Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns Harry Potter. I do not. All I own is Antoinette, her family, and the plot. I am not making any profit whatsoever in writing this story. This is an amateur attempt.
A/N: Back Again. Thanks so much to all my reviewers. You really make my day.
On another note: I've borrowed a lot of quotes from the Harry Potter books in this chapter. In case you don't know it about me, but I never mark where I've quoted. To me, that just ruins/interrupts the flow of the story. I do, however, reference after the end of the chapter. The quotes should be fairly recognisable to all Harry Potter nuts, in any case.
Hope you enjoy!
xxxxx
Chapter Fifteen: The Passing of Years (Part 2)
"NOOOOOO!"
The thin figure, pale from lack of sun, body bent almost back in upon itself in a futile attempt to stave off the constant cold, awoke with a start.
Dead eyes blinked dully.
"NOOOOO! PLEAAAASSSEE!"
Sirius Black cocked his head at the sound that had wakened him from an, admittedly, fitful sleep. The screaming wasn't so unusual — one became immune to it after being forced to spend over a year listening to much of the same — but the proximity was. Never before had it been this loud. Never before had anyone screamed so close to his own cell.
This section was empty. Voldemort's most promulgating followers, his most dangerous, were too cunning, scum though they were, to warrant a placement in Azkaban, let alone in a high security cell.
But this . . . This was new.
And intriguing.
"ARRGGHH! YOU CAN'T DO THIS!!" The screaming was getting louder now, short sobs and whimpering, the sounds ricocheting off the damp, lonely walls. Sirius wasted no time: he sat up in a crouch and scuttle-crawled as quickly as his emaciated body enabled to the direction of his cell door. Stick-like fingers found purchase on the bars there — a recent addition to Azkaban, this renovation. Where before there had only been a little-barred window in which to look in or out, now the whole door was made from bars: the better to bring misery to the prisoners. If one could see out to the corridor one was brought hope; it also meant one had more food with which to feed one's unholy caretakers.
Not that Sirius had any hope either way. His thoughts and feelings these days leant more towards the bitter and destructive — nothing the Dementors could use. The bastards. Even though he was a high-security prisoner, they didn't affect him nearly as much as they could had he, firstly, not been an Animagus and, secondly, knew, to the depths of his soul and beyond, that he was innocent of any wrong doing except suspecting the wrong man at the wrong time. That he would have to live with for the rest of his life, however long that might be.
"ARGHHHH!"
Whimpering. Sobbing. More screaming.
Who was it?
The prisoner tilted his manky head as the footsteps came louder; nostrils widened and closed in a way that could not be called human, the interior sensitive hairs instinctively pricking in an attempt to sniff out potential danger. So doggish was this action, and no effect (nor smell) did it bring except to make its owner irritated, he having not as yet caught on that, as human, he could not smell anything besides the stink on his clothes and the cold of the prison.
I've spent too long as a dog, Sirius thought miserably. But he had no time to contemplate this degradation of self because the sobbing had reached him. Almost at once a new stab of sharp cold pierced his soul, bringing with it a wave of dread so deep he had to take several fortifying breaths just to stop the scream that had lodged in his throat from escaping. He knew what that feeling meant and what it would bring.
Two Dementors glided passed, a young boy gripped between their skeletal, rotting fingers, his mouth emitting occasional whimpering howls and his head shaking back and forth wildly as if to try and convince himself that it wasn't happening.
But it was. It always did.
A flash of fair hair glinted off what little moonbeams penetrated the cracks in the corridor walls. That flash brought to mind another with fair hair, but this was not she. Not his wife.
This was Barty Crouch Junior.
"I'm telling you it's Remus, James. Remus."
"I just can't believe –"
"Take my bike, Hagrid. I've no more use for it."
"Lily and James, Sirius? H-how could you!"
A flash of green light . . .
Sirius blinked, morphing into a dog quickly as the direct presence of the fiends became too much, and scuttled back into the safety of his dark cell, hot, canine breath forming clouds of vapour in the air before his muzzle with every short pant.
The images had hit him at once but not unexpectedly. At the moment Sirius cared about as much as a dog would. Something more exciting was happening, at last, in this pit, and Sirius forced himself to concentrate on that instead. Who knew how long it would be until the change in screaming monotony (if there was such a thing) happened again.
Barty Crouch Junior. Ha!
Ha-ha-ha!
Before he knew it Sirius was cackling — as much as a dog without vocal chords could.
Wonder if old Barty's had a nervous breakdown yet?
