Chapter 4: S
Earlier this year...
He woke up again. Screaming again. Like the night before.
And the one before that.
And the one before that.
And the many ones before that.
He had placed silencing charms around his bed. There was no point in letting the few Order members who stayed behind, like Remus, know his personal problems.
Although, he was sure that he needed to let someone know about them lest it harm him further.
The problem was that he didn't know who to confide in. The immediate names to pop out were Harry and Remus, but he did not want to worry either of them even further.
Harry was having his hands full dealing with that Fudge lackey, Umbridge. That woman seemed to be out to literally persecute him.
Oh how Sirius loathed her. She was his exact antithesis. If only he were free, then he would have brought down the weight of House Black on her.
Put that toad in its proper place, far from magical and muggle Britain. In fact, Sirius mused, if possible he would put her somewhere even further away - the moon perhaps (oh wait, that would be a problem. It would be like she were constantly watching them, which would be even worse than it was currently. Nope. That was no go. That idea had to be scrapped)
It seemed like Harry had been becoming increasingly ill-tempered as well. But could Sirius fault him for that? He had been hot-headed all those years ago and look where it had gotten him. After all it was like godfather, like godson. Or something similar.
He could talk to Remus, he supposed. But with the Ministry watching everything and penalizing heavily anyone who so much as uttered a single word against the government and the increased suspicion towards dark creatures like werewolves, Moony seemed to have enough on his plate to deal with himself.
(He did notice that his niece making eyes at Remus who was determinedly avoiding meeting them. That usually provided much needed comic relief to Sirius, who couldn't decide between being amused or exasperated with their antics)
No, both of them were ruled out.
He supposed he could always talk to Dumbledore, but he didn't really feel that as being a good idea.
True, he had worked under the man for quite a while now and respected him immensely. But he was no longer as trusting of the man as he might once have been.
Although it felt childish, a small part of him blamed the Headmaster for letting him languish in prison.
True, his actions and his manic laughter at the alley had been taken as proof of his crimes and given the circumstances, that course of events could only lead to that particular outcome.
But it pained him to no end that not one person had stood up to question if he truly had committed the crime. And if some ordinary citizen had raised objection, then it would have lead them to probably joining Sirius Black in his fate, for being a Death Eater sympathizer.
There were only one of three who could have done something about it. One of whom, he was sure would never have come to his aid, was the Director of the MLE, Barty Crouch. He had never seen eye to eye with Barty and so he wasn't surprised when Barty didn't speak a word to him as he tossed him to Azkaban.
Millicent Bagnold, well she was a decent Minister and did what was necessary. Tough decisions she did take, or took as much as the Wizengamot allowed her to. But at the end of the day she was a politician and to have questioned the innocence of Sirius Black would have been tantamount to committing political suicide. Never mind the fact that her query would have been vindicated, but the vilification till that point would "prove" to the populace at large that she was privy to the workings of You Know Who and still wasn't taking sufficient action to stop the horror that was being unleashed.
That left only one possible option. The Chief Warlock, the Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards and the Headmaster of Hogwarts.
And he had stayed silent through it all.
Dumbledore had known that there was a spy in the Order. They all did. And they all knew that the person was well known to the Potters in particular. So that narrowed down the set to the Marauders.
Examining the whole issue from Dumbledore's point of view, Sirius had to admit that even he, who most thought to all-knowing, couldn't and clearly didn't know it all. It was very much possible that he fell into the same trap as the others in thinking that Sirius was indeed the one who was guilty. After all, even Dumbledore didn't know when the Fidelius Charms over Godric's Hollow had been done. Just that it had been done. In fact, Sirius wasn't sure any more that Dumbledore had even been told of the secret. He himself had rationalized that it would be best off that he didn't know the exact location where Lily and James were staying.
Sirius suddenly sat up straighter. Something didn't compute. He (Sirius) had been told the location by the traitor. Yet, Hagrid had arrived at the place before Sirius had. How did Hagrid even know about the location in the first place?
And how was Dumbledore the first to know about James' and Lily's deaths? It really didn't make sense.
Sirius got up from his bed and began pacing up and down his room. It certainly wasn't the largest, for he refused to take up the master bedroom even though he was the rightful heir and Lord of all the Blacks.
Momentarily, his thoughts drifted to his brother, Regulus. It shamed him as he realized that he could draw upon very few moments spent with his brother. Once he had started school, he had begun to rebel more and more against his parents, first with the decorating of his rooms and finally followed by leaving the London home of the Blacks altogether. With a start he realized that most of his happy memories were with James and Remus (again, he refused to acknowledge anything to do with the rat).
He had always meant to reconnect with his brother later on, but it never happened. And looking back now, he knew that it wouldn't ever happen either.
The news of his brother's death was brought to him via an owl post that had been sent to the guards of Azkaban. He had wondered who would write to him, and it came as a shock to him to see a letter addressed to him and written to him by his father. His father, Orion Cygnus Black, the man with whom he had not spoken in years, had written to him.
Not knowing what to expect, but with tension increasing with every second, Sirius had torn open the envelope to read the message with him.
He had read it once. Nothing made sense.
He had read it a second time. It still didn't make sense.
After taking a deep breath and calming himself, Sirius had read it a third time.
And had immediately wished for the non-understanding from before.
The message had struck not one blow, not two blows, but three blows.
It was the kind of message that got sent out to the next Lord of the Black family upon the death of the most recent one.
His parents and brother had all passed away.
It seemed that his father had decided against writing off Sirius from the family. Not because of overwhelming affection, but because of the practical need to keep the control of the Black family assets within the family.
