He was not a murderer.
He was not a traitor.
Everyone in the wizarding world thought he had betrayed his friends. Everyone thought he had told Voldemort where they were hiding. Everyone thought he was a mass murderer who carelessly slew muggles in a street.
He was framed.
He was betrayed by someone he thought he could trust.
But Peter Pettigrew was dead now. As were James and Lily. Little Harry was orphaned and left in the care of his muggle relatives. And he was stuck in a jail—unanimously proclaimed guilty and locked away for life to rot in a prison cell.
The days passed slowly. Soon he hardly knew when a day passed or when it was night. Soon he hardly recognized the passage of time, only the passage of Dementors as they floated by his cell, sucking his sanity and his happiness away.
All around them, prisoners died. Some went insane. Some stopped eating and starved to death. And when they died, they were buried in the graveyard and became just one of many souls unmourned.
One by one, his good memories slipped away. Anything that ever gave him just the tiniest sliver of happiness were pulled away from him and sucked into the dark, depressing vortexes that were the Dementors.
One face plagued him as time worn on.
One face plagued his dreams.
He was beginning to forget the feeling of her in his arms. He was beginning to forget what her smile looked like. He scrambled to remember but the more he tried to remember, the more he forgot her.
Sirius was afraid he would forget everything except her expressions whenever they fought. That was not the only thing he wanted to recall of her.
He had no willpower to talk to those surrounding him. They were criminals; they were deranged souls who deserved to be here. Some of them spoke in their sleep—crazy, deranged mumblings of depraved minds. He did not want to be reduced to that.
The woman in the cell across from him had murdered her two children. Every day, she'd pace around her cell and scold the empty air as if her children were there. Sometimes, she sang lullabies to put her imaginary children to sleep.
The woman in the cell to his right did nothing all day. She made no noise and hardly even moved. Every other prisoner shivered or at least acknowledged the passing of the Dementors in some way whenever they floated past, but not her.
She was tiny and very thin. The bones and veins in her hand popped against her pale skin. The woman seemed so fragile.
All day, she sat on her cot and stared off into space; her long hair covered her face. She only moved to eat her food at mealtime, to reposition herself as she sat all day, and to sleep.
Their cots were next to each other; the only thing separating them were the bars of their cells. She always lay on her side, facing away from him. He'd never seen her face seen he arrived.
The man in the cell to his left usually spent some of his day yelling at the woman on Sirius' right. He kept trying to get her to speak, kept trying to learn her crime. When the woman did not answer after a while, he always gave up. The man, who Sirius learned had murdered his entire family after he was convinced they cheated at chess, took to muttering pub songs and sea shanties under his breath afterward.
Sirius had no wish to talk to any of his surrounding neighbors.
Until he saw her face.
It was a simple matter of the woman brushing the hair back from her face. That singular motion caught his eye and dragged his attention to her.
He recognized her instantly and damn near flew across the cell to grip the bars tightly as he peered into her cell.
"Adelia?" he whispered, hardly able to believe he hadn't lost his mind.
The woman did not move at the sound of his voice.
"Adelia?" Her lack of response did not cause his hope to falter; he had not felt such an emotion in the longest of times. Hope had sprung in his chest and he would not let it die. "Adelia Snape?"
Her head moved a fraction of an inch.
"H-haven't heard that…in a while." she murmured. Her voice was gravely, probably from disuse.
"Adelia." he whispered her name like it is a secret only he knew. He had not seen her in years. Her eyes slid over to look at him.
"Do you remember me?" he whispered.
"Sirius Black." she coughed out and his heart soared. She remembered him. "Mass murderer of muggles."
"No!" he yelled and she flinched at the volume. Dropping his voice, he continued, "That's not…you remember me, right?" she made no moment, no flash of recognition and the hope that had flared in his chest began to quiver and fade. His hope was dying. "Adelia," he said in a stronger voice, "Look at me," he commanded, reaching in between the bars to extend his hand to her. "You remember me, right?"
She did not even look at his hand before turning away and lying down on her side to go to sleep. He watched her for a moment before sighing and retracting his hand.
He would have to try again tomorrow. Meanwhile, he could not prevent himself from glancing over at her every other moment. She was so close; the only thing that kept him away were the bars.
"Do you remember me, Adelia?" he asked as she stirred awake.
"Mass murderer." she said with a shrug.
"No!" he was getting frustrated—it had been days, or at least he thought it had been days— and she did not remember him still. "Adelia come on."
She did not remember him, was he really that forgettable?
"I nearly killed you in your first year. I put spiders in your bag. I turned you green. I humiliated your brother. I nearly killed your brother! Do you not even remember the bad things?" Adelia turned slowly to look at him, but it was a vacant stare that swept across his features.
"Do you remember…do you remember when you got that letter, about your mum? And we went to the kitchen for hot chocolate? I kissed you. Do you remember that?" But she just kept staring at him.
"You used to come to my home for dinner and my mum was a right bitch to you and could never remember your name, Adelia. And you saw her slap me and I saw your bruises. And…and you slept with my brother. Adelia, you have to remember me." he whispered through the bars.
"That's…that's not…"
"That's not what, Adelia?" he said, his heart racing
"Don't call me that." she hissed at him; her eyes flashed once, like a sparkler, before fading. "I don't have a name, not in here. You lose that. You become just another face behind the bars."
