The fact that we know little to nothing about Siriu's childhood is a CRIME. Or at least it should be. I wanted to do a little summary of his life up until he met James, just to show how it changed. I fully believe James played a significant part in Sirius's development.

HOWEVER, I also believe Sirius fully followed his parent's teachings when he was young and I liked the idea of them instilling those teachings when he was young.

I also loved the idea of muggle screams to classical music being used a lullaby. I can see Sirius's mom doing that. Like it's creepy and gross but she'd probably think it was classy or some fucked up shit like that.

Okay, ENJOY

Sirius Orion Black was born on November 3rd, 1959, to Lord Orion Black and his wife, Walburga Black, who also happened to be his second cousin. He was the eldest of two siblings and the heir apparent to House Black. He was surrounded by dark magic and dark wizards with questionable morality from an early age and while his mother never said it explicitly, he knew she loved him in her own special way. Her actions told him everything he needed to know, and he quickly learned that his home and upbringing were uniquely cruel. He'd go to sleep at night to the screams and pleas of innocent muggles, and when they would keep him up at night, his mother would play music and tell him,

"Pretend it's a lullaby, darling."

It worked. Soon enough, he waited until the screaming began before drifting off into childlike, dream-filled wonders. By the time he was 3, Sirius knew more curses than adult wizards. After all, it took only a few words; even if he didn't know what the words meant, it was only a few simple words. Despite the fact that he was too young for a wand, his parents took pride in making sure he knew the correct wand movements and whenever guests would come by, they'd quiz him on various curses and their uses. He was his parents' pride and joy—a child prodigy, they called him.

By the age of five, he could name every member of the Sacred 28 and their ancestors. He learned about his own ancestry and how his family helped establish Wizarding Britain. He came to see the value of the Black heritage, the distinction of being a pureblood, and the fact that his blood made him superior to others. When he was walking with his parents, he noticed how people parted and created a path for them to walk through, regardless of what they were doing. What he didn't notice was that it was out of fear, not respect. He was too young to understand the difference. He watched silently from the sidelines as his parents held meetings with the people who helped run Wizarding Britain and was a silent witness as the minister deferred to his parents when making important decisions. Sirius learned through observations and eavesdropping that the Black family practically ran the Wizarding World, whether it was legal or not.

However, at the age of eight, he was beginning to question whether what he was learning was right. Sirius didn't know exactly what had caused his doubts, but he suspected it had something to do with his brother Regulus's birth. For so long, Sirius had been the lone child and the youngest cousin. It was his older family members who took to teaching and guiding him on the right path. It was their job and their responsibility to pass on what they knew to the next generation. Regulus, however, came into this world not knowing a thing; he was innocent in a way that Sirius couldn't remember being, and the thought of anything less than pure reaching his eyes and ears had Sirius's stomach lurching uncomfortably. Even still, he was tasked with teaching Regulus everything he knew, a task he followed with great devotion despite his private reservations.

Regulus was always a curious child; he wondered how things worked. Every question followed by a "but why?" brought fond but exasperated smiles to Sirius's face. It was when those innocent, curious questions became about the best way to cast a curse and the pronunciation of those once-oh-so-simple words that it had bile rising in his throat as he forced out the answers. There was something deeply troubling when he saw his little brother practicing his curses, despite the fact that he learned them at the same age. That simple and pure innocence was diminishing right in front of Sirius's eyes and at his hands, no less. It was the curdled innocence of his brother that caused Sirius to turn his attention to muggles and their children. He grew up learning all the horrible things muggles have done, from slavery to both World Wars. He was convinced that nothing good would come from adult muggles. The children, however, Sirius was beginning to believe were innocent; after all, everything they knew had to come from the adults teaching them. Regulus was a prime example of that.

