Sirius spent his time in Azkaban in an endless dark haze, struggling to hold onto his life and sanity and everything that made him who he was. The Dementors tore at him every second of every day, lusting after his soul and any spark of happiness that remained within him. It was enough to make most wizards want to give in and die, but Sirius had enough unhappy reasons to survive, reasons the Dementors didn't bother to steal from him—Remus alone and friendless, Harry stuck with the Dursleys, Peter alive and free—and so he fought on, knowing that he couldn't give up until he'd set things right. He owed his Marauders that much.
His Animagus abilities, still unknown to the Ministry, helped him to preserve at least some fragments of himself: when he transformed into his dog, the pull of the Dementors was slightly easier to bear, since the animal parts of his canine brain were much less vulnerable to their influence. But his body wasn't nearly as strong; as the time passed it began to waste away, losing its fat and muscle and becoming so frail he trembled when he stood. His formerly lustrous hair become dull and matted, growing down until it nearly reached his waist. There were no mirrors in the dark, featureless cell in which Sirius was kept, but he was glad for it: the sight of his reflection alone would probably be enough to convince him to hand his soul over to the Dementors.
Every once in a while, Sirius would have a human visitor, almost always an official from the Ministry coming to oversee Azkaban's operations. Each time he heard footsteps approaching his door, so distinct from the silent gliding of the Dementors, he would feel a brief burst of hope that Remus had come to see him, to hear his side of the story once and for all. But Remus never showed—why would he, when he thought that Sirius was the one who had gotten all his friends killed? He likely wouldn't have been allowed inside the prison anyway. But still the hope came, too strong and sudden for even Dementors to snuff out. It only made it worse each time a scowling bureaucrat strode into his cell instead.
One day (or night or evening; Sirius had no way of telling), he received three visitors from the Ministry: two burly guards with lanterns flanking a man with sharp eyebrows and a green bowler hat. The man's eyes narrowed when they fell on Sirius, his mouth curling with displeasure.
Sirius didn't rise from where he crouched in the corner of his cell. "Who are you?" he asked, his voice flat and raspy from lack of use. "Someone important, I presume?"
The man blinked; like Sirius's previous visitors, he was taken aback by his relative clear-headedness. "I am Cornelius Fudge," he replied after a moment. "Britain's current Minister for Magic."
"Very important, then," Sirius muttered. "Whatever happened to Bagnold? Suppose she got too old for the job."
"Why…yes, Minister Bagnold has retired," Fudge said, shifting uncomfortably. As he did, Sirius spotted a rolled-up newspaper sticking out of the back of his robes. His heart rate picked up at the sight of it.
"Is that a copy of the Prophet?" he wondered. "Are you finished with it, by any chance? I've missed doing the crosswords."
"Oh." Blinking again, Fudge pulled out the paper and unrolled it. "Er…I suppose I am. Nothing…nothing too interesting to report today, I'm afraid." He glanced quickly between his guards and Sirius, then slowly lowered the paper to the ground in front of him. Then he turned and left with his men, fleeing from the cell and its infamous, still-sane prisoner as quickly as he could.
As soon as the door had shut, Sirius scrambled over and squinted at the paper in the dim light, clutching it close to his face to read it. He had never once filled out a crossword in the Daily Prophet—what he was really interested in was printed right beneath the header: 29 July, 1993. It was the first time he'd seen the date since he'd arrived in Azkaban.
He let out a breath as he processed it. 1993. He'd been in prison for nearly twelve years. It didn't surprise him; two years or twenty could have passed for all he knew. 1993…. He was thirty-three years old, then, and his godson was only days away from turning thirteen…he'd be about to start his third year at Hogwarts….
An image further down on the page caught his eye then, a picture of a large wizarding family standing in front of a pyramid and waving eagerly at the camera. It was Arthur and Molly Weasley's family; their oldest son had been the ring bearer at James and Lily's wedding. He was the long-haired twenty-something in the back, Sirius assumed, wearing a slightly self-assured smirk that reminded Sirius painfully of himself. Beside him stood a younger boy with a plump rat perched on his shoulder.
Sirius went tense. He squinted harder at the picture. He knew that rat—he knew it as well as he knew James's stag or Remus's wolf, as well as he knew himself. It was Peter.
