Thursday 2nd December 1981
Remus and Tonks' Flat 08:00
They were actually having a peaceful morning for a change. Peaceful as in everyone was actually present for breakfast (she was a freshly minted Auror and therefore almost always got all the crappy shifts but somehow, she landed on the two o'clock one today) and Teddy wasn't screaming or trying to wear his food. His current favourite thing to do was wear his cereal bowl as a hat. With the milk and cereal still in it. Which is why they were eating toast this morning. Hey, you picked your battles and a toddler and his headgear was not one of them in Dora's opinion.
Well, it was peaceful until a really angry and vicious crunching noise came from Remus' direction. Dora looked up, tilting her head to one side.
"I can't believe it," Remus said in disgust before she could ask him anything, throwing the paper down on the table.
It fell apart with force he used, sending pages scattering everywhere. Teddy slipped down from the table and chased them in delight, trying to catch them. Which was kind of hilarious because he had apparently inherited her lack of grace and kept tripping over his own feet. And falling on his bum, thankfully, so no head injuries this morning.
"What?" Dora asked, summoning the pages quickly before Teddy could do any damage to them.
Teddy was unimpressed by this and let out an indignant squawk. Toddlers were easy to distract, however, a proved by the fact when she handed him a bit of toast with jam on it. Which he promptly licked and ran off with. They would probably find it stuck to something later but there were more pressing matters at hand, like why Remus was glaring at the newspaper like it had bit him.
"Malfoy."
"Lucius Malfoy?"
"Are there any other Malfoys?"
"Pretty sure that's there's a bunch of them in France."
Malfoy was a French name, after all. She remembered her mother saying that the family had moved to Britain in the late seventeen hundreds and has tried to pretend that they were the epitome of English aristocracy ever since. Her mum always said that with an eye roll which was incredibly amusing.
"Oh, ha, ha." Remus said with an eye roll of his own.
Hey, she was being quite serious there. There were Malfoys in France. That was a fact. Of course, she knew which Malfoy he was referring to. There could only be one, after all. Well, technically two but her darling Aunt Narcissa never played anything but the dutiful wife and her cousin, Draco she was pretty sure his name was, was only one or something like that. So, realistically, neither of them could have earned Remus' ire. Which left only one.
"Well, what about him?"
Granted, he didn't have to do much seeing as he was awful and a Death Eater and all but still. Had he done something particularly bad? All the high-ranking Death Eaters had been lying low recently. Out of self-preservation and probably because they were plotting something as well. Something the Auror Department was trying to (and failing) to figure out.
"He's been pardoned."
Dora hadn't realised that those words could be said with such venom but apparently, they could.
"What?"
Dora reached for the paper and scanned the now very crumpled front page.
"He's been pardoned. Wait, you didn't know?" Remus asked incredulously.
"No, why should I?"
She was a bit defensive there but it sounded like Remus was accusing her of hiding something. Which she most certainly was not!
"You're an Auror!"
"A new one who's barely in the door, barely trusted as it is and, by the way, Aurors aren't exactly involved in the court process unless they were a part of a capture or their report is called into question."
Dora was breathing heavily at the end of that. She had said it all awfully quickly and indignantly. Remus had his hands up in surrender.
"Sorry. I'm sorry."
"You should be." She paused and then realised how that came out. "Sorry."
Remus chuckled and that made her crack an unwilling smile.
"What are we like?"
"Hopeless," she replied with a nod.
And that just made them start laughing again. It was kind of nice to laugh. Definitely not enough of that recently. Even if it was over something ridiculous. Then she saw the newspaper again and she sobered up pretty quickly. You couldn't exactly laugh when Lucius Malfoy's smug face was on the front page.
"Why could he even get pardoned? People have seen him do the crimes!"
"He's claiming the Imperious curse," Remus sneered.
"And that's working?"
Dora scanned the article again. And sure enough. It was there. In black and white. People believed it. Obviously because the pardon was official. There was a picture of it there and everything. She wanted to burn the stupid thing. Even though the newspaper wasn't the actual thing but surely it would give her a little bit of satisfaction? So, yes, it was working. Working very well for the man. Extremely well for him. Urgh, how she hated that face of his.
"This way he doesn't even get interrogated about other Death Eaters," she said in disgust.
Unlike the ones who took the deal. Eurgh. The Ministry really was impossible! Putting people in Azkaban without a trial. Not giving people a trial. Pardoning people. Letting people basically go free for no good reason and, at the same time, locking people up for no reason. Literally none of their decisions were making any sense. She hated it. Hated it. Hated it.
Their justice system was the one thing that was supposed to make sense and it wasn't. It was supposed to be fair and it wasn't.