That thought brought on another round of laughter.
Wonder if he's tortured his son for information, like he did…
Sirius let the thought fester, a maniacal grin stretching the waxy skin on his face. This, combined with his sunken cheeks had the effect — had he only knew it — of a countenance that more resembled a corpse than a living man. Yes. Better to be bitter in Azkaban. Better to be bitter than to be happy. That way only led to more Dementors, and thus more madness.
And when, precisely, had he transformed back into human? Merlin, he was mess. Couldn't even keep track of what species he was supposed to be. He expected the madness was creeping up on him again. Not so surprising, really — it happened every so often, when the knowledge that he would spend the rest of his life in this place hit him all at once. He would just have to be extra diligent from now on.
Bartemius Crouch Junior's screams sounded once more as the leeches tossed him into a cell somewhere nearby.
It would hit young Barty soon enough, too, if it hadn't already.
This one wouldn't last long.
Sirius gave it a year at the most.
But what had he done to end up in high security? A place where, until now, had only played host to one exalted prisoner? Whom had the boy killed? Whom had he tortured? These thoughts were sobering, and fear began to beat along with the pulse in Sirius's throat.
Whom had he hurt?
The thought had only just come to him when another wave of cold penetrated his heart, this time so strong that he actually did scream.
More Dementors. But he couldn't afford to transform now. They were bringing more prisoners. More witnesses. Dragging them as a tiger drags its prey. The victims were shrieking and squealing . . . screaming. All this pervaded the hollowness of the prison until one sound was indistinguishable from another. All Sirius knew for certain was that at least one prisoner was female. And, by the tone and volume of the shrieking, could make a good guess as to which.
"Bellatrix."
The whisper had left his lips almost reverently.
She was now food for the creatures. Nourishment. To be eaten and enjoyed until the bloat overtook. Until satisfaction had been sufficiently gorged and a shell left in the place where once there resided cognisance. Sirius had no doubt that his dear cousin would loose her sanity. Already mad to begin with, Bella stood not a chance. Although . . . Bellatrix was probably so cocks'd in the head that she had almost no happy memories at all. Azkaban, for her at least, might prove to be redundant.
Great. And I have to live with her.
Please, please put her in a cell somewhere FAR away.
She was there suddenly; as Crouch Jr. before her was carried between two Dementors so was Bellatrix. But, unlike Crouch, she walked under her own power and seemed to be viewing everything with a sneer of cold maliciousness, as if Azkaban was below her approval. Heaven Forbid.
"Toni –
"I hate you, Sirius! I'll leave. There. I'll leave. That is what you want me to do. I'm going now. To Grimmauld Place."
"Go." He turned away, unable to bear watching her depart. Watch her hate him.
"I'm sorry. I don't really hate you," was said quietly behind his back. A gentle, slender hand, warm, rested lightly on his back for one second before . . .
". . . even your wife believes you guilty, and she ought to know shouldn't she?"
"Shouldn't she?"
"Shouldn't she?"
Sirius crouched up, crawling slowly towards the bar, ignoring the images in his head as best he could.
She doesn't think she'll be staying here, Sirius thought with awe. She fully believes her Lord or someone loyal to him will save her.
Sirius snorted.
His cousin's head whipped towards the sound. "Who's there?" she whispered, shrill, eyes darting feverishly into the dark.
"Who do you think, cousin?" Sirius drawled, shocking himself at the sound of his own voice after so many months spent mute.
"You," she hissed. Her spittle when it shot — Sirius fancied it was painted black. "Blood traitor!" She still could not see him, dark as it was. Sirius himself could barely see her, but he could certainly see out more than she could see in.
"I certainly like to think so." He spoke to her back now as the Dementors passed his cell, though Bellatrix still struggled to turn her head in his direction.
Suddenly she was laughing. That horrible cackle that so resembled his mother's. "Blood traitor. Blood traitor. Do THEY know you're a blood traitor, blood traitor? Ha! My Lord shall rise again and save me, Sirius, but you . . ." He could hear the smirk in her voice. "You, my extremely hated cousin, will be stuck here forever."
Rather than upsetting him, this only made him smile. She had no idea, of course, that he escaped every day thanks to Padfoot. And Sirius never lost an opportunity to gloat. "Don't you even wonder how I'm sane, Bella?" he shouted at her back.
It stiffened. Bellatrix turned her head one last time struggling, in vain, to let go the Dementors.
"It's because I'm innocent! The Dementors will never get to me because I'm innocent!"
