It had been so long.
So bloody long since he'd walked down this corridor. Down any of these corridors.
When he passed the Great Hall, a huge, nauseating wave of nostalgia nearly unbalanced him. He had to stagger to a halt, just for a moment, to breathe in deep breaths of the smell of roasted chicken and pumpkin pasties and buttered potatoes, to listen to the clamor of students laughing and talking. In that moment, he could have been fifteen again and coming straight from McGonagall's Transfiguration classroom to dinner, scheming with James and bantering with Remus and making Peter laugh...
The memory went brittle and crumbled. He wasn't fifteen. He was so much older, so much angrier, and so, so alone. His resolve steeled. He strode on.
Even so, the double-vision feeling didn't stop as he slipped behind a mirror into a secret passageway. In the dark, it was easy for his mind to play tricks on him, easy to imagine three other pairs of footsteps tapping along with his. When he pushed aside the tapestry at the end, several floors later, there was an echo of James doing the same, so strong Sirius was certain that if he turned quick enough, he'd see his best friend's mischievous smirk. Again, he faltered.
"Go on, then, Padfoot," James said. "You know why you're here."
Sirius swallowed. He did know why he was here. And now he was so close to his mark...
He turned the final corner.
The corridor was barren and dark, and he'd chosen this day specifically for that: Halloween night, when everyone would be at the feast until late, when he'd have plenty of time to get his business done...
Not to mention there was a certain poetic justice in doing this on the anniversary of James's and Lily's deaths. The night they'd been betrayed and murdered was the night Peter would die, too.
He stopped at the end of the corridor in front of a large portrait he knew very well. Reality flickered again.
"New password's Potter's an idiot, three guesses who convinced the Fat Lady to set it," Remus said.
Sirius and Peter roared with laughter.
James sighed and shook his head, but he was smiling too. The sunlight streaming through the windows bounced off his disheveled hair. "Have to admire Evans for her persistence," he said begrudgingly, and he stepped forward to the portrait to give the password.
"Mr. Black," the Fat Lady said softly, and Sirius jerked back to the present, back to the dark, lonely corridor. "You are not supposed to be here."
"Let me in," he said.
She frowned at him, like maybe he really was still fifteen. "Surely it's not been so long you've forgotten that's not how it works. Even the four of you knew the rules, and this was one you never were able to break." She held her hands out, almost like a shrug. "No password, no entry."
Sirius slid the knife out of the pocket he used to keep his wand in. It wasn't the same, not quite as effective or versatile, but it felt good to once again carry something he could USE. Still...
"You don't have to get involved," he told her. "I don't want to have to do this."
"I'm supposed to alert the Headmaster if I see you," she said. She hadn't even flinched at the sight of the blade.
"And he can have me," Sirius growled. "Just let me through. There's something I need to do first." He paced forward. The hilt of the knife dug into his tight fist.
"Never thought it'd be you," the Fat Lady said. She still seemed irritatingly unthreatened, paying his proximity no attention and staring past him with a faraway expression.
Sirius had started inspecting the fat ornate frame to see if he could possibly pry it away from the portrait hole somehow (he really didn't want to attack her if he didn't have to), but he froze at her words.
"Me that what?" he said. He was staring at the crack where the portrait met the wall, his nose inches from the stone.
"Betrayed them," she said. "All those times I remember you and Mr. Potter sneaking out together, the pair of you like brothers. You were even quite close with Miss Evans there at the end, too, if I recall correctly. I never would have guessed..."
Rage and grief blackened his vision for a moment, and he slammed his fist, the one holding the knife, against the crevice between the stone wall and the frame. The blade sunk deep.
"It wasn't ME," he snarled, and it felt good to say it, to tell someone even if no one wanted to hear it. "It wasn't me!" he said again, and he shouted it as he wrenched the knife back out.
The Fat Lady no longer looked as calm as she'd been up until this point. The knife to the frame seemed to have shaken her.
"Now really," she said, and her voice quavered just a little even as she shook her finger in lecture.
"Let. Me. In," he hissed, baring the knife in her face.
"No," she said, and for a moment he was really impressed with her. "You are a dangerous and wanted man, Sirius Black, and I will not let you force your way into my tower."
"I have to get in there," he said, and now he almost felt like sobbing. His window of opportunity was slipping away. Dinner would end soon, the students and staff would flood the castle again, and he'd be out of time. He was so close... "And it WASN'T. ME."
"Then who was it supposed to have been, Mr. Black?"
"Peter," he said, and it felt so unbelievably surreal to finally say it out loud, so he said it again. "Peter Pettigrew."
"Peter?" she said, and disbelief knocked the fear right out of her voice. "That's quite impossible. And he's dead too because of you."
He snapped. The rage that had temporarily blinded him earlier crashed down and he was hacking at the canvas, at the paint and the plaster and at her, who wouldn't let him inside, into Peter, to the man who he had thought was his friend, who was responsible for Lily, for James, for Azkaban. For everything.
When he was done, the portrait was unrecognizable. Broad strips of canvas dangled limply off the wall, chunks of it littering the floor like dead leaves. There were deep gauges in the backing beneath the paint like the vicious claw marks of a wild animal attack. The Fat Lady had fled her frame completely. Her wail reverberated distantly through the stone passageways.
His sides heaved. He couldn't breathe, the blood pounding in his ears like he'd been chasing his quarry through the castle instead of being stalled at this final barrier.
And he still couldn't get through.
He reached out and placed his hand flat against the ruined painting. The jagged edges of the slashed canvas bit his palm.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. His forehead joined his hand pressed to the canvas, and he didn't know if he was apologizing to the Fat Lady for losing control, or to Lily and James for failing to avenge them tonight, or maybe just to himself, for suffering for so long with no relief, for still not being able to help himself.
"It's okay, Padfoot," the echo of James whispered back. "There'll be another time."
"But it was supposed to be tonight," Sirius said. His voice was as ragged as the ruined canvas.
"It's not important," James said, but Sirius knew he really wasn't there. He hadn't been there for the last twelve years. "You don't have to do this at all."
"Yes, I do!" Sirius whirled, maybe to shake some sense into James, but of course he was alone. The air next to him was empty. Cold.
There was the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Laughter trilled up to him. The feast was over.
His time was up.
Sirius cursed. Tonight was not going to be the night after all. But James was right. There'd be another time.
"I'll be back," he told the still, lonely air. "And next time, I'm getting in." And before the silence could respond, before students or staff could find him there, he disappeared back into the stone wall, the evidence of his promise scarred into the entrance of Gryffindor Tower for all to witness.
He'd be back.