relief, Sirius snuck two cells down from his and quietly killed Rabastan Lestrange in his sleep. There was no great buildup, no stalking, no growling, no dementors. Just walked in, crushed the man's throat and neck in his jaws, drew his mark on the wall, and left.

He felt a great deal of satisfaction, more than any other so far, except for Travers. This man had tortured Frank and Alice Longbottom. He would never get to kill Barty Crouch Jr, as the boy couldn't take prison and died on his own years ago, like a bitch. Small miracles and all that.

However, after the incapacitation of Frank and Alice, Sirius had no idea where Harry had ended up, as the newspapers never once mentioned his location or if he even was with Alice before their incapacitation. He felt a swell of pity for their boy Neville as well.

Before they went into hiding, Harry and Neville had played together on a few occasions. Both of them were highly gifted with magic and Sirius witnessed them produce bursts of power to accomplish their various whims and desires. However, Frank's mother, the dragon-lady Agusta, seemed to put a damper on Neville whenever she was present and he never performed magic in front of her. With Frank and Alice in St. Mungos' incurable ward, he would certainly be with that woman.


The following day was chaotic. As news of Rabastan's death spread, the first person to hear of it was his brother in the cell next door. He would not stop shrieking and calling for blood. Aurors had to come to his cell repeatedly to stun him whenever he awoke and started screaming more.

The Daily Prophet got a hold of the story right after they had published about the death of the muggleborn Turner, and was now starting to talk in more heroic terms about The Grim of Azkaban. He didn't want to be a hero, he was murdering people. Evil people, sure, but he was still laying waste to his soul in exchange for vengeance. That was not something to be celebrated. Now would be an excellent time to take a break.

It was difficult to stop his mission, for a few reasons. One of the signs that taking a break might be a problem was after two months, he could hear growling in his head at night. He hadn't transformed for quite a while, so he gave in to the animal in his mind and curled up on his bed in the form of the Grim to sleep at night. After nearly five months, the dementors started coming to visit him. It was like the kid next door asking him to come out and play. They must be aware that he was the Grim, they just didn't care if he provided them tasty treats of despair and fresh souls.

They no longer tried to feed on his despair, mostly because he didn't have any, and also because you don't bite the hand that feeds you. However, he knew that if he didn't serve someone up to them soon, that might change. However, he used their presence to call out and say that they were coming for his soul, that the Grim was coming for him next. His neighbors began to be frightened of their impending fates as well, and the dementors fed on those fears instead.


It was close to a year after Rabastan's murder before Sirius decided to go on the hunt again. He could feel the anxiety of the inmates building as they were long overdue for another murder. Sirius wanted another member of the inner circle to be put down, but the rest were insanely dangerous. Rabastan's brother, Rodolphus, liked to torture people with muggle tools, and would undoubtedly have crafted something for himself in his cell. Dolohov was Dolohov and was a psychopath, pure and simple - unpredictable. Once Sirius had been in a duel with him and the man didn't even flinch when struck with a bone breaker curse, just kept fighting as though the pain meant nothing. Rookwood was a former Unspeakable and it was unknown what he was capable of.

Finally, Bellatrix, his cousin… and frankly, he had always been terrified of her.

She was always a bit crazy, hurting people for fun; with magic, knives, and words. After getting marked as a Death Eater, she became even worse, even outshining the sadism of her husband. It was a small miracle that the two of them never had a child. The other thing that kept Sirius from going after her was that she never seemed to sleep. Any time he passed her cell as a Grim, she was awake, either singing to herself or staring him in the eyes as he passed by. He didn't know if it would be possible to kill her. He could wait until she was forty years older to try.

From all of those, the best target was going to be Rookwood. However, it would take more than just The Grim to kill him. He needed a plan that involved more than just sneaking in and taking his life.


Over his time in prison, Sirius had assembled quite a collection of small luxuries. He knew that he could never have anything that used magic, as it would not last long enough to do anything with, like an escape. However, now he needed to attempt an escape. He would need a few more things to recreate his favorite Marauder tool, so he waited patiently for Humpty to make his next visit.