For one moment, she faltered. Cold eyes growing less sure, before cunning entered into them once more. "Oh, yes you're innocent," she smirked. "But you'll still be stuck here."
"You just wait and see," he growled.
Bellatrix actually threw back her head and laughed. And laughed. And laughed. Her laughter echoed through the prison, bouncing off the walls, growing softer the further she was dragged away.
She was still laughing shrilly when they tossed her in a cell somewhere further down.
Sirius drew a deep breath and got his throat ready for a battering. "VOLDEMOOOOORT!" he screamed.
A shriek of rage sounded under his own shout.
"VOLDEMORT! VOLDEMORT! VOLDEMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORT!"
"YOU DARE SPEAK THE DARK LORD'S NAAAAAAAAAAAME?!"
Sirius laughed to himself. The easiest way to make a Death Eater loose composure was to get them where it hurt. Bellatrix in particular was so obsessed with her "Dark Lord" that any offence to him was an offence to her.
"SOME DARK LORD!" Sirius shouted back. "DEFEATED BY A ONE-YEAR-OLD!"
"I'LL KILL YOU, FILTHY MUDBLOOD LOVER!" she screamed, sounding so frustrated that she should have been having a heart attack. "ONE DAY I SHALL SLAUGHTER YOU!"
"DID YOU KNOW HARRY POTTER'S MY GODSON?!"
"AAAHHHHHHHHRGH!"
But Sirius had erred. His happiness at Bella's anger had cost him. Dementor's swarmed by his cell, dozens, and he passed into darkness, for once not caring. It had been worth it to see Bella loose composure. Well, as much composure as it was possible to loose when you hadn't much of it to begin with.
Now, thanks to Bellatrix's loss of self-control, her words, an idea began to take shape in Sirius's subconscious. It was true that no one had ever contemplated escape from Azkaban before. The prisoners were too lost in their own minds to even think of something so convoluted. All wizards and witches had grown up on the stories of Azkaban. "It's impenetrable," they had been told. "Impossible to escape". "Never been done before". "Labyrinth". "Surrounded by sea". "I'd like to see one man that can outsmart those guards. Demons, the lot of them".
Had anyone ever asked why not? What had stopped people from escaping? The Dementors were blind — Sirius had managed to fool them for almost a year-and-a-half now, once he'd overcome his fear of transforming into Padfoot before them. They could not sense an Animagus. Finally, finally, in the whole history of Azkaban there was someone who was sane enough, desperate enough, and had the means necessary to do it. It would be a long way yet until escape was possible, until Sirius had enough motivation to escape. But the seeds had been planted. They had taken root. They would blossom until such time came when he was finally ready. When he would finally be pushed . . .
Sirius waited for that day. A tiny kindle of hope had appeared in his heart where before there had been none. He never consciously acknowledged this hope, but it was there.
Waiting to flame.
xxxxx
"MUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUM!"
Silence.
"MUUUUUUUUUMYYYYYYY!"
Silence.
"Mum? M-Mum? MUM, MUM, WHERE ARE YOU?"
Quietly,
"Where are you?"
Sobs. Sobs in the dark.
"DON'T LEAVE ME, MUM! Don'tleavemdon'tleaveohgoddon'tleavemeMOTHEEEEERRRRRR!"
"SHUT IT!" Lestrange screamed. Which brother, Sirius couldn't recognise.
More sobs. Whimpering.
Quiet.
It had been like this for three days; Barty Crouch screaming, that is. Screaming for his mother. He'd go completely quiet eventually. They all did.
Fuck!
Even Bellatrix.
Who never lost an opportunity to get his goat. Fucking bitch!
Alice and Frank . . . the bastards got Alice and Frank.
xxxxxx
The influx of pale light filled his cell with a questioning beacon. Sirius answered by remembering the happier times — times of laughter and pranks and running around wild with his friends. Yet . . . yet . . . sometimes the sight of that pale luminescence filled him also with despair. That brilliantly opaque light only served to better illuminate his current misfortunes. Many times he had depressed himself at the sight of his filthy box-cell, his stick fingers, connected by apathetic knobs that he'd once called knuckles, the corpse-like clarity of his waxy skin, the jagged fingernails (after awakening from dementor-induced comas he'd discovered, oftimes, that he'd clawed at his stone surrounds with an almost wild desperation), all this was so displayed, so bright, so disgustingly constant that the sight of it gave him cause for depression, which often lasted several days to his estimate. And then the cycle would start over.
Every month he waited for this dichotomy of happy and sad.
Every month he waited for the full moon.
