Disclaimer: Not mine. I'm just playing in Rowling's sandbox. I'll give back her characters sometimes in the future... mostly unharmed, I promise.
This is an AU that takes place not too long (at most a year, but more likely less) after Harry's parents died on Hallowe'en and after Sirius ended up in Azkaban.
…
BREAKING AZKABAN
…
"Black's going to drive us all crazy," the Warden told the other three people in the room, shuddering. "Or worse."
Minister Bagnold frowned and looked from one to the other. "We've had mad people in Azkaban for centuries already," she said icily. "Our wardens have always weathered the challenge."
Then she narrowed her eyes at the Amelia and the Head Warden of Azkaban further.
"I wonder why you're here now," she added. "If generations of wardens never complained about their work in Azkaban – crazy people or not."
"Well, they didn't have a Black in Azkaban," the Head Warden countered. "They had it easy. If it wasn't for Black, not one of us would come and ask anything of you."
"Surely, there were Blacks in Azkaban before!" Minister Bagnold exclaimed. "He can't be the first to be sentenced to Azkaban!"
Amelia and the Head Warden exchanged a concerned look.
"Minister," Amelia finally said slowly. "The laws have an amendment for the Blacks…"
"An amendment – solely for the Blacks?" the Minister looked at Amelia as if she was mad. "Whyever should any an amendment exist just for a single family?!"
"The Black madness," the Warden explained nervously. "There's even a sentence about the blacks in the rule books for the wardens of Azkaban. A Black is never sentenced to Azkaban. They're not even allowed to visit Azkaban."
Bagnold stared at the warden incredulously.
"Bellatrix Lestrange is also currently imprisoned in Azkaban – and I have yet to hear any complains about her behaviour from you," she countered cooly.
"Irrelevant," the Head Warden said with a shudder. "She's not a Black anymore. As a daughter of the house, she might have inherited the Black insanity – but she's just affected by it peripherally. It's the main line you have to look out for."
"There's no difference between her and Black," Minister Bagnold countered. "They're both insane. From your explanation, I can't see a difference."
"Oh, but there is," the Head Warden assured her. "While Bellatrix Lestrange might go insane thanks to her inherited insanity, Sirius Black is about to turn us insane thanks to his inherited madness. It's hard enough to work in Azkaban without your sanity being threatened by one mad inhabitant."
"You make it sound as if Black is infectious," Fudge said with a disbelieving snort.
"Most likely, he is," the Head Warden agreed, clearly happy that finally someone understood his plight. "I have up to twenty wardens who show signs of being infected by his madness right now, so I can agree that he might be contaminous–"
"Black is not contaminous!" Minister Bagnold sternly interrupted the Head Warden before he could add anything else.
"He's the reason why a lot of wardens need to be put formally on sick leave before they end up in St. Mungo's Janus Thickey Ward permanently!" the Warden argued.
"While I'm not sure that I'd go that far, I certainly agree that something has to be done before one or the other of the wardens snaps," Amelia agreed with a sigh.
"There's no way that one man could bring down our whole platoon of guards in Azkaban!" the Minister glared at Amelia Bones and the Head Warden. "And therefore I definitely won't agree to any writ that will put our wardens of Azkaban into sick leave!"
"Then there will be either a revolt or a mass-exodus to St. Mungo's," the Head Warden said resigned. "If you don't agree, then there will be no stopping either one or the other."
Amelia clapped the man on the shoulder.
"Maybe we haven't made it clear enough how serious–"
"Director!" the Warden shuddered and quaked of fear. "Please!"
"–how dire the whole situation is," Amelia corrected without stopping. "And it is dire! And not just for the wardens of Azkaban…"
Coriander Urquart closed his eyes.
If he had his eyes closed, he could ignore it… or at least he could act as if he hadn't seen it. Otherwise, Coriander wasn't sure if he'd manage to get out of the situation, he currently found himself in, sane in mind.