When the favored Auror came, Sirius asked for a few things; a new nail clipper with a file, a pewter plate to eat his meals on, chalk to draw on the walls, and a dried True Rose of Jericho to remind him of a girl he had been penpals with back in school. The only thing that raised any eyebrows for the Auror was the pewter plate. Sirius explained himself as since he was raised in the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, a little luxury from time to time would ease his time in prison among the soul-sucking despair of the dementors. He knew that pure silver would be too much to ask for, but pewter wasn't that bad.

He had expected his business associate to hesitate a bit, so he added, "On top of whatever you want to charge, I have a complete silver dinner set in my vault that I was planning on having in my manor one day for my family. I heard one of your friends, the one with the dolphin Patronus, mention you have a young boy. I would be happy to sign over the set to your family so he may eat off plates of silver."

That would be quite a windfall for him, and Sirius could see he was on the fence about it, so he let the man know, "It's large enough for a party of ten people."

That tipped the scale and Humpty agreed, saying that he would bring everything on his next visit. Sirius would need to wait another month to put his plan into action, but there was one thing he needed to do in the time being. He needed a wand.


Of course, getting a wand in Azkaban was impossible, but the most basic wands only did two things: channel magic while keeping the caster safe from the power radiating in the core. Getting the core might be painful.

The first thing he tried was ripping out some of the hairs from his Grim form and twisting them into a thin braid. From there, he took a pencil he had bought and removed the lead to make it hollow and slipped the braided hair inside. Then he cut his palm and filled the recess with blood, spit, dirt, and dust inside to make it solid.

Holding the pencil, he could feel some magic traveling down the shaft, but was careful not to channel too much as it would explode if he did too much. Unfortunately for him, even that tiny bit of magic was too much for the fur, and it burned the pencil from the inside until the pencil was just a charred mess.

It took four more tries until he got a successful piece. He had to buy a few more pencils from the guard that brought the food and hoped it didn't get back to Humpty. He wanted to keep their relationship special. The final product had him hollow out a pencil and then bleed inside to allow his blood to stain the inside, then he ripped out more hair from his Grim form and slammed his jaws into the wall to knock out a fang as well. He was now missing two teeth, but he could feel them growing back. He didn't question how that was happening, he was just thankful for it.

Next, he used the base of his reading chair to grind the tooth into powder, except for a small tip, mix it with more blood, and soak the braided hair in it for three days. Then he inserted the core and poured the remaining dried-out mixture in along with it, and added fresh blood on top. Finally, he capped the prison wand with the tiny pointed tip that was what was left of the tooth he had knocked out.

The wand may choose the wizard, but this one was as good as he was going to get in the prison. He could feel the magic in it, and it didn't burn itself out like the others. Now Sirius just needed to wait for the rest of his supplies.


Humpty must have felt a bit guilty at receiving such a grand dinner set, and bought Sirius both a pewter and pure silver dish, even before he signed the bank drafts and property transfer papers. Now he had everything he needed and more. He thanked his benefactor profusely and took his purchases into the cell.

With his extra prison-issue uniform, it took a whole night to transfigure it into black robes. It wasn't the spell that was difficult, it was the power involved. If he rushed it, the wand would burn out and he'd need to start all over. It took another full night to change his bunny slippers into black boots.

Once he had the black robes, they were stashed under his reading chair cushion and he began to work on the mask. With the silver plate, he slowly shaped it into the mask of a Death Eater. Not just any of them, he turned it into one he had once held in his hands. The one that belonged to his brother Regulus.

When the idiot graduated from Hogwarts, he immediately asked Bellatrix to make him a Death Eater. She guided him through his initiation, through whatever horrible tasks he had to perform to prove his loyalty to Voldemort. Sirius remembered seeing the celebration with his brother and his parents as he snuck into the house one last time to retrieve some of his belongings before leaving forever.

He saw the mask that Regulus showed with pride to their parents. Etched in the left cheek was a heart with a snake wrapped around it, and he told them he would be given more designs as he performed more services. Sirius also heard that he had been given a new name; Harbinger.

Dumbledore had a spy towards the end of the war, someone he wouldn't name, but he passed on the code names of many of the inner circle. Some of them were obviously meant as jokes, but they all were representative of the person's skill set in some way. Honestly, most were horrible code names if they wanted to keep their identities a secret.

Rookwood's codename was Enigma.