A way to keep track of time.
xxxxxxx
The weeks drifted on, then the months. Sirius had thought that his absolute worst moment, his most miserable and enraged, could not have surpassed the time when he'd found out the reason why the Lestranges and Crouch Junior were currently occupying the cells they were occupying. Nothing, he'd thought, could get any worse than that, save for his finding out another friend had been murdered.
He had been wrong.
His absolute worst moment came about five months or so after the Lestrange's incarceration.
He was minding his own business — as one tends to do in a filthy, set in its ways prison that forbids human contact of any sort except from those who already live there — when Bellatrix started up again.
Shrieking.
For an hour. Constantly.
But of course she was mad. Had gone almost completely 'round the bend during her first week. She had taken to muttering and moaning most of the time while the rest was spent heaping obscenities on the "mudblood lovers" and defending her precious Dark Lord in shrieks and screams, as if the opposition was right there in front of her.
Yes. Completely insane.
Of course she had her lucid moments, as did they all no matter how few and far between, and all of those moments (or at least most of all of them) were spent antagonising Sirius. Sirius retaliated by spending his time antagonising her. Usually, he won their little spats. That is to say, he always won them, except once — her story of the Longbottoms' torture had put him in a state of catatonia for half a day while Bellatrix gloated and cackled, her voice just out of reach of his conscious recollection.
As the months dragged by, Bellatrix's periods of lucidness appeared less and less. After five weeks hearing nothing from her cell besides the whimpering and moaning of the damned (or the Demented), Sirius concluded that she'd finally joined the rest in the realm of total lunacy: now a prisoner in her own mind, the ectoplasmic cage of mindlessness never fleeting but always constant. Shackled in her madness, unable even to empty her bowels without soiling herself. Unable even to eat. She would die. They all would eventually.
Sirius did not count on their infatuation.
On her infatuation. On just how obsessed they all really were. How insane they already had been before they even thought to breathe Azkaban air.
Death Eaters: ever loyal to their Lord.
It gave them a purpose, this mindless adoration. And it gave them back some semblance of their former selves. Not as much as Sirius (they weren't guilt-ridden or embittered, just entirely obsessed with Voldemort and thought him the God at which feet they were permitted to worship and the arse at which crack they were privileged to wipe) but enough to breach those ectoplasmic bars.
So, shrieking.
Bellatrix was shrieking, which was such a normal occurrence by now that Sirius was used to it. When this normal occurrence continued for an hour straight, Sirius had enough.
Tone precipitous, and loud enough for her to hear (just) Sirius barked, deep voice resonating through the dark cells, "Might you think about putting a sock in it, cousin?"
The shrieking, unbelievably, stopped.
Sirius did not have enough time be shocked because she started up again, this time with words. And it was these words that convinced Sirius his cousin once more had entered the world of the rational (as rational as it was possible to be for Bellatrix).
"Seery, Seery, Seery."
He hated that name. "Yes, Bellabumpkin?" He drawled in his most bored tone so as not to reveal the annoyance in it.
Her own voice was sweet, despite hating her childhood pet name. Names they'd used to aggravate each other in their youth. "I've met your wife, did you know?"
Sirius instantly stopped lounging and sat up, hands fisting the cell bars. He dared not speak as that would only give her . . . what? Satisfaction? Information? What, what, what?!
Blood thudded hotly in the pulses at his temples and in his throat, clogging it. He choked, coughed on the dried dirt that stuck to his tonsils, resumed listening.
Met Toni? Had she met Toni or had she met Toni? He forced himself to breathe. She's trying to irk you, that's what she does, he reminded himself. It didn't help. Panic took over. Oh, God, she's killed her! She's tortured her! Oh, fuckfuckfuckfuck! Please, please, God, no. No. NononononononononononoNO! Please – fuck – please!
"Did you? And what did you think of her?" Sirius had neither notion nor memory as to how he'd managed to get that out so evenly.
"Oh, I loved her. So cold."
Sirius went limp. His limbs refused to move anymore. He couldn't help it, he was so relieved.
"She hates you, did you know?" Bellatrix asked innocently.
He didn't bother to respond.
"Yes, I'd met her first at Grimmauld Place while visiting Auntie Walburga. Poor dear, all locked up 'cause Crouch wanted her in for questioning." Bellatrix tutted unconvincingly.
"Really?"
"Oh, yes. She had been all alone in there, with your mother and that batty old house elf. What was a young, beautiful girl like that to do, I ask you? And hating you as she did. Why, she never had chance."