Remus made an explosive sort of noise through his nose and anyone else would have thought that he wasn't really reacting to it but Dora knew that this was him trying to control himself. The fact that he made a noise instead of pulling a face showed how difficult he was finding that. The clenched fist also kind of gave it away. They were going white from how hard he was doing it.
It was still better than her reaction which was to sweep the newspaper off the table and stomp on it. It didn't fix anything but it made her feel a tiny bit better.
[xxxxxx]
Azkaban, 10:30
Sirius took a deep breath. And another one. They helped. A little bit. Just about. It calmed his mind a little bit. Stopped all the thoughts coming so quickly. Thinking too much in here was not a good thing. Thinking brought memories and memories brought emotions and emotions meant that the Dementors liked to hang outside your door more. Something he could definitely do without. In fact, he could do without the Dementors all together but that wasn't about to happen considering he was in Azkaban, after all.
He couldn't even bring himself to laugh at that. He physically couldn't. Feeling happy was an alien emotion to him right now. And that was with only two Dementors patrolling the corridor his cell was on! This wasn't even the worst part of the prison! He shuddered at the thought.
More deep breaths. He couldn't think like that, he couldn't. It would do him no good. Things were bad enough as it was without thinking about how things could be even worse.
Speaking of worse, he found that whenever he stood up too quickly now that he got lightheaded. It was not a pleasant sensation. But it was survivable. That's what it had come down to now. If he could survive it. Before everything that had happened, he wouldn't have believed what he could survive. He was... well, he was stronger than he had ever thought. Because he was alive. Alive and continuing to survive. That little fact didn't make him feel any better either because he might be alive but he was still wrongfully imprisoned. Still alone, behind bars with nothing. Absolutely nothing. He had nothing, could do nothing, knew nothing, saw nothing. Literally nothing was happening. He didn't understand.
A wave of hopelessness came over him. Ah, Dementor number two was walking on his side of the corridor, passing by Dementor number one who was walking in the opposite direction. Well, they didn't really walk, more like glided. Either way, they were right in line with his cell, meaning that the effects were magnified. Which definitely wasn't good. He fought to keep the hopelessness at bay but he was fighting a losing battle. It was something he really ought to know by now but he couldn't help it. If he didn't at least try then he'd lost. He'd lost and the Dementors, the Ministry, everyone had won. And he couldn't have that.
He supposed that he should at least be grateful that there was mainly only one Dementor present on the corridor of cells he was on at a time. Sure, every hour they both walked up and down the length but usually only one stayed on the cells and the other was a way down the corridor, probably by the doors. Sirius didn't know. It wasn't like he could see down there. All he cared about was that for most of an hour je only had to feel the effects of one Dementor. Had to count his blessings and all that rubbish. Not that that was much of a happy thought. They were still Dementors, after all, no matter how many of them there were.
"High time it happened, I'm telling you," He heard echoing down the corridor.
Voices really bounced off stone, he found. Or maybe it was more because Dementors made no sound that any sort of sound was magnified to his ears now. It was weird and he didn't like it.
He strained his ears anyway so he didn't miss anything. Any news of the outside world was something he could hold onto. It helped him realise that there was something more to the four walls of his cell. Walls that were getting more and more scuff marks as the days went on as he kicked at them in frustration. He'd made the pattern of a bird over there. Unintentionally and it was lopsided but Sirius was pretty sure it was recognisable as a bird and not just him starting to see things. He hoped.
There was no more talking, just footsteps. They were getting closer and closer. And then there was the screech of a door opening. What end of the corridor was that coming from? Everything echoed weirdly against the stone so he didn't know. It was extremely disconcerting. Moans came from some of the cells around him at the noise. There weren't many prisoners on this corridor. It was technically one of the lower security ones, not exactly the criminals they were focusing on these days. Well, at least he hoped not but what did he know?
A shadow fell across his face, giving him a shock. He hadn't even heard people walk down this corridor never mind approach his cell. Maybe his mind really was starting to go.
There were two of them. Two Aurors, he noted the robes that they were wearing. Junior or standard ones, there were no bands on the robes to denote any sort of seniority. They were smirking at him, immediately putting him on edge.
"Move it, Black," one of them growled, pointing his wand at his cell door making it swing open.
He didn't recognise him but the man sounded young. Very young. Merlin, that made him sound old but as an Auror he'd gone through far more than the older Aurors had ever gone through before the War. So, this man (boy?) sounding incredibly young probably shouldn't be so surprising. He had probably had to replace someone who... well, wasn't there anymore.
Sirius closed his eyes and tried not to think took much about that. Which was hard considering there were Dementors around and that definitely wasn't a happy thought. In fact, it was nearly impossible because Sirius had discovered that not only did Dementors suck the happiness out of an area (of varying degrees depending on how close they were to you) but they also made bad thoughts and memories more prominent.