Sadly, he couldn't close his ears as easily as he could close his eyes.
Black was humming. He was leaning back in Coriander's chair, his feet on Coriander's desk, while humming an upbeat song. Black seemed to be quite cheerful.
"Oh," Black said in that moment, apparently having noticed Coriander before the poor man had been able to even think about a way to get out of his office door before Black noticed him. "You're back. How was your round? Everyone safe in their cells?"
Coriander swallowed harshly.
"Everyone but one," he finally managed to say and opened his eyes hesitatingly. "But I guess I found the missing inhabitant."
Black blinked and then looked around full of interest. "You did?" he asked. "Where?"
"I guess, he's sitting in my office chair," Coriander managed to say, still not sure if he should try and get Black somehow back into his cell, or if he should resign himself to this being his new normal.
"He is?" Black said and then stood up to look at the chair beneath him. "Huh? I don't see him. Weird."
"Not really," Coriander said and then hesitatingly stepped closer. "What are you doing here, Black?"
Black looked up from the chair, back to Coriander. In the end, he shrugged and then sunk back onto Coriander's poor office chair.
"I was writing my correspondence," he said as if he always wrote his correspondence in Coriander's office.
"You're a convict," Coriander reminded Black. "You shouldn't have any correspondence at all!"
"I'm the Black heir," Black reminded him. "I would be a horrible heir if I didn't maintain correspondences with at least my Lord and our allies."
Coriander gawked at Black.
"I thought you hated your family, Black," he blurted out before he could even think about stopping himself from saying anything.
"Oh, I thought so, too," Black agreed, unbothered by Coriander blurting out his thoughts just like that. "But I had a real revelation a few weeks ago. I didn't actually know my mother, you know?"
Coriander pinched the root of his nose. "As far as I know, you grew up with both of your parents," he reminded the man. "So, I'm quite sure that you knew your mother, Black."
"Oh, no, you're wrong there," Black corrected him and twiddled his thumbs. "I definitely didn't know my mother. Egad! I barely knew my father!"
Coriander wondered how mad a man had to be that he dismissed his own parents as a figment of his imagination. "Your mother and father raised you, Black," Coriander tried to argue.
Black snorted.
"The people who raised me weren't my parents," he insisted. "My mother, according to my father, was a loving woman, once. And my father – now that I remember him a bit better – was once a caring father, actually interested in his sons."
Black shook his head. "Sadly, neither Mother nor Father were strong enough to give into their madness," he said sadly. "They saw the abyss and instead of jumping, they shrunk back and clung to the edge instead of embracing the madness like I did."
Then, Black sighed. "But then, Father assured me that I was always stronger than them, so I guess it isn't surprising that they didn't manage to go the last, important step."
"One that you went," Coriander concluded sarcastically, quite sure that Black's parents had to have been the stronger ones. They hadn't gone mad like Black, after all.
"Exactly," Black exclaimed happily, not even recognizing the sarcasm lacing Coriander's voice.
Coriander closed his eyes and wondered if he kept them close, Black would manage to be gone when Coriander finally deigned to open them again.
"I bet, Grandfather is quite proud of me, as well," Black added as if Coriander wasn't trying to ignore him.
"He hasn't answered you, yet?" Coriander asked and then bit his tongue. Of course, the Black Lord hadn't answered, yet. Letters to Azkaban were screened, they would have known if the Black Lord would have written Black.
"No, not yet," Black agreed. "But I've only written for the fifth time, so I'm not yet expecting an answer. It's custom to wait until at least the ninth or tenth letter until you answer, after all."
Which just punctuated Black's insanity.
"If you say so," Coriander said nevertheless.
"I do," Black said before he glared at the desk in front of him. "On the other hand, Lucius has been nothing but rude. He's been answering my mail from nearly the beginning. I'm quite sure I should feel insulted, but he's the husband of my cousin, so I fear I have to keep corresponding with him – if I want to or not."