When he turned 9, he made a friend when he snuck out while his parents were in a meeting. It was something that he'd been known to do after Bellatrix showed him the easiest way to leave the house if a situation ever arose. He'd been getting better and better at it, bribing the house elves to keep quiet or keep Kreacher, his mother's favorite, occupied long enough for him to get away. He managed to make it all the way to the playground in the back of his home. He'd taken to watching the muggle children laughing and playing with each other from his bedroom window, and he longed to join them. Unless they were pure-blooded, Sirius never met any other children his age, and they never played that way. They were to sit and be silent or disappear upstairs, where they read or played Wizard chess, but they had to make sure they were never heard.

So when Sirius snuck out and had the best time of his life, he realized that he'd been lied to. Those muggle children weren't evil, and Sirius didn't think they'd tie up wizards in their basements to torture them. Sirius thought his parents might have lied to him, but the only proof he had were simple muggle children who had no idea about anything that went on outside their imagination. Sirius did know, however, that his parents could never find out what he did. It was his little secret, his personal memory, that he cherished, but he never went back again; he would never stop if he did, and he knew it.

When he turned 10, his mother brought him to witness his first muggle torture. The muggle was an older man; he was skinny from his time in the basement, and he already had an assortment of cuts, bruises, and caked-on blood. His skin was like a horrible abstract painting, and for a moment, all Sirius could do was stare in horror. For all that he heard the screams and learned the curses, this was the first time he'd ever seen the result, and it sickened him to see the pain inflicted. His mother gently nudged him along until he was right in front of the muggle. Her whispered commentary tickled his ear and sent shivers down his spine. (She believed it was from excitement, and he was too disturbed to tell her it was because he was horrified.) The sound of the muggle's screams was even more horrible up close, and for a moment, he was little again before they became a lullaby. He knew that night he wasn't going to be able to sleep and that the echoes of the man's screams would be in his head.

When it was over, Sirius felt disgusted with himself and his family, at how he stood there and watched until the muggle had exhausted his voice and energy to scream. Amongst the laughter and teasing, his family voices faded away, but he couldn't ignore the smell of blood as it clung to the oxygen in the air, or how the muggle lay almost motionless in front of him, or how, despite his family's joy, there was something sitting heavily in his stomach. He would come to find out that that heavy feeling never went away—not quite.

Everything changed when he turned 11. The moment Sirius Orion Black met James Fleamont Potter on the train to Hogwarts, nothing was ever the same since. Two pure-blood boys from prominent and wealthy pure-blood families on different political and moral spectrums—no one expected the fierce friendship and brotherhood they would go on to form. They were inseparable from the moment they met. For Sirius, it was as easy as breathing with James. At first, Sirius was afraid that he'd have to pretend, much like he did with his family, but James could see right through him every time. He understood in a way that no one else did, and for the first time in his life, Sirius could see himself becoming someone other than the next Black. He had a chance to find out who he was beyond his family, the freedom to ignore his mother's whisperings, a chance to remove himself from his father's oppressive hand, and the obligation of serving as his little brother's role model. He could just be Sirius, in all his simplicity.

Little did Sirius know that silence reigned at the table as his family looked at the letter Narcissa sent detailing the information about his sorting with various degrees of disbelief and shock. The stunned silence was only broken by the insane laughter of his cousin Bellatrix and the soft giggles of Narcissa as they joked about another failure in the family. Being the first Black in the history of Hogwarts to not be sorted into Slytherin left a mark on his relationship with his family. His friendship with James catapulted his path away from his family's teachings, and over the years, he tried to ignore how his mother and Bellatrix seemed to allow their gaze to linger on him a tad longer than they used to. questioning and suspicious until his thirteenth year, when his mother turned her wand on him.

Soon his home turned into his own prison, and he no longer heard the screams of muggles when his own reverberated off the walls. Curses, which his parents took great care to teach him, curses he took great care in learning were now placed on his own body. For the first time in his life, Sirius finally knew what it meant to be a Black when he realized he didn't want to be.

It was 10 years later, when he was 21, that Sirius realized that he would never be able to escape his last name. It was branded on his skin and became his ultimate damnation.

