Chapter Seven

December 8th, 1982
Azkaban Prison: Day 401


"Most go mad in there, and plenty stop eating in the end. They lose the will to live. You could always tell when a death was coming, because the Dementors could sense it, they got excited."

- Sirius Black


Sometimes he honestly wondered why he was still alive.

It was disturbing the number of prisoners who died here. Even on the lower levels that were supposed to be less intensely patrolled by the Dementors, people seemed to give up with increasing frequency. Whispers would travel up through the prison, passed from inmate to inmate, when the Dementors removed a corpse from a cell. It was usually enough to sober the entire atmosphere of the prison, even the maddest of prisoners seeming to quiet in respect for the passing soul.

It was odd to think of criminals respecting the dead, but the truth was that they all knew that could very well be their own fate as well.

It almost seemed too easy to just let it end. Most of the ones who passed did so of their own choice. They stopped feeding themselves, stopped drinking the water provided and would simply waste away. Sirius knew full well that the option was there. The Dementors didn't care if the inmates consumed their rations or not. In fact, they almost seemed to enjoy the task of removing the bodies, as Sirius had noticed that more Dementors than were strictly necessary would gather at the cell of the deceased.

He wondered vaguely how long it takes to die like that. A week? Maybe more? That wasn't so long in the grand scheme of things, he often mused. He knew he had been here for over a year now, able to estimate the date by studying the sky through the bars of his window on clearer nights thanks to all of those astronomy lessons that had been instilled in him since he was a small child. He had turned twenty-three years old fairly recently and there was no end to his sentence in sight. He could live like this for another sixty years or more… or he could end it in a week or so. It seemed like such an easy decision to make.

So why was he still here?

It was a question he didn't have an answer to. But it was something that he had been contemplating with increasing frequency lately.

He was lying on the lumpy cot in his cell, staring vacantly up at the ceiling, letting memories and voices wash over him like white noise. A plate of what passed for food here lay untouched by the door of his cell. He wasn't completely sure how long it had been there or when the last time he moved from this spot. It was a rare time when the Azkaban was relatively quiet, with only a few shrieks coming up from the lower levels. He was almost afraid to move, almost afraid that somehow he would disturb the rare quiet if he moved around too much.

Something was shifting in the atmosphere outside of his cell. He was unconcerned by this for several minutes, finding that it was often difficult to really care about what went on outside of his four walls these days. As long as the Dementors weren't coming into his cell, he found that he was less and less interested in when and why the creatures were going into other people's cells.

Even when coherent voices were making their way up the passageway, Sirius wasn't aware that anything was really off. He was too busy trying not to feel anything at all, that he was unaware of the hush that was falling over the prison that went beyond the quiet he had just been feeling grateful for.

"Would you move out of my way," an angry voice demanded. "Just… just move! Get out of here. We deserve a little privacy."

Sirius found his eyes traveling toward his cell door, noting vaguely that the Dementor was moving away. He knew that was odd, but curiosity was still slow to make its way into his brain. Still, something about that voice struck something within him.

"Trial? We don't need to waste time and energy on a trial for this lunatic. There was an entire street of Muggle witnesses who all said the same thing!"

"Yes, but proper protocol dictates—"

"Forget about protocol. This man does not deserve that. I am authorizing his transfer to Azkaban Prison first thing in the morning. The sooner we put him away and throw away the key, the better. It will give the public peace of mind to see this man locked away as soon as possible."

"Yes, Mr. Crouch."

Sirius was suddenly sitting up, but he didn't remember how he had gotten to that point. His eyes were trained on the cell door, now more aware that the Dementor had moved away as a figure passed by. No… it wasn't a figure. As Sirius' eyes adjusted and his mind started catching up to what was happening, he realized it was two figures. They had passed his cell before he could really ascertain anything other than that though.

Sirius pushed himself to his feet and stumbled toward the barred door. He pushed himself up against the metal in order to see up the passageway. The figures had stopped just a few cells down from his, the larger figure with one arm around the smaller one almost as if he could shield it from what was around them. From the smaller figure, he could hear a whimper that sounded distinctly feminine. Sirius narrowed his eyes as he studied the strange scene, unsure what was going on.

"You have a lot of courage, coming in here, Crouch," called Rabastan Lestrange from his cell on the opposite wall of the prison.

So he wasn't mistaken. Barty Crouch, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, stood within the walls of Azkaban Prison. But what could he possibly be doing in here? And who was the smaller, frail looking figure that was with him?