"Lord Malfoy has been writing you?!" Coriander exclaimed, quite sure that there had been no letters from Malfoy in the screened mail.
"Not a lord," Black corrected Coriander immediately. "If he had been one, he would have better manners."
"Not the point, Black!" Coriander screeched. "Malfoy shouldn't have been writing you!"
"That's exactly what I said," Black agreed immediately. "So rude, that man!"
"No, Black," Coriander tried to correct the man desperately. "His letters weren't screened so there's no way you should have gotten any correspondence from him!"
Black crooked his head.
"The screening process in this noble establishment is thoroughly lacking, Urquart," he told Coriander matter-of-factly. "It takes ages until something is screened – and then, for the most parts, the correspondence goes missing." Again, Black shook his head. "No, I don't intend to sent any letters through your screening process. Far too inefficient, that thing."
"But…"
Black didn't let him continue. His eyes had darkened even further than they had been before. "But maybe I should let Malfoy's correspondence go through the process. I'm thoroughly tempted to do so if he keeps insulting me. It's either this or I will come by for a visit and tell my cousin about his rudeness."
That hadn't been what Coriander meant and Black visiting his cousin was definitely something that Coriander should prevent – at least Coriander guessed that he should do his uttermost to at least try preventing it.
"I'm sure he's not insulting you that badly," he tried to reason with Black. The other man snorted and pulled out a dirty and yellowed letter that had definitely seen better days, once.
"My dear Sirius," Black started to read with a scoff. "I am grieved that it took Azkaban for you to reach out to your family. I thank you for your well wishes for my son. I assure you, we will raise him a proper Malfoy and Black… I think only Snivellus managed to insult me more!"
Coriander blinked, not quite sure what Black was offended by. "I'm… quite sure he didn't mean it like it sounded?" he hesitatingly offered, unwilling to get into a row with a mad man who should have been sitting in his cell instead of Coriander's office.
"Oh, he did," Black assured him. "But don't worry, I set him straight. It's not as if it was Azkaban that made me reach out to my family! Really! If that man wants to raise his son as a proper Black he should know how to help the child towards insanity instead of trying to reason logically! Like that, the boy will never be a proper Black!"
Black shook his head in despair. "Well, I guess Lucius is a work in process," he finally concluded and stood up. "He'll either get around, or he won't and then we'll deal with the fallout – whatever."
With that, Black passed by Coriander and opened the office door.
"Where are you going, Black?" Coriander asked concerned that the man was about to leave Azkaban to contact his cousin.
"Back home," Black said matter-of-factly. "I have enough of correspondence for a while. I still have some books to read. I think I'll start the one about horcruxes next. That one sounded quite interesting."
And with that, Black ambled out of the room.
Coriander sunk into his office chair. Black was utterly insane – and Coriander wasn't sure if Black wasn't about to drive him mad as well. He certainly felt like it right now.
When Eustace Blishwick didn't return from his round through the corridors of Azkaban, his partner for the night, Otha Sayre, decided to step out of the office himself, determined to find the missing man. Every once in a while, it happened that one of the wardens was attacked on their rounds. Either, one of the prisoner threw something at them and actually managed to hit them, or one of the dementors got cocky and attacked the warden.
Over the years, most incidents had ended up being harmless in the end, but there had been a case or two where the attacked warden either lost their life or their soul.
To minimize those possibilities, it was custom to look for a warden who was more than fifteen minutes late returning from their round.
Because of that, Otha mentally sighed when Eustace Blishwick was twenty minutes late, preyed that it was a harmless delay and then started to search for his partner in the depths of Azkaban.
In the end, he found him in the most unlikely places.
"Eustace! What are you doing there!" Otha stared at his colleague as if he had gone mad. Sadly, Eustace seemed to be not at all affected by the stare.
