Not a happy chapter (because dementors. A few other things too, but mostly dementors). Don't read this if you came here for a pick-me-up.


They'd told him to enjoy Halloween and bring back a crate of treacle scones. He'd glamoured his robes into a ghoul costume, full head-mask and all, and gone to mingle with a group of guising adolescents. He showed off on his shiny motorcycle and Lily had taught him the traditional muggle songs well enough that he didn't look too much the fool.

It was fun. Until the silver bracelet on his arm began to shine. Prongs was in trouble.

Sirius apparated in midair, a few dozen yards away from Godric's Hollow. The enchanted motorcycle roared as he crushed the throttle.

He knew the moment he saw no light coming from the house.

There were screams. Harry's screams. He found Lily and James in pieces. The killing curse was clean, but the explosion at Godric's Hollow had added a new layer to this nightmare.

When Sirius had been sixteen, he had promised Moony. He had promised Prongs. He had promised himself. No more Dark Arts. But right now he couldn't, he just couldn't, do it with Light magic. He didn't know the spells to make a torn face what he remembered. To make a body whole when you couldn't even find the pieces. He couldn't leave them like that. Magic fueled by grief and horror stitched his best friends back together, until their bodies were whole and dignified once more.

And dead.

Sirius took a shuddering breath, his shoulders slumped, his knees shaking. How could this have happened? How -

Harry whimpered in Sirius' arms. The baby had settled, exhausted, but Sirius' grip was too tight. Sirius shifted, tears spilling from his eyes. "Prongslet, I'm so sorry." He smiled weakly. "You and your parents took down the baddest wizard of all time, you know that? You -" His voice broke. What did it matter, when they were dead?

When Hagrid asked him for Harry, Sirius protested but he was too stunned. Too hurt. A part of him was grateful to hand over the baby. He didn't know what to do. He was scared he'd hurt Harry.

Wherever he turned, the sight of the gutted house burned him like a cruciatus. Prongs, Lily, Harry, they'd been home. There was nothing left.

Prongs. Lily. Why? Why you?

Wormtail. How could you have?

Sudden rage drowned out the pain. Years of war had taught Sirius to move, no matter what. Those who stayed still too long died. Those who thought too hard, died. Rage kept him upright. Rage gave him the strength to turn away and to put one foot in front of the other.

He had to find Peter, to kill him. The Fidelius Charm protected the Keeper from the imperius, from legilimency : the secret had to be freely given. Sirius remembered, the cruciatus' unending agony, his mind breaking into pieces and yet this, the Secret, a tiny island of calm.

In the street, painted with blood and body parts, Sirius laughed hysterically, drunk with rage, horror and despair, as the aurors arrived.

Their bumbling Wormtail, Tag-along Peter, had transfigured the muggle's watches and belts in gunpowder, and set them aflame. Cunning, ruthless. Wormtail wasn't smart, not like that. He'd learned well from his master.

"It's the rat. He's -" The silencing charm hit him at the same time as a body-binding curse.

His head spun as the aurors roughly grabbed him. How? How could you, Wormtail?

Prongs, mate. I'm so sorry Prongs.


The cell was made of gray stone. Ten feet by ten.

On the floor rested a mattress, dry, self-cleaning, comfortable. The soft bedcovers adapted to outside temperature and were also self-cleaning. They became as rigid and heavy as stone if one tried to use them for anything but sleeping. There was a chair, a water tub that refilled when asked. A radio was stuck to one of the walls, playing various music stations. Sirius could choose and set the volume. The ceiling's light was also his to command.

Food would appear next to the chair, on a platter. It was bland and healthy. It didn't leave him full, it didn't leave him hungry. He left 'I'm innocent' in crumbs. It vanished and, hours later, a new platter, the same as the day before, appeared.

Physically, he wasn't uncomfortable, only, day after day, nothing happened.

Would Azkaban be this ? Perpetual silence ? Until when ? When was his trial to be?

There no life, not even a bug. He screamed himself hoarse hoping someone, anyone, would hear. He was desperate for books, parchment, for anyone to talk to.

Had they forgotten him here ?

On the twentieth day, Sirius' stomach cramped. He retched, violently, and belatedly realized his meal had been poisoned. Sudden weakness had him on his knees. Fever blurred his vision as he crouched in a fetal positon. When he heard a voice, he barely had the strength to turn his head.

"Surprise, maggot!" A man's voice, the first voice Sirius had heard since his arrested. "They're back. You lot let them breed, and now they're hungry. And we made sure to tell them they're free to feast in the Death Eater wing."

They. Dementors.