The letter provided no details on his demise, just that both his brother and his mother had passed on and that he, Orion Black too didn't have much longer to live either. His mother had passed away shortly after hearing of Regulus' death, having been left broken hearted that her favourite son was no longer with her in this world.
Orion Black gave no details, which annoyed Sirius' to no end, but which he later realized he could do nothing about given his predicament. The letter included a Gringotts form, requesting that the new Head of House Black sign with the enclosed blood quill.
Normally such quills wouldn't have passed through the guards on duty at Azkaban, given the fact that even a mildly inventive person could quickly turn such a quill into a lethal weapon. But this was from the goblins and it had been charmed to activate and later self-destruct after the completion of its purpose. Any interference in the goblin process would have been seen as a slight leading to confrontations, something that all parties had wanted to avoid, particularly in the newly found peacetime.
Sirius had signed it, albeit reluctantly. The reluctance had been twofold, one because of the fact that it formally cemented to him that he was the last of the Blacks (at least from the direct line), and the second that a major power had been entrusted to him.
The moment Sirius finished signing, the document had vanished and the blood quill had set itself on fire. He had wished that the blood quill had burned a little longer, thereby giving him a longer reprieve from the cold weather outside. But that hadn't been the case.
By this time, Sirius had returned to his bed. His body had tired itself out and unless he got some proper sleep, he would be in greater trouble come morning.
He was half-tempted to take dreamless sleep potion, but he couldn't trust anything that Kreacher brought him and he didn't want to become dependent on it too much.
He closed his eyes and hoped that he would get some decent shut eye.
The problem was that it was never the same nightmare. It seemed as though through his extended stay at Azkaban, the dementors had managed to plant a copy of themselves in his brain, causing his nightmares to be experiences of his worst fears.
He saw James' death in a thousand ways, and in many cases because he had arrived too late.
He saw Lily's death in a lot more than a thousand ways, many being used on her solely for being a muggle born and an achiever.
He saw Harry's death.
He saw Harry being tortured.
He saw Remus' death.
He saw Remus being tortured, particularly in myriad ways, typically with silver weapons.
He saw them all dead, eyes unblinking, staring at him, accusation on their faces as to why he had not come to their rescue.
At this point, the Sirius in the nightmare watching these experiences would break down and start screaming and sobbing.
Which ended up being the cue for the real-world Sirius to get up screaming and shouting and pleading as well.
With every passing day, the number of people he saw dying also increased.
Nymphadora. Andromeda. Ted.
Arthur. Molly.
Minerva. Alastor.
Every single one of the members of the Order of the Phoenix.
Members from the past.
Alice. Frank.
Fabian. Gideon.
With the sole exception of one Snivellus Snape. Sirius wasn't convinced that the snake was now truly on the side of the light. As someone he had once overheard say, "Snape is on nobody's and everybody's side. He does what will give the best result for himself"
And with every passing day, the time between him going to sleep and him getting up were becoming shorter and shorter.
Ever since Harry's farce of a trial, Sirius had taken to spending more and more time at his family library. Since it was now abundantly clear to him and all those in the Order that the Ministry would rather live in denial than to take any meaningful action, it was up to him and the rest of the adults to teach the kids how to survive.
He had voiced this out during one of the Order meetings. With predictable reactions.
Snape had sneered at his suggestion and congratulated him for coming up with such a lousy idea for a bunch of dunderheads while wondering if this was the supposed intelligence of Sirius Black.
Remus had said nothing, merely nodding and getting a thoughtful look on his face. He was no doubt already planning what and when to teach the kids and the professor in him was out in full force.
Tonks was enthusiastic about the whole idea and was literally bouncing up and down her seat (which given her abilities as a Metamorphmagus, Sirius suspected she did put a spring in her posterior) mentioning the different trainings that she had to undergo during her time as an Auror.
Molly had begun to work herself up into quite a bit of a temper and her reply of "They are only children! We cannot, should not and WILL NOT involved them in the upcoming conflict!", Sirius was sure could be heard within a square kilometre of Grimmauld Place.
Alastor, although he wasn't looking forward to giving any training, let alone teenage kids, approved the idea whole-heartedly. His replies of "Constant Vigilance" and "Better Trained And Alive Than Untrained Than Dead" were perhaps a little too harsh for the ears of most, but the sentiment expressed in them could not be doubted.
It was Dumbledore's reaction though that surprised Sirius. Or rather the lack of it.
Usually one to not shy away from being critical or approving, he sat there quietly, saying nothing.
When Sirius pressed him, his answer of "Yes. It is important, but what is also of utmost importance is to know when the important training needs to be done. Whether or not the kids are ready to undertake training outside of their school work at this uncertain time would be advisable is an answer I cannot give lightly, and not without giving it some serious thought", left everyone completely shocked.
It was most definitely not the kind of answer that the members of the Order of the Phoenix were looking forward to hearing from their leader.
Sirius resolved, then and there that he would spend as much time in the Black library as possible, gathering all information that he could find on any topic that he thought would be useful to Harry in what seemed to be destiny to fight Voldemort.
For a fee, perhaps the goblins could hold some valuable items for him to be given to Harry at a later date.
He had a feeling that he would need to make such an arrangement, and rather quickly and without the Headmaster's knowledge at that.
But for now though, he really had to try and get some sleep. His silently and wandlessly cast Tempus showed that it was a little past four in the morning. If he slept now, he would get about two to three hours of sleep if he were lucky.
He had to try.