"Let's try it the other way around," he instead suggested to Black. He was sitting on the floor of Black's cell next to a kneeling Black and was holding some sticks in his hands. It took another second for Otha to recognizes those sticks as parts of some kind of furniture that hadn't been assembled, yet.
"Eustace!" this time, the sitting man actually startled and then looked up from the sticks he had tried to fit together.
"Otha," he said, sounding quite surprised that Otha was standing in front of Black's cell, looking in. "Oh… am I late?"
"Are you really asking me right now if you're late?" Otha asked the other man disbelievingly. "What are you even doing inside of Black's cell?!"
"He invited me inside and I thought it rude to reject his offer" Eustace said and then he put down one of the sticks to scratch his head. "He also asked me if I could help him, but honestly? I think we need some kind of manual to assemble that bed."
"Bed?" Otha looked at the other corner in Blacks surprisingly big – or was it magically expanded? – cell where a fully assembled four poster bed was already waiting for Black to lie down and sleep.
"Crib," Black corrected absentmindedly while he tried to put together another two sticks in some way or other. "I took it from your house. I thought that you wouldn't miss it for a few years, what with your youngest just starting Hogwarts and your oldest not anywhere near ending Hogwarts or having children on their own."
Otha blinked, totally thrown for a single moment. Then he narrowed his eyes at the parts that made up the not yet assembled crib. Now, that Black had said so, he actually recognized the parts as part of the crib his children had slept in when they were little.
"You stole the crib from my home?" Otha asked horrified.
"Borrowed," Black corrected him. "I just borrowed it. You can have it back when your oldest needs it for your grandchildren."
"I… think my family won't be mad at me when I say that I don't think anyone of them wants it back, now," he said. They also wouldn't object if Otha went and hired the best wards masters of Magical Britain to ensure that the insane mass murderer that even Azkaban couldn't hold, wouldn't have as easy of a time to get into their home.
"Oh, alright, if you think so," Black said and then frowned at the pieces of the crib. "But that still doesn't help me with assembling it."
"Why do you even need a crib in the first place?" Otha asked half-concerned, half-confused while Eustace and Black kept discussing how to actually assemble the crib. "You already have a bed, not to mention that the crib is far too small to fit you properly."
Black scoffed. "It's not for me," he said and waved it off dismissively. "It's for the future."
"The future?" Otha wasn't sure if he wanted to know what Black meant.
Black nodded calmly. "Father always said that it's smart to be prepared," he declared. "And while I can't say that I feel any interest in Bella, she has been insulting me a lot more for the last three days. I thought that I should at least show her that I consider her interest by assembling a crib for a potential child."
"Isn't Lestrange your cousin?" Eustace asked innocently. Otha nearly died inwardly at that question.
"Hmm… most likely," Black agreed. "And while that connection is a bit close, she has been paying me a lot of attention lately. I might not be interested, but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't be considerate and think about the potential. There is a chance that I might run out of books and end up considering her offer out of boredom or some such, in the future, after all."
Otha decided he didn't even want to think about that kind of potential.
"So, you're assembling a crib," he concluded. "But that doesn't explain why Eustace is in there with you."
Black sighed.
"Apparently, my ability to assemble anything ends with book shelves," he said sadly. "The dear Blishwick agreed to help me out of the kindness of his heart."
"You literally talked me into helping you," Eustace said dryly but Black waved it off.
"But sadly, Blishwick doesn't seem to know more about how to assembled a crib than I do," Black looked towards the parts of the crib in front of him sadly. "It's a work in process, I guess."
Otha looked at the parts and took in the fact that Eustace and Black together hadn't managed to put even two parts of the crib together in the last twenty or more minutes.
"You're both hopeless," he concluded with a sigh.
Black and Eustace both nodded, the first enthusiastically, the later one resigned.
This was madness.
Absolute and utter madness.
Otha opened the door to the cell.
"Alright," he said while he closed the door behind him. "Let's take a look. Assembling a crib really isn't that hard, you know?"