Bellatrix's voice had become very girly and fluttery, but Sirius was at a loss. What in bloody hell was the woman going on about?
"Then, I met her again at Cissy's." Bellatrix talked as if they were old friends exchanging gossip over tea and cucumber sandwiches in a wallpapered drawing room. The situation was so bizarre that Sirius had to pinch himself to see if he hadn't drifted off into a spontaneous stupor. He hadn't. "It was Christmas Eve and you know how Cissy loves to throw those lavish parties? Anyway, it was the Eve of Christmas —" What in the world . . .? "— and your Antoinette is there all dressed up in a pretty sparkly creation and on the arm of some wizard."
Sirius's vision tunnelled in a single, split moment. The world tilted a degree, then rearranged itself. "Oh?" he drawled. Inside his heart was clenching.
"I asked around — discreetly of course. Didn't want to cause unfounded suspicion." She giggled. "Anyway, I asked around, and it turns out that I needn't have worried about causing unfounded suspicion because everyone already knew she had a lover. Can you believe it?"
Sirius said, because he had no other choice but to, "You think I care about whose bed she sleeps in?" But the pain was immense.
"I think you care." His cousin's voice had turned suddenly soft and calculating. "I think you're burning up inside with how much you care."
"Our relationship was a front," Sirius breathed. His eyes blinked a little too quickly. "I only married her to take back my gold, as you well know."
He could practically see the pout in his cousin's voice. "You're no fun anymore, Seery. You're not playing the game properly, shame on you!"
Sirius closed his eyes and swallowed around the howl in his throat. His world had ended. He couldn't believe or understand what he was feeling now. The thickness in his throat, the intense ache in his heart that felt like it would squeeze him to death, the sheer terror, the fear, slithering from his stomach up into his chest. What if it was all true? The thought of Antoinette in flagrante delicto in some other man's bed . . . kissing him, touching him, laughing with him, doing all those things that she should have done to Sirius, that Sirius should have done to her. Instead he'd wasted . . .
Oh God. Please. No. Anything but that.
In that instant he understood that he had only once before in his life felt anything as devastating as the pain that slashed through him, cutting his insides to bits, and he reached out with a pale, skeletal hand, gripping the iron bars that framed the door of his cell until the white of bone stood out under the skin over his knuckles. Please, just let me forget. Let me forget.
But the Dementors would not come now. The possibility of Antoinette's betrayal was not a pleasant or ecstatic thought. His regular guard floated just beside his cell, but Sirius could handle one Dementor after two-and-a-half years spending time in its loathsome, slimy presence. One Dementor wasn't enough now.
Bellatrix, damn her, had kicked him where it hurt the most. She'd known just what to say to get to him.
But . . . but . . . his cousin, even as a child, could never differentiate completely between love and hate. Joy or pain. In her twisted mind, both were linked. Two sides of the same coin rather than on opposite ends of a very long spectrum. She could not have known whether he loved Antoinette and she could not have known whether he hated her, which meant she'd only told him the information on the hope that Sirius did care for her. He remembered the small kiss they'd shared on the stairs in The Leaky Cauldron; an act he'd preformed completely for Bellatrix's sake. Had he been so convincing, then? Had Bellatrix really thought that he'd fallen in love with Antoinette?
If so . . . bloody perceptive bitch.
This conclusion did nothing to help him. It still didn't mean Bellatrix was telling the truth. It didn't mean she wasn't either.
God, it was unbearable. He didn't know what to think. Sheer frustration lanced through him.
He wept.
xxxxxxx
As the year disappeared into the next, and as the fallout from the war brought to light traitors and betrayers, more Death Eaters came to call Azkaban their home. Many of them were placed in high-security along with the Lestranges, Crouch, and Sirius. But Sirius never saw them. The Dementors never brought them passed his cell. He could hear them though, those first few days. Weeks. Screaming.
xxxxxxxx
"My condolences, Barty, but in all truth it was only to be expected. Only the strong survive here."
"Just take us to him, Millicent. I don't think my wife can – I don't believe she can stand anymore."
Muffled sobs followed that statement.
"Yes, of course – ahem – you! Dementor! Lead the way."
Sirius watched behind the bars of his cell, body hidden in shadow. So.
So.
Crouch and his sickly looking wife had finally come to visit their son, and it took all of a year, if Sirius's moon calendar was anything to go by.
Human visitors were an oddity in Azkaban. Only the Minister and her brood were ever permitted to venture to the depths of Despair. That Crouch and his wife were here now . . . Crouch Junior must be dying.
xxxxxx
Grey eyes, wide, watched as the fiends buried the corpse.