June 30th, 1991

A long way from the neighborhood of Surrey and the warmth of Hogwarts' walls lay the impenetrable, cold, and depressing fortress appropriately named Azkaban, where Sirius Black, the godfather of Harry Potter, lay slumped against the cold stone floor. He made for the most pitiful sight. Long black, stringy hair lay on his shoulders, draped over him like a cape. It did very little to shield him from the cold. His body was frail and thin from the lack of nutrient-rich food and his diminishing appetite. Sirius shivered as a dementor passed by his cell. Ice particles formed where the dementor flowed, making the cell that much colder.

Dementors, in Sirius's opinion, were perhaps the worst that the wizarding world had ever created. From their skeleton hands to their long, torn cape, they were floating nightmares. Wretched enough that the worst humanity had to offer looked as innocent as a newborn babe. To say Sirius was suffering would be an understatement. Day after day, surrounded by the worst things he's ever done and the worst things done to him, he's forced to relive every horrific memory as the ones that made life worth living are taken away from him. The dementors circled him every second of the day; sometimes they came in groups, sometimes in pairs, but most days they formed a line, as Sirius was without a doubt their favorite meal. A Patronus charm was the only protection wizards had against dementors, but every prisoner lost both their wand and their only means of defense. Sirius, however, was different; it wasn't widely known among the wizarding population, but dementors cannot read emotions or steal memories from animals. No one knew why that was since animals could experience the same emotions as humans, but no one ever thought to test it out.

It was only by assuming his Animagus form that he was able to keep the memories he refused to let go of. Those were the ones that reminded him why he had to keep fighting when everyone else around him slowly gave in to insanity. If Sirius were to be completely honest with himself, there weren't a lot of memories he could say that gave him explicit happiness. There were, however, a few, such as the day Harry was born and the moment he first held him in his arms. How those bright green eyes opened to look at him (sometimes juxtaposed with Lily's wide, unseeing ones) and how utterly defenseless he was to the babe in his arms (sometimes he remembered the one time the weight of holding Harry almost made his knees buckle).

There was the first time he kissed Remus, their lips meeting in a haze of soft laughter and lips wet from tears. Even after the disaster that was the 5th year, how gentle and heartbreakingly soft Remus held him while they snuggled up in his bed. He'd never be able to forget the moment James's parents legally adopted him, not when he could still feel the Potter family magic swimming within his blood, now unsettled and incomplete. Done in secret so his parents would not find out, he was reminded of how loved and cherished he was despite his last name and all his mistakes.

Those were the moments he so desperately tried to save. They were his only reminders that he was more than what others thought of him, that there was a light within him that no one else wanted to see, or rather, were more than willing to ignore. He knew the most important people did, and that was the only thing that truly mattered. Nonetheless, this was still Azkaban; the dementors never left him, and Sirius could only spend so much time in his Animagus form before he began to lose his humanity. Sooner or later, he'd be faced with those memories again, and his fight would resume, but Sirius was tired. He'd been fighting most of his life—his parents, his brother, death eaters, the war, and now dementors, and Sirius was tired. There were moments when Sirius was tempted to let himself go and join the ranks of prisoners who laughed at nothing but cried at everything, whose eyes became dull, whose thoughts wandered a barren wasteland, and whose bodies became nothing more than vessels for a soul unworthy of saving.

Nonetheless, Sirius couldn't bring himself to do so. To give up when he possessed something that every other prisoner lacked: his innocence. Despite the widely held belief that he sold out James and Lily, he held the truth that no one could take away from him, despite the dementors trying their hardest to pry it from his mind, and it was those very thoughts that helped him keep his sanity. For that, he couldn't decide whether to be thankful because he could die knowing he did not commit the crime he was accused of or angry because no one else but Peter would know the truth.

While he was busy trying to decide which option he'd die with, a letter appeared in his cell. For a brief moment, all he could do was stare; unless you count the howlers guards allowed him to receive for two years straight, he had never received a letter in his nine years here. Opening it, his eyes widened, and with every letter, with every word, with every line, a smile grew on his face until he was laughing. This was the laugh of a man so close to the verge of tears; his sobs mixed so thoroughly with his happiness that not even the dementors could tell the difference. In the face of his laughter, for the first time since his arrival, Azkaban was devoid of screams.