"Come to check on little Barty Jr.?" came a mocking female voice. It took him a moment to recognize that it was Bellatrix speaking. He hadn't heard her speak in several weeks. Her tone had a very strange cadence to it that almost made it sound like she was on the verge of singing a nursery rhyme. It made her sound much more deranged than she usually did. "Don't worry your pretty little head, we've been taking good care of him." Then she laughed manically.

And suddenly it clicked.

Sirius had watched the young man dragged in here a year ago, screaming that he was innocent of his supposed crimes. He had heard other inmates yell at him when he was screaming in his sleep, and because of that he knew that his name was Barty. It wasn't until this moment, as he watched Barty Crouch waiting for the Dementor to unlock the young man's cell, that he realized exactly who this boy was.

It was Barty Crouch Jr. He was the son of the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

Crouch glared at Bellatrix's cell, but did not respond to her. By that time, the Dementor had gotten the door to the younger Crouch's cell open and Crouch turned away, leading the other figure into the cell.

"Is he being released?" Sirius couldn't identify who asked this question.

"Hardly." This voice belonged to Rodolphus Lestrange. He sounded a bit bored and uninterested. "It's clearly a deathbed visit. The boy's been wasting away for weeks."

"A deathbed visit?" Another voice inquired. "In Azkaban? I've never heard of such a thing."

"Some people get special treatment," another voice answered bitterly. "Thought you'd of figured that out by now."

"It would explain why his wife was with him."

Sirius found himself staring at the cells around him. Most of the prisoners had moved to stand near the doors of their cells much like he had. He heard voices he couldn't remember hearing before and couldn't even begin to identify who they belonged to. He was fascinated by the new information he was hearing, as he had heard nothing new for months. With the war officially over and the hunt for Death Eaters seemingly finished, there had been no new prisoners on this level of the prison in months. This isolated them thoroughly from anything that was going on in the outside world, with no one coming in with new information.

But, more than that, Sirius found that he was fascinated by the coherent conversations these inmates were able to have. Crouch had cleared out all the Dementors from this level of the prison for his visit with his son. It was amazing how quickly the prisoners were able to regain themselves with distance from the Dementors that were normally outside of their cells day and night.

"Is my cousin still alive over there?" came Bellatrix's sing song-y voice. Most people seemed more coherent with the absence of the Dementors, but somehow Bellatrix sounded even more unhinged than usual. "I want to point out again how I was given a trial and he didn't, but I don't want to waste my breath if he's dead."

Sirius glared over in the direction of Bellatrix's cell. "Careful, Bella," he said in a low voice. "If you get too excited, the Dementors will be lured back."

"Whatsamatter?" Bellatrix slurred. "Scared, Siri?"

Sirius snorted. "Like you're so brave when the Dementors are around."

"Honestly, I'm surprised that little Sirius is still here with us," came Rabastan's voice. "I'd have thought he'd be the first among us to give up and die."

"Clearly we are not that lucky," Rodolphus drawled.

"Well, we're a little lucky," Bellatrix said. "A year of Barty's pathetic whining and I'm honestly glad to see him finally go."

"No friends amongst Death Eaters," Sirius mumbled.

But if anyone heard him, no one made any indication. There was an energy among the inmates at the top of Azkaban Prison that was just non-existent when the Dementors were around. It was a little disorienting how quickly everyone was able to give in to some casual chitchat.

Sirius was more than happy to have the other inmates move on from acknowledging him, feeling content to fade into the background for now. He found that he was straining to hear anything coming from the cell that the Crouches had entered. Of course, that was next to impossible with the noise that was now rising around him. But he had no desire to speak with anyone in the nearby cells, so he settled for quietly standing guard at the barred door, waiting for Barty Crouch Sr.'s reappearance with his wife.

It didn't take as long as he would have thought. As it turned out, final goodbyes within the Crouch family could apparently be accomplished in under a half hour. The two figures quietly emerged from the cell, Barty Crouch Sr. still supporting his wife. Then, without a backwards glance, Crouch began leading his wife back down the passageway.

Almost as if he could sense his gaze, Crouch looked up and met Sirius' eyes as he was passing his cell. Suddenly, Sirius felt a spark fury burning within him. This was a man that had locked him away without a second thought for a crime that he did not commit. He had the urge to lunge at him, scream and yell at him for taking his life away from him at such a young age. He wanted to shout that his conscious was clear and then demand if Crouch could say the same.

But the words died before they made it to his lips.