He was then unceremoniously removed from his thoughts by being shoved and pitching forward. It was a good thing he caught himself because no one around him certainly wasn't going to do it. When had he walked out of his cell? They had been in front of him just a second ago, right?
"I said move, Black."
"I'm moving."
"No talking!"
Oh, someone was high on his own importance, wasn't he? Sirius almost chuckled at that. Almost. Oh, that would last long. Not with Moody around. Sirius wished that he could see Moody's reaction to this kid. His downfall would be hilarious. Okay, he actually did chuckle a bit that time. His guards exchanged concerned looks but he didn't really care. It wasn't like anyone cared about him after all.
It was just then that he realised that they were all still walking. He hadn't realised that they had actually gone down corridors and now they were at the top of some stairs. Stone stairs that were grimy looking. He hadn't even known there were stairs down here.
"Move!"
He was given another shove and this time he actually did fall a bit. Thankfully, it was only three or four steps but it was enough to make his heart jump to his mouth.
"Hey!"
He knew better than to actually talk to them but, unfortunately, he couldn't help it. All it got him was a poke on the kidneys. Actually, poke was too mild a word. A shove? He didn't know. Either way, it hurt.
"No talking, scum!"
Scum? Really? Scum? That's what they were going to start off with. Okay then. It wasn't like he was in any position to argue. He just had to follow. Or be lead. Whatever. He was doing what he was told because he had no clue what else he could do. Which was horrible but that's where he was at right now. He doubted that these Aurors would listen to any pleas of his innocence. And the Dementors wouldn't take kindly to any disturbances. He was going to have to stay quiet.
Wait, he was being moved? He was being moved? Away from the upper level and down... well, he didn't know where he was going down to. Je just knew that it wasn't good to go down in Azkaban. What did that mean again? He hadn't actually much experience with how the prison worked despite being an Auror. Having been an Auror, he supposed. He shook his head, trying to rid himself of that thought. Azkaban. He had to dredge out of his mind what he knew about Azkaban. He had gone straight into being an Active Duty Auror with no rotations through other Auror duties like Azkaban, the courts and so on because of, well, you know, the war.
But he did remember one thing from the brief theory instruction he got. The lower the level you were in Azkaban, the more of a threat you were considered. You were a worse criminal. Violent. Irrational. Dangerous. Horrible. And he was being brought downstairs. Because he was considered those things. It was like a punch in the gut. No, wait, they had poked him in his kidneys again. They really had to stop doing that.
Looking down the dark corridor, corridor that was so dark that he actually could not see the end of, he gulped. This wasn't good. This wasn't good at all.
He hadn't had a trial. He shouldn't even be in Azkaban at all never mind getting moved to a lower level, he knew that much.
Another poke. A much harder one. He obeyed it.
[xxxxxx]
Severus and Chryssie's Flat, 11:00
Chryssie woke up in a cold sweat, the image of a Dark Mark fading away into the darkness. Which didn't do much to reassure her. Breathing heavily, she tried to remind herself where she was. There were blankets under her fingers. She was in bed. There was a Dark mound next to her. Severus. Who was now shifting around in his sleep.
"You, okay?" He asked, voice slurred with sleep.
"I'm fine," she tried to reassure him.
Except that her heart was still racing and it was definitely reflected in her voice. Which, of course, made Severus wake up properly.
"Chryssie?"
"I'm fine. Go back to sleep."
"You're awake."
"Because I just woke up."
Severus rubbed at his eyes. "Why?"
She shrugged, not wanting to admit what her mind had managed to conjure up.
"Weird scheduling? My body isn't really on any sort of schedule."
Which was the truth. Look at them both being asleep well into the morning. Granted, this was the middle of the night for both of them. She only got off her shift at six am and he had been brewing until five. Just not the reason why she was awake.
"Nightmares?" Severus said knowingly.
She didn't reply. Which, she supposed, was more of an answer than anything she could have said. Severus sighed and she felt a pang of guilt at waking him up. They both worked and studied long hours and needed all the rest they could get. There was no need for them both to be awake.
"Eep!" She couldn't help but squeak out as he drew her closer to him.
"Come here."
But she pushed him away. Or tried too, it was a bit hard when you were lying down.
"No," she protested. "I'm fine. Go back to sleep."
"You aren't fine."
"I am. See?"
Plastering a smile on her face she turned to look at him. He looked a bit disturbed but in no way convinced. Okay, so it was an incredibly fake smile but she was too tired to even try a convincing one.
"That's really not convincing, you know. Actually, it's a bit scary."
That got him a thump.