"Dear Sirius Black,

I hope you remember me, but if you do not, allow me to reintroduce myself. My name is Arabella Figg, and I served with you during the war in the Order of the Phoenix. I have been tasked with looking over your godson Harry Potter by Albus Dumbledore, and despite my reservations and doubts, I am choosing to believe that you cared for the boy. It's with this in mind that I ask you to tell me everything you can regarding the will of James and Lily Potter. I come to you with this because your godson has been living with Petunia Dursley for the past 10 years.

As you were friends with Lily, I know you have more intimate knowledge of her relationship with Petunia, and I do not have to inform you that Harry's placement there is less than okay. I have been unable to do anything for him other than feed him the occasional nutrient potion, but the fact that I've had to serve him one in the first place should tell you everything you need to know. I would tell you more about what I have witnessed, but I do not want to alarm you, and quite frankly, I have no reason to trust you with this information as of yet. Nonetheless, Albus has refused to place the boy with any other choice his parents have designated for him. Despite my protests, Albus is secure in his decision that Harry is safest with his aunt, but I know for a fact that that is not the case.

I am taking a chance on whatever positive feelings you held for the Potters in the hopes that I can remove Harry from his current situation. Please write down where I can find the will and any important information you deem necessary for me to know so that I may pass on this knowledge to Amelia Bones.

Sincerely, Arabella Fig.: Member and Affiliate of the Order of the Phoenix

July 5th, 1991

Since he received the letter, Sirius Black has been filled with hope once again. Sirius was certain he'd never have the chance to experience hope here, partly because the dementors ate up every positive feeling like it was an all-you-can-eat buffet and partly because everyone blamed him for James and Lily's deaths. People needed answers and someone responsible, and the moment Harry's survival was made known, James and Lily became martyrs, Harry became the wizarding world's savior, and Sirius became the most hated man, in some cases more hated than Voldemort himself. The icing on the cake, however, came when his parents reinstated him as the black family heir. They were ready to let Lucius Malfoy have it all when Regulus died, but they believed that he had finally seen the "light." When that became public, everyone who had doubts or a theory about what really happened now believed him to be guilty as well.

He finally became the one thing he'd been fighting against since he turned 11, and all the progress he made and all the arrests of death eaters he was responsible for went out the window of everyone's mind, never to return. As much as it hurt to admit it, it was understandable. No one except Sirius, Peter, James, and Lily were made aware of the switch, and with two dead and one presumed dead, the only piece of the puzzle left was Sirius. It didn't make the prettiest picture with its jagged edges and missing pieces that only Sirius knew were hidden.

So, when that letter arrived, Sirius felt the tendrils of hope beginning to latch onto his very soul.

Sirius POV

It's cold, but then again, it always is. It's a particular kind of cold that prevents you from shaking. With the exception of the chill in your bones, this cold left you numb to all sensations. The pain became as normal as breathing, and eventually, you just got used to it. The effects only become obvious when dementors pass by or decide to feed. If they were particularly ravenous that day, it felt like you'd been trapped in an ice bath for hours. It took weeks for the cold to start to ease up, only for it to return the next time they fed. Even now, I can hear them outside my prison walls. Their whisperings of complaints because of their hunger sent shivers down my spine. They were hungry today, terrifyingly so. Even though they spoke in their own language, I could understand every word they said. I've never known anyone to communicate with dementors in their own tongue; it's never been done since their creator died. They can speak English quite well actually, but they typically reserve that only for the minister—at least until I came around.

They like to talk to the ones they feed from, and one day I was lucid enough to respond. It freaked them out enough that they left me alone for weeks, and it was glorious. Sooner or later though, they found that the knowledge I could understand made for a better meal. Who would've guessed that the Dementors were a sadistic bunch? It wasn't just the dementors that found my ability strange. The first time I translated for a guard, I was avoided for weeks until the minister paid me a visit. Then it was assumed that I was the one who lured the dementors to Voldemort's side, which is completely ridiculous, but they imprisoned me without a trial, so their thought process was more than skewed.