Apparently, the madness was spreading.
Sadly, Otha only noticed that after he spend the rest of his shift in Black's cell assembling a crib for a none-existing baby.
And sadly, it only got worse from then on – at least those were Otha's thoughts when, the next time around, he found Odell Fawley in Black's cell, playing cards with the convict.
Of course, Otha did the logical thing.
He opened the door and sat down before he demanded to be dealt in.
It was poker – so what else should he have done?
"Alright, do you get it now?" the voice Frederic MacDougal heard was well-known to him. He just didn't remember where he knew it from. There was just one thing that Frederic knew for sure: it wasn't Black talking.
"No," that was Black. "Explain it again."
"I've explained it to you five times already," the other man pointed out, sounding exhausted. "I don't think you will get it if I try to do it another time."
"You could try to explain it differently," Black argued. "I'm sure, I'd get it, then."
Frederic stepped up to the bars of Black's cell and hesitatingly took a look inside.
Black was inside - but that was to be expected. The same went for the unusual décor of Black's cell. The wardens had long since given up on trying to return Black's cell to the plain room with a plank bed that it had been before. As it was, Black's Slytherin House Hogwarts bed was standing against the opposite wall, left and right from the bed, shelves had been added, full of books about all kinds of topics - from the dark arts to healing. Nearly next to the door stood a table and chair. And beneath the window stood a crib.
But it was the chair that was occupied. Black was sitting there, a parchment – Frederic was sure that he didn't even want to know where he got it from – in front of him. In his hand was a quill, next to the parchment was a book and next to Black…
"What are you doing here, Marcellus?" Frederic asked horrified.
Marcellus Abbott glared at Black. "Wasting my time trying to teach that dunderhead warding," he said, certainly unimpressed with Black's ability to learn.
Black pouted. "You don't have to help me, Abbott," he complained. "I could manage on my own!"
"You could blow us up on your own, Black!" Marcellus argued back. "I'm not letting you blow up Azkaban!"
"So, you're teaching him warding?" Frederic asked horrified.
Marcellus glared at him.
"Yes," he said. "And don't you dare to complain about me teaching Black! I want to actually return home to my little girl each night and with Black learning warding on his own, I don't think I would."
"Hey!" Black intercepted offended. "Just because you think I'd blow up Azkaban, it doesn't mean that you'd be there if I end up doing it. For all we know, I could end up blowing up Azkaban while you're at home, playing with your little girl!"
"Or I could be right next to you because by my luck, I'd end up next to your cell while on my round when you finally manage to blow yourself up!" Marcellus argued back.
Frederic gulped.
"Why is Black learning warding at all?" he finally managed to ask nervously.
Marcellus shrugged. "I don't know," he replied. "I just know that he was about to blow himself up with his warding experiments when I came by about a week ago. I didn't ask. I just want to live, so here I am, at Azkaban after hours to teach him warding for the sake of all of us."
"Education is important," Black replied. "At least, that's what Grandfather told me in his last correspondence. I wasn't about to disregard his wisdom so I searched for a master who was willing to educate me further. My current master is certainly willing."
"He's willing to blow you up, you mean," Marcellus corrected grumbling.
"Ah, whatever," Black waved it off. "Willing is willing. I wasn't very choosy when I looked for someone to teach me. After all, teachers are all ever only for a time, but education is for life."
Which was well enough, Frederic thought, though not quite realistic when it came to the fact that Black's teacher seemed to try and blow him up. Frederic doubted that that sentiment held any value in the face of facts like that.
"I'm pretty sure that so called master as a grudge against Black," Marcellus added darkly. "Or against Azkaban. I haven't decided yet if he just wants to kill Black or all of Azkaban."
"Pretty sure it's just me," Black told them matter-of-fact, surprisingly unconcerned about the possibility of someone wanting to kill him. "I mean, all of the magical world seems to dislike me for some reason or other, so I'm quite sure that my master isn't all that different."