Cloaked abominations, not undead, not quite living, attacking in swarms. Sirius remembered Orlando Vance's dead eyes, the macabre slow dance of a body without a soul. They'd had to kill him, a blast to his spine, or watch him starve, everything that had been him already gone. He remembered the shattered windows and the thin sheet of ice covering, floors, walls and furniture, even the dinner left half eaten. Emmeline, cradling the lifeless small boy she'd thought would be safe at his grandparents'.

No. Please, no. "Destroy them," Sirius rasped. "Why don't you destroy them!"

"What, and risk killing ourselves with fiendfyre like your dark twat of an aunt? Nah. Ministry preferred to send them back here, to keep you company. Monsters aught to get along, no?"

Limbs shaking, Sirius tried to rise. He gasped for breath, struggling to keep his eyes open. The guard's vengeful laughter echoed in the corridor.

A few hours later, the poison had mostly left his body. He suddenly shivered. Mist began to form as he exhaled.


Sirius runs. He finds James first. Half of James. The kitchen collapsed on his leg. Half his face is glass shards. Lily's hair, her beautiful red hair, were almost all burned away in the blast. He fixes them.

Sirius had told them to switch. To switch for Peter.

His fault. This was all his fault.

Pain. So much pain. Black figures in silver masks. Avery, Rosier. Laughter and taunts.

"We won't get anything out of him. Let's just play with him until he dies. Then we'll leave the body for Dumbles to find."

"Or maybe we find him a friend. Hadn't you tracked down the McKinnons, Rosier?"

Sirius roared in his cell, swiping madly at the Dementor. His fist slammed against the bars. He barely felt the blossoming bruise as the out-of-reach creature trapped him in one of his worst nightmares.

Her. Silencing the laughter. Chasing the masked monsters away. Dragging him where they'd be alone.

"It's not working is it? Useless having you here."

He allows himself to think for a second he's... not saved, but protected. But Cousin Bella cocks her head and jabs her wand at him. "Crucio!" It burns, tears and stabs. It's different from the other Death Eaters' torture : more acute, and it doesn't crush. He can breathe. He can scream. He screams.

Sirius screamed. The Dementors feasted.

"Legilimens !"

Bellatrix sighs after a few seconds. She giggles. "Yes, useless. The secret dies with the secret Keeper. Has to be willingly shared... Cousin... why? Why give everything up just to be put on another leash? Look where it got you."

"They rescued me! They rescued me!" Sirius whimpered. But the Dementors never let those memories surface. Prongs would appear, dead and torn apart, before Sirius could manage to recall the feel of Minerva's fur against his bruised neck, the tug of the portkey that had saved his life.


Sirius gasped in pain as his ribs cracked. The stone floor was cold against his cheek, his torn robes filthy with sweat and now blood.

He tried to move as the kicks came, again and again.

"Listen to that swine squeal."

Sirius scoffed. It came out as a gurgle of drool and blood. "Where were you brave warriors during the war?"

He cried out when the guard stomped on his knee.

"Not so fun when you're the one at the receiving end, eh, Death Eater?"

He'd tried claiming his innocence, he'd tried begging, he'd tried taking it. Now he snapped back because the pain would be the same but at least he felt like he was fighting. Sometimes, his magic flared, but most of the time, it stayed dormant, stirring only to heal the worst of his wounds. He'd never practiced wandless casting beyond summoning his own wand. He'd never grown skilled enough in Dark Arts to let his feelings command his magic (and his magic command his feelings, no, he didn't regret that particular choice). He couldn't muster enough righteousness to wandlessly fight back.

He'd killed Prongs. He'd killed James and Lily.

Something warm trickled on his bruised shoulders. Something... Between shuddering gasps, Sirius realized the second guard was pissing on him.

Dead-brained knuckle-heads were assigned to Azkaban. The pay was better than anything else they could hope for, and these days, nobody cared when the wards monitoring the prisoners' physical health signaled a problem in what had become 'Death Eater corridor'.

The two men laughed as they left, leaving Sirius in agony and with a sense of dread. Because when the guards left, the dementors returned.


Regulus smiles. Regulus looks at him hopefully, asking to play.

Regulus is dead.

Regulus and Sirius chase each other around, laughing. Regulus hangs to Sirius' every word, eager to please.

Happy memories, turned into blades. Into mirrors of his worst shortcomings. But happy memories faded.

Regulus turns away, at six, at eight, at ten, when Sirius snaps at him. When Regulus is twelve, it's harder to see the hurt on his face. The bright-eyed hope is gone.

It was Sirius' fault. It's all Sirius' fault.