The windows near the roofs of the cells had conveniently lowered themselves to provide ample desolation to those 'living' within.
The ritual was over in a few minutes, and the window shot back up. Mocking, almost.
Sirius snorted, crawled into a corner and hugged his legs. He couldn't care less. Mocking only worked if the recipient could feel it.
And Sirius had lost feeling anything except cold a long time ago.
xxxxxxx
July 24th, 1992.
Water dripped in steady pulses from a spot on the ceiling. The pulses merged with the sound of oncoming footsteps until one was indistinguishable from the other.
Two men, one dressed in pinstriped robes the other in violet purple, came to a halt before one of the many crossroads dotted about the prison, faces pale and hair lank. They held their wands aloft, two pinpricks of light visible on the ends, just enough to outline their figures and a smattering of colour.
"I loathe these annual inspections. You would think after three years I'd get used to it!" said the shorter wizard, wiping his brow with a white linen handkerchief. "Look at this? Cold sweat — only in Azkaban will you get cold sweat. How much longer, Cotswold?"
"Just the high-security division, Minister."
"Ah. Them." Cornelius Fudge coughed into the handkerchief, pocketing it afterwards. He withdrew his pocket watch after some difficulty, squinted down at the time, and harrumphed to himself, placing it back in his robes. "No need to linger, I should think. A quick swipe ought to do it. The cameras have readied themselves?"
"I believe it's already been taken care of, sir."
"Very good. Good thing we installed those bars, eh? Much easier taking snaps from beyond the cell rather than having to go in and face … er …" He coughed once more. Delicately. Then, after clearing his throat and straightening the newspaper under his arm, continued on in a firm tone. "The Dementors are gone?"
"There are no Dementors currently patrolling the high security cells, Minister."
Cornelius shivered in an almost prescribed and anticipated way. He was all for the idea of Dementors guarding Azkaban prison, and thus, protecting the rest of the world from the filth within, but when it came down to it they really were just demons. Pure and simple. And you couldn't really control demons, as Dumbledore often tried to tell him.
Cornelius snorted. That's the one thing we can't agree on. Dementors had been guarding Azkaban for well over half a millennia now, and they had shown no indication of mutiny before. Where Albus got his ideas he'd never know. "Excellent. After you, then, Cotswold."
The Minister for Magic moved aside to let his Junior Undersecretary pass. If there had been a little more light (and if Cornelius had been feeling brave enough to look up past anything other than his own two feet) he would have noticed the slight sneer on his employee's face — a response to the Minister's not-very-well-hidden apprehension.
Hope this doesn't take too long, Cornelius thought to himself as he fell in step behind the other wizard. I haven't even read my paper yet! They might have only been inside the prison for a good thirty-five minutes (more than enough time to glance into cells and inspect everything properly as they walked by), but even that was too long a time in Cornelius's opinion. He'd heard that his predecessor had actually even stepped inside the cells, so as to inspect the prisoners even more thoroughly. Cornelius shivered in disgust and horror. He wasn't mad enough to do so with this lot in high-security, especially not with that Bla. . . He gulped, dismissing the scenario from his mind.
"This is the corridor, is it?"
"Yes, sir."
It looked rather like all the others. Damp. Dark. Depressing. Despairing. "I don't hear anything," said the Minister. "They all seemed to have lost whatever sanity they had left." They had lost it long ago, but Cornelius always chose to forget until the moment when he had to remember again. Feeling a bit more confident now, the Minister lifted his wand and withdrew a sheet of parchment from thin air, which floated beside his face, the faint outline of words barely visible on the caramel-coloured surface.
"Now, where did I put my quill?" asked Cornelius vocally. In truth he had not thought to bring one with him.
Cotswold thrust one under his boss's nose. "I have one, Minister."
"Thank you, Cotswold. We'll begin, I think." They began walking, the Minister behind the other wizard once more, reciting the names in a bored sort of tone after ticking them off the list.
"Gibbon?"
Cotswold stuck his wand by the bars, briefly outlining a figure that was lying down, staring glassy-eyed upwards. "Looks to be insane, Minister."
"Quite so," coughed Cornelius, scribbling down the wizard's condition beside his name. They hurried along to the next cell, which was empty. So were the two after that. It wasn't until they reached Cell 8 that there was any sign of life. "Rookwood?"
The light identified a wizard sitting with his knees tucked up against his chest, muttering to himself. "Lost," said Cotswold.