Was his conscious really clear? Had he not put James and Lily in danger, ultimately leading to both of their deaths? He knew he hadn't helped himself after his arrest either. They brought him into the Ministry laughing hysterically, finding the idea that little, dimwitted Peter had not only been able to pull the wool over all of their eyes for months – maybe even years – but also had pulled off a scheme so diabolical that it make Sirius question why it had been him and James always being the masterminds behind their pranks at Hogwarts. After he had been brought in, he made no effort to speak to anyone and didn't answer any of the questions asked of him. It had felt like speaking was impossible, and looking back he knew he had been in shock over the events of the previous twenty-four hours. Then, after his sentence was declared, he never once tried to fight it.

Because from the beginning, he believed that even though he may not have actually committed the crime that he was accused of, that didn't mean that he didn't deserve to be here.

So as he met Crouch's eyes, he said nothing. He simply watched as the man passed by his cell, still supporting his small wife who had gone silent, not so much as a whimper passing her lips.

"Anybody with half a brain should know that you're innocent."

Sirius jerked in surprise as he turned toward the source of the voice. He blinked several times. It was the strangest hallucination he had seen yet. James Potter stood there in his cell. He had the gauzy look to him of a ghost but still appeared whole and unharmed, and for the first time since his imprisonment, Sirius saw him without anger or malice in his eyes. He was looking at Sirius much the same way he had often looked at him while they were in school, with a sympatric look in his eyes and a sad smile on his lips.

Sirius turned away from the cell door and was silent for a minute as he studied the figure a bit skeptically. "I really am starting to lose my mind," he mumbled to himself.

Astonishingly, James snorted impatiently at him, his imagined form flickering like the delicate flame of a candle about to go out. "Would you rather I yell at you?"

Sirius considered this for a moment. "I think I would," he concluded matter-of-factly. He knew this was going to go away. He knew the Dementors would be coming back any minute and all this would be shattered and replaced with only his most terrible memories. That made this encounter more painful than his delusions of James screaming at him.

"You were always so full of yourself."

It was Sirius' turn to snort at the figment of his imagination. "Not helping, Prongs," he pointed out dryly

But the delusion continued. "You would earn detention and wear it like a badge of honor. You never shied away from the choices that you made. Even the poor choices. When you told Snape how to get passed the Whomping Willow, you owned that choice even though you were ashamed of it. You never tried to hide from it."

"You better make your point quickly, James," Sirius pointed out. He could hear movement out in the passageway beyond his cell. The Dementors were returning. Their time was running short.

"This quiet self-destruction is what you would do when your parents would go after you for things that weren't wrong or weren't your fault. You had this way of punishing yourself worse than they ever could because they made you feel so worthless. The Ministry essentially did the same thing to you when they didn't give you a chance to defend yourself."

Screams were making their way up the passageway as the Dementors were coming back to take up their posts. Sirius felt oddly detached from himself though, unconcerned with what was about to happen. Imagined or not, James' words struck something deep within him.

He took a deep breath. "Do… do you think Remus thinks I'm guilty?" he asked in a small voice. It was something he often found himself wondering. Remus was the only one of them that was still alive and still free. Sirius often wished he could have one last conversation with Remus in order to find out what he thought of him now.

But, of course, the projection couldn't tell him something that he didn't already know himself. James' figure was looking more faint as his head shook and he looked at him with a grim expression. "I don't know."

Sirius nodded, not surprised by the response. He didn't react as he heard the door scrapping open behind him. He kept his eyes on James' fading form.

"I miss you," he said quietly.

There wasn't time for a response though.

A skeletal hand clamped down on his shoulder, hard. Sirius flinched at the contact, but other than that he made no indication that he was aware of the Dementor behind him. Clearly the creatures felt the need to reclaim their territory with Crouch's departure.

"You worthless boy!"

His mother's voice seemed to fill the cell. And against all his instincts… he smirked. The expression felt strange, as if his muscles could feel something that his mind just could not grasp anymore.

Some part of him seemed to have just let go. Seeing James' form and hearing him give him advice again, even if it had just been a product of his own disintegrating sanity, had given him something to hold onto. It wasn't something that was happy, for no matter what the fact still remained that James was dead. It wasn't anything that the Dementors could feed off of and take away from him.

For the first time in over a year, Sirius had something he could hold onto.


December 10th, 1982
Azkaban Prison: Day 403

Sirius remained at the front of his cell for several days. He sat in the corner, which was just a few feet from the cell door. His spot gave him the best vantage point that he could manage in order to see up the passageway. He kept a constant watch for days, obsessed with what was about to happen.

