Author's Note: Okay, so this chapter was a bit difficult to write and I'm really hoping that what I was trying to do comes across relatively coherently. Pay close attention to the italicized text vs. the non-italicized text to keep track of what is real and what is not. And keep in mind that the lines between the two are beginning to blur. Please don't forget to review and let me know what you think!


Chapter Six

July 12, 1982
Azkaban Prison: Day 253


"Get too near a Dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory will be sucked out of you. If it can, the Dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself…soulless and evil. You'll be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life."
- Remus Lupin


James' eyes had been open when he found him dead in the entryway of his home. His glasses had fallen off and skidded away at some point during his final confrontation, leaving his hazel eyes looking more naked and vulnerable than usual. Pupils were fixed and dilated. He had seemed frozen in the moment that he realized he was going to die, his eyes wide and his features set in a look of surprise and fear.

James had been afraid to die.

"No… no… p-please…"

"They're a bunch of cheats!" James was raging, angrier than Sirius had ever seen him before.

Sirius was looking up at James from where he lay on the ground, in immense pain from a shattered shoulder and a concussion from two simultaneous cheap shots on the Quiddich Pitch. To this day, Sirius can't quite recall exactly what had happened, only that he had been knocked clear off his broom, and if not for James' quick thinking to swoop in and grab the back of his robes before he hit the ground, he could have been much worse off.

Through his blurred vision, Sirius could see several of their teammates holding James back from storming across the field to where the Slytherin team was gathered. Outrage was flowing off of him in waves. "No way was any of that legal! We should have a rematch!"

"The mini Black caught the Snitch before Hooch blew the whistle," came a depressed voice.

"And I suppose he wasn't at all concerned that his bloody teammates could have killed his brother with that dangerous play!" James shouted so that he could be heard clearly by the Slytherins gathering on the other side of the Pitch. "They could have broken his neck if he hadn't swerved at the last second!"

Memories overwhelmed him in a rush, so much so that he couldn't tell one memory from another – James nudged him in the Great Hall after a successful prank as they both laughed – as they all blended together. At eleven years old, James had become family to Sirius – "You are not like the rest of your family mate. You are better than them. You don't need them. You've got us." – more so than his own biological family had ever been to him growing up. They were brothers not by something as accidental blood – "I've got you, Sirius. I've got you, brother." –but by choice. Sirius always found that to be a more powerful bond than any he had ever had before.

Sirius gasped like a drowning man. Why was it suddenly so hard to breath?

Lily's eyes had been closed when he had found her. He could suddenly see that in painful clarity. At a glance, it could have been said that she looked like she was simply sleeping. But the longer he had looked at her, the more unnatural the scene seemed. There was a tension in her features, frozen there from her last moments. She had lay sprawled on the floor of the nursery, her last act in life to try and protect her infant son.

The silence in that room when Sirius had stood there, staring down at her lifeless body, had been horrific, seeming to push in on him from all sides. Hagrid had already taken Harry away, refusing to give the child to his godfather. Looking back, Sirius figured that was probably for the best. How could he possibly take care of a baby? How could he possibly be good enough to care for the child when it was his fault his parents were dead?

Sirius was aware of water hitting his hands before he was aware that he was crying.

A small voice in the back of his head told him that he could have done it. If Hagrid had handed Harry over to Sirius, he would not have walked into that house with the child. He would not have seen James and Lily's bodies, would not have taken off in a rage, ready to murder the person who had done this to them. Perhaps it would have been the motivation he would have needed to fight for his freedom and clear his name. However, that small voice dulled in comparison to the one that told him that he could never be a good enough parent to James and Lily's son.

He hoped that Dumbledore had found a good home for Harry to grow up in. Perhaps Remus had taken him in. That was a comforting thought. It was quickly stolen away from him though and replaced with the image of Lily Potter's dead form. Comforting thoughts were fleeting in this place.

The Killing Curse was a funny thing. There was no blood, no gruesome dismemberment; it left no real trace of what had killed the person. Yet, as he could clearly see Lily's dead form in his mind's eye, it was painfully obvious that there was nothing left but an empty shell, the soul and spirit that had made up his friend was completely gone.

Sirius choked on a sob as he buried his head in his arms.

Lily and Sirius hadn't gotten off to the best start – "Black, you arrogant git!" – in the early years of school. "Evans, you are looking particularly hostile today." But by the time they had graduated, they had formed a bond that was unique from any of the other Marauders. Sirius and Lily understood complications with family better than the others, and that was something that had brought them together and helped them to forge a strong friendship. By the end, she was as much family to him as James was.

"She… she calls me a freak," Lily said quietly, her voice shaking. A single tear streaked down her cheek. Annoyed, she brushed it away. "I know I shouldn't let it bother me."

"It's hard not to, though," Sirius finished. "When someone's supposed to love and care for you unconditionally, it's hard to tell yourself that it's not anything you've done."

Lily nodded. "I always thought that she would get used to the idea," she went on. "I understand that she was confused and upset when I first got my Hogwarts letter, but I thought that over time she would learn to be okay with it. But she's only gotten worse. We used to be close, you know? And now we've never been more distant." She paused. Then she went on, speaking so softly that Sirius had to lean in to hear her properly. "Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if I had refused the invitation to go to school here."

After a minute of silence, Sirius finally spoke. "I sometimes wonder what my life would be like if I had demanded that the Sorting Hat put me in Sytherin," he told her.

"Really?" Lily asked.

Sirius nodded solemnly. "And while that would have made my family happy, I would have been miserable." He paused to let the thought sink in. "Just like you would have been if you had never come to Hogwarts."

"STOP!" Sirius suddenly shouted. "Stop it, just please stop it!"