"Adelia." he persisted, feeling that if he lost this argument, he would lose her.
"Stop."
"Adelia."
"Shut up!" she demanded, recovering her ears with her hands.
"Adelia, come on. Remember me." he pleaded.
"I don't want to." she hissed.
"Why?" he demanded. "I meant something once! You still mean something to me!" he confessed softly. "Adelia—"
She whipped her head over to glare at him as she seethed, "I blamed you. I thought I could count you and I thought you let me down…that you failed me by being everything Sev—Severus said you were."
"Adelia—"
"But I failed me…I let myself do this." she whispered.
"It's not your fault."
"I killed him. I let that anger take over."
"No…no. I— You're not a murderer. Do they even know?"
"Know what?"
"Know about what he did to you—"
"No. I killed my father, Sirius. I took his life. I could do it again. You were right…I belong in Slytherin…this has always been inside of me…"
"No! I was wrong! I was wrong about everything. I was wrong about you. You…I never should have let you go."
"It's too late for that."
"No, its not!"
"Yes—"
"No. I'm…I'm getting out of here. And I'm taking me with you."
"You'll die escaping."
"It's either die trying to get out or waste away in here. I'm not letting that happen to me and I'm not letting it happen to you."
"It's too late for that!" she hissed. I've already been in here too long—"
"No—"
"I didn't have anything to hold onto, okay? They took everything. They— It's already too late."
"Stop saying that!"
"I'm going to die in here. And I need it to end soon. I don't care if they suck out my soul or if I starve, I can't take his voice anymore."
"Whose voice? What are you talking about?"
"My dad's."
"Stop. Don't listen to him." he whispered. "Ignore him. He's wrong."
She just shook her head. "I know he's not. He's right."
"Adelia—"
"Get out of here as soon as you can," she whispered, turning toward him and wrapping her hands on the bars that separated them. "Before you're too far gone."
"You aren't yet, I know it."
She just shook her head. "Life sentences here are pointless. Most don't last more than a few years. You get trapped inside your mind here. All of your demons and monsters attack you and you can't…you can't get away, Sirius." his chest tightened as the syllables of his name slipped between her lips. "This place destroys your soul. It disintegrates. It floats away. Becomes nothing. And then you fade into the background, becoming nothing yourself."
"Not you. Just hold on. I'll get us out of here." he swore. "I'll help you like I should have before."
Adelia just shook her head. "It's too late." she whispered as she lay down on her back to sleep. He mimicked her position in silence, staring up at the ceiling before he stuck his hand in between the bars.
His hand lay next to her, the spaces in between his fingers empty for what seemed like an eternity before her cold grasp clasped his hand back.
"I'm sorry," he whispered into the darkness amid the mumbles and mutters of their fellow criminals. "I never should have let you go."
He could hear her shallow breathing. "I'm sorry I slept with your brother." came her reply.
The defeat in her voice scared him; scared him so much that he wanted to cry. "It doesn't matter anymore." he murmured. He fought himself for a moment, unsure of whether or not he should admit it.
"I am in love with you." he swore. "Since the first time I saw you. Always will be." he promised.
Adelia Snape was silent for a moment; her silence chilled him to the bone. Her grasp was tight on his hand.
"You could not have saved me. You couldn't have saved me from him or from this—" she stopped talking abruptly; he worried that was all she had to say.
"Sirius?" his name leaving her lips caused shivers up and down his spine.
"Yes, Adelia?" he whispered, heart thumping with hope that he was afraid she would kill.
"I'm in love with you too." He heard her let out a shaky breath and he knew she was crying.
What scared him most that night was not the Dementors passing by nor was it the chill in the air or the ravings of those who surrounded them. What scared him most was how he felt as though she was saying goodbye.
He awoke cold and shivering; most importantly, she was no longer holding his hand. Glancing over, he moved with a start. A Dementor had her trapped in the far corner of her cell.
"Adelia!" he yelled, slamming his hands against the bars, trying to stop the creature's path as it moved closer and closer to her. "Get away from her!" he yelled.
But it was no use. Adelia looked at him out of the corner of her eye and he knew she was trying to tell him it was alright.
"Stop!" he called out, desperate to save her as he never had been able to before.
The Dementor bent over her and clamped its over hers. Sirius found he could not look away as the monster sucked away her shell. And when it was done, he could do nothing expect stare at her limb body as it lay on the cold ground.
She was not dead. Adelia Snape was, rather, a shell of her former self; she was a living vegetable—although she was hardly living.
He could say nothing as the Dementor glided out of her cell; workers came and carried her away. Within days someone new in her cell.
Anyone who was awake, and sane enough to understand what had happened, swore that she was trying escape. That she tried to escape and got caught. They said it happened all the time. Prisoners just go insane, lose their minds, and try to escape. They always got caught.
But he knew better. She was not escaping. She was giving up. Adelia Snape could not take her father's voice in her mind. She could not take it any longer. It drove her insane and she thought death was better.
Sirius Black had nothing to do except sit in his cell and mourn the loss of the girl he loved. Nothing to do except remember her face, the way she lay lifeless on the ground, the way her hand held his hand, the way she said his name and that she loved him, and the way she said goodbye.
The End.