A/N: Laptop is back up and running...for now. Enjoy!
7. brown
(Would you listen)
for this dark alley love song?
For the winter we heated our home
from the steam off our own bodies?
I wrote you too many poems in a language
I did not yet know how to speak...
Fudge gives him a newspaper.
It happens quickly.
The photos are sepia toned, but Sirius spots him instantly.
He's alive, that little brown rat with the missing toe and suddenly Sirius is so angry he's almost foaming at the mouth, almost screaming to the skies, but all he does is look the Minister in the eye and whisper, "He's at Hogwarts."
"Pardon, Mr Black?" Fudge asks, obviously uneasy.
"Hogwarts," Sirius hisses, and that is all he can think.
Hogwarts Hogwarts he's at Hogwarts he's there Hogwarts Hogwarts he's at Hogwarts
The nights bleed into days as Sirius sits alone in his cell, stock still, his legs bent and his back straight. He holds that newspaper, crumpled and ripped at the edges, and he mutters to himself over and over and over and how fucking darePeter think he could ever get away with this?
Sirius digs his fingernails into his thighs, his mutterings growing frantic and desperate, and he knows that he cannot sit here and die when he can find a way to justify everything that has happened.
James is dead. Lily is dead. Harry is an orphan, a lost little boy with a shaky future and just a wisp of hope that fades, day by day. And Remus, oh Remus. Sirius doesn't know what has become of Remus. He is a teacher. But is he a broken man? Is he whole? Does he live, does he laugh, does he love?
He swallows thickly, his fingers leaving their sweaty prints on the newspaper.
He will get out of here.
His breath is ripping through his lungs, coming sharp and painfully, stabbing at his insides.
He will find him.
The vision of Peter, small and squat and watery eyed, screaming in agony, howling in pain at the end of Sirius' wand, makes him chuckle. The sound is dark and wrong and Sirius hates it, even more so when he realises he doesn't have a wand.
He will kill him.
The image of Padfoot tearing into Wormtail's tiny body viscously dances before his eyes, blood on his nails and flesh between his teeth, ripping and shredding and utterly decimating the traitor that is Peter Pettigrew.
And then maybe...everything will be okay.
(In the back of his mind, Sirius knows that Peter is not the only Marauder spending his days at Hogwarts, but he does not let himself dream. Not at all.)
Okay.
He realises, with a jolt, that he is finally going mad.