It was bad enough to be plagued by his unpleasant memories. But more and more he found that he was also haunted by memories that he used to have pleasant associations with. That had been the memory of the night that his friendship with Lily had started, when they had first opened up to each other and learned that they were more alike than they had thought. But he couldn't look back on that memory with fondness anymore. Just like any of his other memories that involved his friends, they all cut him with the reminder of what he had lost.

And he couldn't help but believe that the moment that anyone decided to be his friend was the moment that they doomed themselves to their terrible fate.

"Miss Evans came to see me. She's concerned about you."

"Concerned about me, Professor McGonagall?"

"As I understand it, there was an incident in Diagon Alley this past summer?"

"No! Please! Just make it stop!" Sirius shouted.

"It's never going to stop!" Sirius was pretty sure that statement came from someone outside of his own head. With most of the rest of the prisoners around him all lost within their own heads, it was often difficult to remember that anyone else in the world existed. He had long ago stopped caring what others heard from him anyway. He felt like he had lost the capacity to care about anything outside of his own cell.

"Fancy seeing you here, Evans."

"Shove off, Black."

It was the normal type of exchange between Lily and Sirius just before they started their fourth year, before they were particularly friendly with each other. It was all in good fun though since Sirius wasn't in the middle of pulling any pranks that Lily disapproved of. They had run into each other in Diagon Alley in passing and would have just parted ways and left it at that if not for what happened next. Despite the fact that it started off as such a normal exchange, it was the day things began to change between them.

"Sirius. Do not speak to a Mudblood in public. It is beneath you." His father had come up behind him.

Lily had been horrified. But not half as horrified as Sirius had been.

"Do not call her that!" Sirius had shouted, whirling on his father.

CRACK!

It took him a moment to realize what had happened when his head snapped to one side and he was left blinking stupidly. His father had smacked him across his face, right there in the middle of Diagon Alley. Sirius' cheek was still stinging; indicating what kind of force had been put behind the blow.

"You will show me respect, boy," he had said matter-of-factly, like nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.

The look of shock and pity that Lily had given him that day was still seared into his memory.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I never wanted to be like them. I never wanted to hurt you." Lily's image faded, replaced by James'. "I never meant for this to happen." James' image, in turn faded, and suddenly he saw Remus, bruised and bleeding just after a transformation. Sirius was only vaguely aware of his own fingernails suddenly digging into his skull. When he spoke again, his voice came out as little more than a whisper. "I'm sorry..."

"You never think things through!" Remus was shouting at him. "Do you have any idea what you could have done!?"

Remus had Sirius pinned up against the wall in the Gryffindor common room. Sirius had never seen him so angry before, and he couldn't help but shrink away from the rage he saw in his friend's eyes. Rage that was directed solely at him. He was acutely aware of everyone in the Gryffindor common room staring at them. He wished that Remus had at least shown him mercy enough to have this out in the privacy of their dormitory instead of down here in front of everyone.

"Moony, I'm—"

"No!" Remus cut him off. "No, you don't get to just apologize and think everything is fixed! What you did is unforgivable! I trusted you!" It was like all of the air had been sucked out of Sirius' lungs. "And you betrayed me!"

Then suddenly, Remus wound up and punched Sirius in the face. Hard. Sirius had been taken so off guard that he yelped as his head snapped back and collided with the wall behind him.

Sirius cried out as his head jerked backwards from an imagined blow, slamming into the stonewall of his cell with enough force to cause him to see spots.

Remus' fist went back, ready for another blow, but someone stopped him.

"That's enough, Remus," came James' cold voice. "He's not worth busting your knuckles over."

Those words were worse than any beating that Remus would have dealt.

Suddenly, Remus and James were gone, and without anyone holding him up, Sirius found himself sliding down the wall until he hit the floor. His eyes were wide and staring straight ahead, but he couldn't seem to comprehend anything he was seeing. Remus had always been the levelheaded one of the group; he wouldn't so much as hurt a fly. And yet, here Sirius sat, blood trickling down from his nose, his face throbbing from the force behind the blow.

He had caused Remus to break.

Sirius let out an animalistic screech, shattering the memory. He couldn't take it anymore. He couldn't do this. He wasn't strong enough. How could anyone endure this kind of torture for years on end?

It was getting harder to breath. Spots danced across his vision and suddenly his cell seemed to be blurring in and out of focus. He suddenly wondered when the last time he had anything to eat or drink. He had lost all concept of time and the subtleties between night and day had been lost to him weeks ago.

Glancing around his cell, he was just able to focus on the tray of unidentifiable food that sat over by the barred door. Sirius eyed it wearily. He didn't like the idea of crawling closer to the Dementor just outside of that door in order to get the sustenance. Even without the Dementor, he wasn't sure he had the strength just to cross the small cell.

More than that, he just wasn't sure he really cared enough to try.

He leaned back, letting his head fall back against the wall behind him. He was vaguely aware of the dull ache in his skull from the earlier collision. Was it his imagination, or did the back of his head suddenly feel wet and sticky? How hard had he hit his head before? He was suddenly aware of strange tremors that were running through his body. Something wasn't right. He knew that for certain, but he was having a hard time conjuring up a reason to care.

His eyes sagged. He didn't fight the darkness that clawed at him. Perhaps if he simply gave in, he wouldn't wake up again.

He could only hope.


Author's Note: Credit where credit is due. The Diagon Alley scene was inspired by a post that I saw on Tumblr. If you are interested, PM me and I can direct you to it. Also, the conversation between Lily and Sirius where they are talking about their families was actually taken directly out of one of my recent one shots. So if you would like to read that entire scene, please check out my story called Smoke and Mirrors.

Please review and let me know what you think!