And on they went, the Minister becoming more jolly and confident with every name so identified and the lack of response from the recipients.
"Rowle?"
"Same condition."
"Dolohov?"
"Non-responsive."
"Mulciber?"
"Drooling."
"Should think about getting a bib," Cornelius chortled to himself. "Travers?"
"Blinking at the wall."
"Jugson?"
The light flared. "Sniffing at something, sir."
Cornelius sniggered. "Black?"
"Present," a deep voice answered unexpectedly.
The Minister and his junior undersecretary jumped back from the cell in terror, Cotswold's wand falling from his flailing fingers, clattering to the floor and extinguishing most of the light. "B-Black?" Cornelius stuttered, unable to believe it. B-but how? How?!
"Are you finished with your newspaper, Minister?" The deep voice came, bored and cool, from within the depths of the dark cell. The question was so unforeseen that it took the Minister a while to register it. And both wizards fancied rather hysterically that they could see the two pinpricks that made up Black's pupils peering out at them from the gloom.
"Y-yes." Cornelius shook his head and all but thrust his paper through the bars, despite not having read it. "Here, t-take it!" It was only later that the Minister would realise how ridiculous he was acting.
"Thank you," Black drawled, gently grasping the paper, the pages crackling as he unfolded it. "I quite miss doing the crossword, you know."
"Er, do you?" said Cornelius, all the while urging Cotswold in frantic gestures to get a move on. "Enjoy, then."
"Goodbye, Minister." That rich voice held a touch of bemusement. The two wizards never noticed; they couldn't get out of there fast enough.
Sirius chuckled to himself as he watched the men scarper away towards Bellatrix's cell. His being not insane had to unnerve them. That he had talked intelligently at all, that he had conversed with them at all, had either put a stump in what they thought about him, or expanded the thoughts they already had. It was a likelihood they assumed worse of him now than they had before they'd come to Azkaban today — that he had somehow, unimaginably and against all odds, used dark magic to stay rational. He had remained deliberately inactive during all previous Ministry inspections, but today had been an especially good day for him, and he had wanted to stir them up a bit. Play a prank, if you will. He hadn't felt this good in a long time, and just once every year was he allowed to — no Dementors were permitted anywhere near the Minister or his company. They would not be swarming to his cell when they felt his enjoyment. Merlin, he felt so alive!
His good mood did not last long.
Sirius took one look at the picture on the front page, and went very still.
The sickle moon provided not so much light, but enough so that he could make out limbs, colours of clothes, of hair, and faces.
It couldn't be.
It couldn't!
Sirius arose in a frantic jerk and thrust the newspaper in the broadest beam of moonlight angling down from the window. The words blurred for an indistinct moment. He blinked hard. Please, let it not be . . .
MINISTRY OF MAGIC EMPLOYEE SCOOPS GRAND PRIZE
Arthur Weasley, Head of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office at the Ministry of Magic, has won the annual Daily Prophet Grand Prize Galleon Draw.
A delighted Mr Weasley told the Daily Prophet, "We will be spending the gold on a summer holiday in Egypt, where our eldest son, Bill, works as a curse breaker for Gringotts Wizarding Bank."
The Weasley family will be spending a month in Egypt, returning for the start of the new school year at Hogwarts, which five of the Weasley children currently attend."
The picture said it all. There, on the youngest Weasley boy's shoulder, sat Wormtail. There could be no mistaking him. The missing paw, the fat belly, that utterly smug look on his ratty face . . . So that's where he'd been hiding all these years. Sirius had suspected as much, but hadn't really believed . . . Then something occurred to him. Something that had his heart beating wildly and fear lancing through his body.
Sirius set the paper down very slowly.
Oh God, the Weasley boy went to Hogwarts. Harry was at Hogwarts now. The Weasley's had always been Gryffindors, and Sirius had no doubt that Harry had been sorted into that house as well.
Merlin, no! PLEASE! His thoughts turned slightly hysterical. Never had he felt frustration so much as in that moment. Here he was, stuck, unable to do anything, while Wormtail had the perfect opportunity to strike at Harry, should he hear even a whisper of the whereabouts of his master.
Sirius lashed out at the wall, closed his eyes at the pain in his fist, felt the heat behind his eyelids.
No-no. He breathed deeply once. Twice. Thrice. No, but I mustn't panic now. He mustn't panic. He had to remain calm. Couldn't alert the Minister, who was still no doubt patrolling the high-security ward. Couldn't alert him, though he felt like screaming.