Marcellus exchanged an exasperated look with Frederic.
"Don't you know why people hate you, Black?" Frederic asked. "I mean, you should have figured that out, shouldn't you? You're a Death Eater."
"I have never even tried to eat Death!" Black immediately objected, clearly filled with indignation. "Nor have I ever tried to eat something dead. Well… I ate pork… and chicken… and fish… and there might have been some beef in there as well… but I thought that didn't count since I'm quite sure that Fawley ate a steak yesterday."
"He did and eating meat isn't the problem, Black," Marcellus said resigned. "It's the fact that you followed You-Know-Who."
Black scoffed. "I don't."
"What?"
"I don't know who, you didn't say."
Frederic buried his head in his hands. Clearly, Black was far too gone, to even recognize his old master.
"We're talking about the tattoo on your arm," Frederic finally said, hoping to remind Black of his alliance.
Black rolled his eyes. "I don't have a tattoo on my arm," he objected and then pulled up his sleeves to reveal… bare arms. There was no Dark Mark anywhere.
"What?" Marcellus grabbed Black's arm and turned it to look at it closely. "Where's your Dark Mark?"
"Don't have one, never had one," Black said cheerfully. "But I'm thinking of getting some other tattoos. Something cool and stylish. Maybe the dementors have an idea what they could add onto my skin. I heard that prison tattoos are very in in the muggle world."
"The dementors?" Frederic asked horrified, while Marcellus stared at Black as if he… well, had declared that he'd get the dementors to tattoo him.
"Sure," Black said and waved it off. "They're quite nice. Nice and cuddly."
"Cuddly," Marcellus repeated faintly.
"Yes, we've been sharing body-heat once or twice on cold nights," Black assured them. "Quite nice fellows, those dementors. I'm sure one or two of them might have some artistic abilities as well. If I asked, they might help me with my tattoos. I was thinking about some nice rune or two, you know?"
"You're mad, Black," Frederic exclaimed, feeling horrified just hearing about the stuff Black was doing when nobody watched him.
"Sure," Black agreed unconcerned. "That's genetically inherited for me." With that, he shrugged and then turned back to his parchment, taking the quill and starting to write another rune.
"Don't you dare to finish writing that rune!" Marcellus screeched. "I would like to see tomorrow!"
Black pouted and looked with tearful eyes up towards Marcellus. "You're always prohibiting me the best stuff, Abbott."
"And I have reasons," Marcellus replied sternly.
Frederic stepped back from the cell.
"Well, have fun," he decided. "I think I go and try to safe my sanity."
Sadly, Frederic wasn't sure if it wasn't already too late for that.
"How did Black even end up imprisoned if he doesn't have a mark?" he wondered. "I mean, yeah, they said he killed Pettigrew… but why did he when he wasn't allied with You-Know-Who?"
Of course, for all his musing, Frederic was far too sure that there would be no change when it came to Black's imprisonment. There was no way that the minister would let Black go – and even if she did, Frederic was sure that Black wouldn't leave.
No, Black had moved into Azkaban. Come hell or high water, chances were none existent that Black would ever leave again.
Which was mad.
Absolutely mad.
Frederic's head hurt.
"Maybe, I should take a sick day or two," he mumbled to himself. "If I don't, I might end up like Marcellus, teaching Black warding when the only thing holding Black in Azkaban are wards."
Sadly, it was already far too late for that. A week later, Frederic watched Black trying to brew a potion. It was only because Frederic stepped in that Black didn't blow them all up with his potion. Of course, after another two times witnessing the same, Frederic, out of self-preservation, finally decided to supervise and teach Black potions…
Yes, Frederic was going mad – and there was no way out of that anymore…
... ... ...
...
Well, I'm back with the insanity and Azkaban continues to suffer.
'Till next time.
Ebenbild