But Regulus' ghost doesn't survive long in Azkaban. As the happy memories dissolve, as Sirius forgets why he has failed his little brother, there are worse, much worse, nightmares.

Sirius can't breathe. His hands, a child's hands, claw at his face. There's no mouth. Mother's killing him. Killing him like he killed Mr. Allen. Regulus cracks the door to his room open and stares, guilt written all over his childish face. Sirius hates Regulus then.

This memory stayed.


During storms, Sirius could hear the waves crashing against Azkaban's thick stone walls. Multiple cracks let in the wind but no sunlight entered his cell. Days and nights blurred. When the wind turned cold and biting, he realized it had been more than a year.

Sirius groaned as pushed himself off the floor. Eighty-eight, Eighty-nine, Ninety. His muscles burned as he inflicted more push-ups than was reasonable on his exhausted body.

Few were the hours Sirius was not trapped in nightmares, and when respite came he felt the desperate need to feel his body, to anchor himself in the present. Perhaps there were better ways than brutal exercise, but it cleared his mind.

The wind turned cool, then warm, then cold again. Years. Sirius blinked unseeingly at the stone walls as it sunk in that he was beginning to count his time in here in years.

The dementors suddenly stopped coming so often. The guards were nowhere to be seen. The food was once more the same as the early days' fare. No more poisons or rotten meat. Nothing missing.

Sirius let himself believe things did have changed. After all, they'd won, hadn't they? They'd fought for a better world. Maybe Dumbledore hadn't had the time to take a look at Azkaban until now. He wasn't supposed to never leave his cell, isolated from the world. Even those condemned to life were supposed to be allowed to mingle at set hours, and speak to the occasional visitors. Sirius found himself crying from hope, and hating himself for it.

The new guard, Gibbon, was almost decent. Short, shout, no older than Sirius, and a quiet fellow. He would lend Sirius the Daily Prophet occasionally.

It had been exactly two years and five months.

"Still no trial for me?" Sirius asked one day. He didn't dare talk of Pettigrew. He'd never been trusting (no he had been, too trusting, and he'd gotten Prongs killed). So many Death Eaters had avoided Azkaban. They'd be fools not to have prison guards loyal to them, to keep anyone locked up from revealing anything... sensitive.

Gibbon wordlessly outstretched his arm, his hand almost brushing the bars. Sirius gave the wizard back the newspaper with a sigh.

"Your mum's been asking for a trial," the young auror finally said.

Bollocks, Dorea's dead. Sirius struggled to remember her voice, but her face he remembered vividly, ravaged by Dragon Pox the morning they'd found her dead.

Then Sirius realized Gibbon meant Walburga. "She has?" Of course, she thought he was a proper Death Eater now. A snort escaped Sirius' mouth. Oh, Mother, I love you so. "Well, here's to hope."

Nothing changed. Nobody came.

"Couldn't you get Moody to visit?" Sirius tried one day. "He trained me. I expected him to come shout at me, demand answers."

Gibbon eyed him shrewdly. "You think you can fool Moody?"

Moody had been a stubborn bastard. "Frank Longbottom then. More reasonable fellow."

"Black, the Longbottoms are in Saint Mungo's. Bellatrix Lestrange crucioed the sanity out of them after the Dark Lord's fall."

It hit him like a severing curse. Sirius grasped the bars not to loose his balance. "What? WHAT? She -" He'd known cousin Bella shared a corridor with him. They didn't see each other. He hadn't known -. Alice. Frank.

Something about Gibbon's expression suddenly chilled Sirius. "You're on his side, aren't you?"

Gibbon smiled thinly. "Those on Dumbledore's side wanted to pass your untimely death as an accident. The Dark Lord's servants still out there are laying low. It's not a good time to call in favors, Black."

Sirius just stared, his dark eyes dead. The one man acting half-decent in here thought he was guilty. They all believed him guilty.

Perhaps Dumbledore had decided Sirius deserved this. And didn't he?

Intentions were cheap. Lily and James were dead.


He would become Padfoot. Padfoot remembered the sleek short fur and antlers playfully shoving him aside. He remembered the wolf. The rat. They were family. No, not the rat, not anymore.

With thoughts of the wolf comes guilt. They'd thought Moony had chosen another family, one of wolves. Remus had crossed the Order, warning the werewolves. Moony had been so furious when he'd realized their short-time allies were to be sacrificed for the sake of a few hostages. 'How could you use them as pawns! How are we better than You Know Who!' He'd stood up for himself, fed up of being grateful just for being treated like a person. He'd demanded. He and Prongs should have been so proud of him. Instead, painfully aware there had to be a traitor in their midst, unnerved to see Moony so uncharacteristically angry, they'd let the Order convince them to push him aside. 'A precaution.'