"No," he whispered. "No." Frantically he scanned the article beneath the picture: The Weasley family…returning for the start of the new school year at Hogwarts…. They were going to be at Hogwarts—Peter was going to be at Hogwarts—and so was Harry…Peter would be in the perfect position to strike and kill him as soon as it served to benefit him, and Harry had no idea….
Sirius let out a noise that was halfway between a cry and a scream, balling the paper up in his hands. It was an ingenious plan, something that he never would have considered Peter smart enough to think up; but he had underestimated his old friend for far too long, and so many people had already lost their lives for it.
But Harry wasn't going to lose his. Sirius was going to save him—he hadn't been able to save James and Lily, but he could still save their son.
"He's at Hogwarts," he breathed into his hands.
Somehow, Sirius had to get himself there, too.
He's at Hogwarts, he's at Hogwarts…. The thought circled through Sirius's mind again and again, sticking with him even more fiercely than the desolation and despair of the Dementors. It was terrible, but it was also a blessing: Sirius had always been determined to endure, but only now, so many years later, was he finally able to summon up enough motivation to act. No one had ever escaped from Azkaban before, but no one else had ever had Sirius's mind and dog and steely will. If anyone could do it, it was him.
He spent the next two days refusing all the food that was offered to him, growing as thin as he could until he was little more than a shadow. Then, one time when a Dementor guard cracked open his cell door to deliver his next meal, he slipped out through the narrow opening in his dog form and into the winding dark corridor beyond. The Dementor didn't notice; Dementors couldn't see, and they'd always found it difficult to sense his thoughts when he wasn't human. Still, the corridors were filled with their ghostly forms, and their proximity alone made it agonizingly difficult for Sirius to continue on with his escape. You can't do this, his thoughts hissed at him. You're going to make things worse, just like you always do.
But dog-Sirius was much better at ignoring the thoughts than human-Sirius, so continue on he did: he found a door leading down into a stairwell and tugged it open with his teeth, taking the stairs down flight after flight until he reached the ground floor of the tower. Then he followed the scents of fish and sea salt to find the outer walls of the maze-like building, eventually stumbling upon a window letting in weak rays of light from the setting sun.
Sirius backed up until he reached the opposite wall, waited for a pair of Dementors to glide by, then ran for the window and leapt through it, its glass shattering instantly and tearing through his flesh. The pain hardly bothered him, though—he was used to so many worse kinds of it by now.
He landed on the rocky stretch of land that circled the prison and ran for the waves lashing against its shoreline. The Dementors did not seem to have registered his escape, but he knew he still had to hurry—inevitably someone would, and soon he'd have the whole wizarding world in pursuit of him.
Sirius dove into the water and swam against the pull of the tides, following the setting sun west towards the mainland. It was far away, he knew—he still remembered how long the boat ride had been to Azkaban—but if he'd managed to survive twelve years with the Dementors, he could survive this.
He swam and swam as the night darkened around him, his atrophied muscles aching in protest with each stroke. The water of the North Sea was cold despite the summer air, and its salt stung at his wounds from the glass window. He struggled to keep his head above the crests of the waves as his body screamed at him to stop, to sink below…better to drown under the stars than waste away in Azkaban, at least….
And then he spotted something unmoving among the waves ahead: rocks, a tiny island of them. Sirius pushed himself towards them, using the last of his strength to heave himself up onto solid ground. The rocky island was small, only about ten feet in diameter, but the respite it offered likely had saved Sirius's life.
After a few minutes of lying sprawled across the rocks, soaked to the bone and shivering, Sirius dared at last to change back into his human self. He pulled himself slowly to his feet, stumbling to find leverage amongst the slippery rocks, and peered across the ocean at Azkaban's tower. Now that he had put enough distance between himself and the Dementors, he could no longer feel the sickening, life-draining influence of their presence; his soul felt lighter than it had in over a decade. As he tilted back his head towards the stars, feeling the sea breeze whip through the thick tangles of his hair, he felt something almost like happiness. He was free—he was going home.
Eventually he spun around to face the opposite direction, where a dark mass of land stood silhouetted against the churning horizon. It wasn't too far away now, he realized; with a few more hours of rest and maybe a couple of fish in his stomach, he'd be able to make it. He was so, so close to all of it, Remus and Harry and Peter.
"I'm coming back," he whispered into the wind. "Just like I said I would."
Finally, everyone was going to learn the truth.