The click of heels heading to my cell a few moments later brought me back to my thoughts, and I was met with the sight of Amelia Bones of the DMLE. "It's nice to see you, Madame Bones," I said. I had thought about smirking, but it felt weird. Part of me forgot what it was like to smile or give any expression, for that matter. I'm lucky I'm not insane; I knew that all too well as the screams of the other prisoners filled the dark halls.

"You knew I'd be here three days ago, Black," she replied. She was unnerved by my lack of expression, and funny enough, I found myself filled to the brim with a sick sense of vindication. I've always known I had the capability for cruelty but have since left it behind me at Hogwarts. But just now, her expression made me want to cause her discomfort all over again. She motioned to the two guards behind her to come and take me.

"Alright, Russell, Barker, unlock him. We're bringing him with us back to the ministry."

With that, she turned around and made her way back to the office without saying another word to me, but I didn't miss the shiver that passed down her spine as she walked away. I was left with the two guards, who looked unsure about whether or not they wanted to touch me. Internally, I rolled my eyes and thought, 'They were fine dragging me here, but now that I'm leaving, they don't want to touch me?'

Funny how that works.

Looking now, I remember one of the guards, Russell-Tobias Russell. His buzzcut hair was the same as it was during the first war, but his eyes finally spoke of the experience he lacked the first time around, and he looked at me apprehensively. I think before I would have smirked and said something cheeky, but now it was a hollow feeling, so I lifted my arms out and waited for one of them to unchain me from the wall, which after a minute or so they did. "She's always so serious, isn't she? But you'd know all about that, eh?" Russell said… For a moment, all I could do was stare as his words came to me. He made a joke about my name. I've said those jokes a million times; they were always a form of comfort for me, but now I wasn't sure if I wanted to hit him or not. I finally understood the annoyance people had with me for making them all the time. I just stared at him and watched as his expression slowly twisted with uneasiness at my silence before he grabbed and shoved me out of the cell.

"I remember you," I said as they began to lead me down the hallway. My voice somehow carried over the sounds of sobs and whimpers from various prisoners.

"Yeah..." he sighed.

"You had a panic attack the first time you were sent out as a backup," I said once more, my tone turning flatter the more I talked. "You almost got killed your first day out on the field." Turning my head, I looked at him, even though he kept his head straight forward, but I caught his partner staring at us with wide eyes. Ah, so Russell never told him about our little history. "Do you remember who saved your sorry arse that day?" I asked. Stopping, Russell sighed and finally looked at me. His brown eyes hardened as we stared at each other.

"I fucking get it, Black; you saved me; you might be innocent; you didn't receive a damn trial; I get it," he growled out.

I wasn't fazed, not really. I wasn't angry; I just wanted him to say it. I was going to make everyone who knew me say they were wrong. I was going to make them all admit it—not because I needed to hear it but because I'd had to keep the truth inside me for too long. They weren't going to get that opportunity to acknowledge the truth in private as they lay in bed for the night. Not while I spent the last decade screaming while they got to sleep peacefully.

"I wonder," I began, still staring at him. "If I should have let you die that day, At least then, you could say fairly that you had no reason to believe my innocence."

Somehow, despite the noise, in the silence between us, you could hear a pin drop. Okay, maybe I pushed a little too hard there, if his grip tightening on my arm was any indication. Oh well. Everything was going as smoothly as it could with them dragging me along. Apparently, being stuck in a cage with little room to move around doesn't exactly help with coordination, so all they could do was try and keep me up as my legs failed to carry my weight. As we walked past cells, the moans and screams of the other prisoners followed us; we could still hear the echoes of those down the hall. Fortunately, we finally hit the hallway with a silencing charm in place, and the screams were finally gone. It was unnerving—the silence, the complete and utter silence—it was so unnerving, and so was the temperature change. I could feel my skin beginning to prickle as the warmth tried to chase away the cold. Surprisingly, while I missed and cherished the heat, I also hated it. It fucking hurt.