Padfoot mourned.

Padfoot remembers the little one, waving and gurgling and smelling. So many smells. Grabby fingers had dug into his snout and explored his mouth. Giggles had followed his licks. Prongslet would crawl after him, matching Padfoot's barks with delighted cries that morphed into frustrated protests when Padfoot didn't let himself be caught. So Padfoot would slow and Prongslet, crawling energetically, would stand up as best he could and immediately let himself fall sprawled over Padfoot, grabbing fistfulls of fur.

He remembers her, pats and a warm voice (and a sharp voice, telling him off 'don't let Harry lick your fangs, it's not hygienic!' ''Please check that Harry doesn't lose his pants when you drag him around in the dirt?'). Her laughter had rung loud and often as they'd grown to know each other better.

Padfoot shuddered from the cold, his snout under his belly, his eyes shut. The smells dimmed, the sounds blurred, the laughter became muffled. Still, they couldn't hurt Padfoot like they hurt Sirius.


The years passed.

Sirius remembered Snivellus. He was glad for Snivellus. Petty memories of petty moments where Sirius had proven he hadn't shaken off his Black upbringing. All those memories he wasn't all that proud of : the Marauders' biggest flaws dragged to light by the Dementors' ethereal claws. But in those memories, there are Prongs and Moony (Wormtail isn't worth remembering). From those memories, he could make himself recall happier, more important moments.

Sirius laughed, a barking laugh tinged with madness, at the irony. Severus Snape, unwitting memory anchor, savior of his Hogwarts years.

Sirius would often speak to himself in his cell, telling himself stories of his own life, hoping he'd remember the words even as images and feelings were sucked away.


When the dementors didn't focus him, when it was just their mists that lingered, the unpleasant memories surfaced instead of the horrors. His mother's shouts instead of the war. Lily's disappointed gaze because he'd been a right arse, and not Molly Weasley's sobs as she stood before her brothers' graves.

'Get out. Just get out!'

'It's fixed, Lils! You're over-reacting to a cracked bone because you were raised muggle.'

'Right. I'm overreacting. Had it been his skull and not his shoulder, you can fix a brain?'

'I couldn't predict his accidental magic would make this toy broom accelerate like that!'

'Huh. Weird. Weren't you raised by very magical wizards, Mr. Black? Not like ignorant muggle me.'

James, who'd just stepped in to see what the argument was about, turned to stare at Sirius in outraged disbelief. 'You called her a what?'

Sirius blinked. Harry. How long had it been since -

He'd... he'd almost forgotten Prongslet.

Horrified, Sirius scrambled backwards until his back pushing against the edge of his cell. How – how could he have -. But how can he stop this? How could he prevent the best memories of the war to not be... happy. Harry wasn't there, in those nightmares of James' and Lily's bodies. Harry, alive, had been erased.

His godson. He couldn't forget his bloody godson !

"Harry!" Sirius bellows, tearing at his tangled, overgrown hair as he screamed his rage. "HARRY!"

Gibbon was years' gone. It's a new face at the end of the corridor. The young woman winced. That poor Potter kid. Good thing that deranged murdered was locked up.


He's at Hogwarts.

"He's at Hogwarts!" Sirius muttered constantly, to make sure he wouldn't forget.

Twelve years after his first day in Azkaban, Sirius remembered purpose.

He waited until the prison corridors were cold and empty. Padfoot was skinny enough to slink through the bars.

The water was cold, colder than dementors, as he swam to freedom, but for once his mind was empty from nightmares.

It's empty from a lot of other things. Things that should have been there.

Sirius preferred to stay Padfoot. Things were simpler as Padfoot. There weren't so many severed threads, so many questions without answers.

But some things were clear: Sirius was innocent. Wormtail had betrayed Lily and James.

All this pain, because of that rat.

Sirius was going to kill Peter Pettigrew.


1995 – 12, Grimmauld Place.

"Can you tell me more about you and Dad?"

Sirius swallowed. It's not that he didn't want to, only -

"He was popular, funny. Great at Quidditch." Such hollow words, as if Sirius was repeating hearsay. But Harry's eyes were bright and how could Sirius tell him? 'I don't remember. I don't remember why he's my best friend, or even how we became close. I remember Prongs' scent and the fall of his hoofs, I remember the thrill of chasing after him. I remember he was strong when he wrestled we but that I had to be careful with my fangs. He was family and home.'