ARRRGGGGHHHH!
He wanted out! He wanted OUT! He wanted to kill — no! No, that was too mild a word. He wanted to slaughter, rip into soft flesh with razor doggy teeth and spit the fur out afterwards. He wanted to crunch through brittle bone and spongy tissue, feel the red blood, so hot and sweet, gush into his mouth like liquid fire. He wanted to fall asleep to the sounds of desperate squeaks and cries and take satisfaction in the knowledge that the rat could never hurt anyone he cared about again.
Anything. He would do anything necessary to stop Wormtail, to protect Harry. But all of that, every single delicious fantasy that his brain could conjure, was not possible as long as he was still imprisoned behind these walls. Merlin, he wanted out! He wanted out. He wanted . . . wanted . . . Sirius started hyperventilating. The sheer frustration, anger, and hopelessness at his situation had him fainting in seconds.
Meanwhile, the tiny kindle of hope in his heart (almost forgotten, but never transitory) swelled just a little more.
xxxxxxx
July 29th, 1992.
Sirius had agonised for five days, suffering his worst headache in a decade due to the frustration of not being able to do anything. Of being helpless. He had sworn and cursed and paced as much as he was able. He had barked and whined and scratched dangerously at the itch behind his ear. No helpful thoughts had been forthcoming. He had even thought in his lowest moment to alert somebody — a Dementor maybe — and try to warn the Ministry that way. That idea had flown out of his head as quickly as it had occurred to him. How many prisoners had screamed almost the same thing, and had been ignored? Screaming would get him no where. He thought he would have to live with this overwhelming fear and frustration for as long as it took to bring him down — no, but he refused to! There had to be a way.
The kindle in Sirius's heart flamed hotter and brighter, expanding evermore.
There was a way. He just couldn't think enough to get to it.
The rattle of a latch had his head whipping towards the door. Was it lunch already? Or was it dinner? Or breakfast? He had been so out of it the last few days that he couldn't quite recall . . .
One of the fiends glided into his cell and set a plate of gruel on the ground.
The door behind it was left slightly ajar.
And the flame of hope in Sirius's heart finally combusted.
There are moments when people are hit with epiphanies — great, crazy knowledge that strikes you suddenly and makes you wonder why you never thought or noticed it before. The recipient of an epiphany would often chide themselves afterwards for being such an idiot. Normally, epiphany's come very rarely in life. Sirius had only ever once experienced an epiphany, and that had been twelve years ago.
Right then, he encountered his second.
Before he knew it Sirius morphed into Padfoot and simply slipped by the Dementor, squeezed between the gap in his cell bars, and out the door. It had been that easy.
It was also easy to get out of the prison. He simply followed the Minister's five day old scent with his nose, once more blessing his younger self for becoming an Animagus, as the technique had proved invaluable to him in this prison and had saved his life as well as his sanity.
So, Sirius sniffed, nosing along the ground, following Fudge's scent for over an hour through the maze-like building before coming to a halt before a pair of wrought iron gates. Sirius once more simply slipped through, his emaciated body enabling him access, and he found himself, in an ironic twist of fate, actually thanking the Dementors for sometimes forgetting to bring him food, thus sending him into comas that ensured he never ate for several days . . .
His doggy nose helped again once he slipped through the bars, as, even with his canine eyes he could not hope to see through the fog. The dirt was pebbly beneath his paws and Sirius stepped gingerly over it, feeling the roll and crackle of the tiny rocks. Lifting his shaggy black head so that his nose stuck into the air, Sirius took a long, deep whiff.
Ah.
There.
Salt water.
Sirius sniffed the air, starting off in a light trot and finishing in a sprint by the time he reached the water, adrenalin and pure excitement pumping through his limbs, aiding his speed. He jumped in without hesitating, the fall from cliff to water taking about ten seconds, the impact jarring his body uncomfortably. Sirius never registered the pain. The freezing sea soaked his fur, the salt stung his eyes, and his breath failed him. Back legs kicking furiously down, Sirius broke the surface, gasped for one little moment, and then immediately started paddling. He couldn't let himself rest. He couldn't be found out now. He didn't know where Azkaban was and he didn't know where he was going. His body was running now on pure determination. His impossible feat would catch up with him later and astound him, shock him, but right then Sirius Black did not care one jot because he had done it!
He was the first person ever to escape the impenetrable fortress of Azkaban.
He was free.
And he was going to get that rat.
xxxxxx
A/N: The news article does not belong to me, but instead comes from page 12 of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.