Unfortunately, the heat wasn't the only thing that made the area suddenly uncomfortable. The moment we reached the door of the office, there was the classic sign of dementors as the walls and floors froze over and temperatures dropped. The whiplash was, in the simplest terms…a bitch. Some of the dementors glided through the walls, rematerializing as they gathered and blocked the entrance.

"Stay back," Amelia warned as she came through the door, her wand at the ready. "Black is not undergoing his death today." Today? Wow, that really showed how much she believed in me, and Barker both had their wands at the ready now, shaking. Despite the warning, the dementors slowly glided closer but made no move to feed. They started whispering instead as they formed a circle around us.

{Good-bye}

{No, don't go away. Come back}

{There was no better food around; you were a special brand of misery}

{Oh yes, he was delicious, wasn't he?}

{Innocence is better than happiness or despair.}

For a long time, it was silent, even after they moved away, and I couldn't help but start laughing. It was a broken sort of laugh, rough and dry; it made my throat hurt, but I couldn't stop. It wasn't really all that funny, but to think they came to say goodbye only to say feeding on me was something they thoroughly enjoyed made me laugh. How utterly morbid!

"What's so funny, Black?" Russell questioned.

"You could have been kissed if it weren't for Amelia," Barker said.

All the while, I kept laughing, even more so with that statement. The Dementors weren't afraid of Amelia or anyone else, for that matter, unless you could perform a Patronus charm, and even then, they'd still try and kiss you before you could speak the words. Amelia truly held no power here; none of us did... I wondered when the rest of the world would care to notice that.

"Oh great, he's finally getting out of here, and he's gone insane," Barker muttered under his breath, and I stopped laughing. I still thought the whole situation was absolutely wrong in the funniest but not funny sort of way, but I couldn't bear someone calling me crazy for whatever reason. Being a Black and labeled a traitor gave ample ammunition for people to call me crazy; I wouldn't have that.

"I'm not crazy," I gritted out between my teeth. "I just wasn't expecting them." I looked around and was met with various expressions of annoyance. I simply rolled my eyes, walked into the office, and stepped up to the fireplace.

"They were only telling me goodbye."

I looked back at my company and was instantly hit with another urge to laugh. Their expressions changed from annoyance to disbelief, and despite my best efforts, a laugh made its way out of my mouth. "Are we gonna get a move on?" I finally asked, and it took a moment before I received an answer in the form of Amelia Bones. She was the first one to pull herself out of whatever state of shock she was in.

"I thought they were lying when they said you could speak to dementors."

"Nope," I said, making sure to pop the P.

"It turns out that this is the one thing people actually got right about me. Surprising, isn't it?" I asked.

"That you can speak and understand dementors?" Amelia asked sarcastically, and by Merlin, I couldn't help but let out a dry chuckle.

"Oh, no," I replied. "I meant, isn't it surprising how many lies there are about me roaming the streets?"

Russell rolled his eyes before saying, "Yeah, we get it Black. You'll have your chance to set the record straight." Truthfully, I thought he had no idea how right he was. "Make sure to ask me about when I caught Pettigrew. I have a feeling the Wizengamot is going to want to hear that particular tale," I said. "Oh yes, because we all want to hear about how you murdered the poor lad," an auror that came out of the fireplace snorted. I smiled at him and inwardly cheered at how he backed up; my full attention was now on him. "Oh, don't worry," I chuckled darkly. "I'm sure your stomachs can handle it."

Before he could reply, Amelia grabbed my arm in one hand and a handful of floo powder in the other before calling out the address of the ministry. When we stepped out of the fireplace, I was met with the sight of at least a dozen aurors waiting in the lobby outside the courthouse.

Lovely, I thought. Absolutely lovely.

Sirius is my favorite character. I love him with all my heart and just...ugh I wanna give him a lil hug.
The man is severely traumatized okay. He has PTSD, and his time in Azkaban has made him a little bit crueler or rather, it took away his need to hide his cruelty which we'll end up seeing a bit more as the story progresses.

We go back to Harry in the next chapter, don't worry.