Flashes remained. "He transfigured me into a Quaffle once, to smuggle me during practice. Friendly match with Ravenclaw. Should've seen their Keeper's face when she ended up with me in their arms." He wasn't sure it had been Ravenclaw. He remembered laughter, James' maybe. Shocked blue eyes and a girl's muscled arms awkwardly around him as she struggled to balance her broom. "I'd told him I'd give anything for that girl to hug me, see? She was hot." Complete bollocks. But it sounded like something they'd have done. Right?

But who cared about lies? Harry laughed, eyes shining. That's all that mattered.

"He was the best person I knew, cub. Not perfect, but my perfect, you know? Your friends aren't perfect, but they're yours."

Harry nodded with a smile. "Wouldn't know what do without them."

"Your mother, she was so stubborn, in a good way. Lily, she could've let it get to her, all that was being said, all that was happening to muggleborn. Instead, she fought to make the world she wanted, no matter what."

She'd used Dark Arts. She'd gone behind the Order's back. She'd sang to Harry while Padfoot lounged nearby. Sirius had teased her, of course : Lily Potter was brilliant in a thousand ways but in tune she was not. He'd teased a little too violently, and a little too early after she'd given birth : he'd made her cry, and the wretched stab of guilt that had spurred had saved the memory. 'My lovely mother had a beautiful singing voice, Lils. I much prefer listening to you.' She'd hugged him tightly, laughing in between sobs. 'Hormones, you know?'

The hows, the whys had been lost in Azkaban. But he would have died for them. He would still die for them. He often wished he had died for them.

Sirius slung his arm around Harry, trying to forget how well he remembered these walls. Even with that blasted portrait made silent, Walburga Black's screams echoed wherever he looked. The Ancient and Most Noble House of Black. Sirius' first nightmare.

"We were a family, Prongs, Lily, you and I. We're still a family, Harry." He grinned. "The best family. "

Harry's smile warmed him like few things could.

Sirius wished so desperately he could do better. The mirror showed him an old man, but he couldn't wrap his head around it. He'd not felt like a particularly mature 21 year old before Azkaban, and now he still felt like a twenty-something, only with a lot of holes.

But Harry looked up to him (and, bugger, what did such low expectations say about all those who should have cared for Prongslet?)

Asleep, his skinny body hidden under the covers, Harry was James' twin. Awake... James hadn't needed love. Harry... You wouldn't notice if you didn't look of course. Kids learned quickly when it was pointless to ask, and the less they were given, the more they made sure to not betray weakness. In those green eyes, Sirius saw himself, a less angry, more selfless himself. A less confident himself.

He'd failed them. He'd failed them all.

Sirius desperately wanted to get this right. He was terrified Harry would soon realize that he was only pretending to have a clue. That he was just a shadow of the man Prongs had made godfather.


When word came that Harry and his friends were in the Department of Mysteries, about to walk into a trap, they told him to stay behind.

But Sirius couldn't.

It's the one thing he remembered well, the war. He'd fought them, he'd killed them. Prongs had been by his side. Sirius had guarded him from the worst of curses. He'd been good at it.

He couldn't remember having been much good at anything else.

Prongslet was in danger. Sirius' place was at his side.

"Damn it, Black, you're staying -"

"I'm not your trainee anymore, Mad-Eye!" Sirius snapped. "You let me rot in there. You taught me, you saw me fight, you saw what they did to me, you knew me! And you let me rot!"

Moody blanched. Tonks, Arthur, Remus, they stayed silent. Everybody liked to pretend, that it was all forgiven, all fine. And Sirius had forgiven, mostly. He'd had to. You couldn't live choked by hate. He'd had no choice.

But he'd not let them keep him away from Harry. Not this time.

They didn't stop him.


Author's note

Canon doesn't state outright that Sirius had no interaction with other prisoners, and visits are possible since Bartemius Crouch managed to sneak out his son while his wife took Barty Jr's place, but I decided to assume that Death Eaters were kept heavily isolated because Dumbledore and the Ministry were afraid of a break out. Bartemius Crouch Sr. is important enough to break the rules.

My head-canon is that Dementors are too strong for wizards to destroy (sure, the more powerful wizards can hold their own, but Dementors are a couple of hundreds in canon can fight back and most wizards are defenseless against the creatures), so having them guard Azkaban is considered the lesser evil. Perhaps, in the Department of Mysteries, there's a task force trying to find a way to destroy them. Perhaps most wizards and witches think it's fair that criminals should relive their worst memories over and over.

Next chapter will probably span over the same time-period, only from Bellatrix's point of view. Then I plan to reunite what remains of the Black clan after the second war.