It didn't take long. Only a few days after Crouch's visit, Sirius witnessed a handful of Dementors converge on the cell. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting, but the end of the boy's life was much quieter than he thought it would be. There was no screaming or final agonized yell as he left this world. It was as if he had simply faded away.

Sirius was completely still, watching from the shadows as two Dementors reemerged from the cell, carrying a figure wrapped in a grey sheet. He was so mesmerized by the sight that he was unaware if there were any comments about the boy's passing made by the Death Eaters around him, who had already established that they were not sorry to see him go.

Sirius only moved after the Dementors had passed by his cell, heading down the path that would take them out of the prison. He stood up and moved to the other side of his cell so he could see down the passageway, watching the Dementors' retreating figures as they made their way down the levels of the prison. There was a hush that seemed to follow them as the inmates watched another soul that had been lost to Azkaban.

When he could no longer glimpse the Dementors as they moved to the lower levels, Sirius turned away from the door. Before he realized what he was doing, he had taken the cot that was on one side of the cell and shoved it up against the back wall, the loud, scrapping noises of metal against stone echoing in the relative quiet of the prison. The Dementor at his door rustled, as if it was debating Sirius' behavior and whether or not he needed to be subdued. Thankfully, it remained in place.

Sirius climbed on top of the cot, the springs squeaking in protest. From this new vantage point, he could reach the barred window set high up in the wall of his cell. His eyes automatically went to the sky first. The clouds had thinned, not enough to see the stars but enough to see the glow of the moon that lay just beyond. It was very late at night.

Sirius' gaze then fell to the ground far below. It was only then that he realized just how high up his cell in Azkaban was. It was even taller than the Astronomy Tower at Hogwarts. And with that thought, a memory from that place suddenly crashed over him.

"Padfoot?" James said slowly, sounding a little unsure. But Sirius barely heard him. Suddenly he was climbing up onto the ledge that circled the Astronomy Tower. "Sirius? What are you doing?" There was a vague hint of apprehension in James' voice.

Slowly and carefully, Sirius stood up. The ledge was about half a meter wide and Sirius' feet were planted firmly in the center, his balance sure. But there was something completely freeing about standing so close to the edge with the ground so far below him. The wind whipped through his robes and he knew he should be cold, but somehow he just couldn't feel it. He took a deep breath of the fresh air, remembering suddenly that none of the windows in Number Twelve Grimmauld Place opened.

"It could be over…" Sirius murmured to himself.

"C'mon, Sirius," James said uneasily. There was shuffling around behind him and Sirius imagined that James had stood up. "Get down."

"Don't tell me what to do," Sirius growled lowly, his eyes clouding over.

"Okay," James said quickly, clearly sensing the shift in Sirius' demeanor. "Okay, I won't. Just… be careful, all right? That's a long way down."

Sirius smirked. "Yeah. A long way." He took a small and deliberate step forward.

"C'mon, Sirius, this isn't funny." Any humor was gone from James' voice and there was a hint of something odd in his tone.

"No, it isn't," Sirius agreed, grim resolution in his voice.

In their fifth year at school, James had literally had to talk Sirius off a ledge. He had been driven to desperation by his family, believing that anything would be better than having to go back home. Even jumping off the Astronomy Tower and ending his life. Until this past year, it had been the lowest moment in his life. James had to convince him of the value of his own life, something his own parents had never bothered to do.

Time must have passed, because when he was able to focused once again on the ground down below, he saw that the Dementors had reached the extensive graveyard that circled the prison. A hole had already been dug in anticipation of Barty's death, and the dark creatures were lowering the boy's body into the earth. Apparently, the Crouches cared enough to pay a short visit to their son on his deathbed, though not enough to want to retrieve his body for a proper burial. That seemed odd to Sirius.

As he watched, Sirius couldn't help but feel like he was witnessing his own fate. Barty Crouch Jr. had only been a few years younger than him. He couldn't have been much older than nineteen or so. Is this the only thing that Sirius had to look forward to?

As the Dementors finished and left the fresh grave, there was a burning question within Sirius. This place was hell on earth. There was no denying that. But could a soul really ever be at peace if it passed in a place like this?

He didn't want to die here, innocent of the crimes that he had been committed for yet still forgotten by the world. Something about that seemed fundamentally wrong to him. There may not be a light at the end of this tunnel, and it might turn out to be all for nothing, but for the first time in a year, Sirius decided that he wanted to survive. Not just from one day to the next, but for the long term. He wanted to find ways to cope with this hell that he found himself in. At twenty-three years old, he wasn't yet ready to be buried in the ground.

He wanted to live.