Chapter Text
Sirius’s body trembled; there was not a moment in Azkaban when Siruius didn’t feel the cold biting at every part of his body. It was the sort of cold that surrounds you and makes its way into your bones, it hung on his thin clothes and stiffened his wet, knotted hair. He felt so numb that the cold it became a constant thud against his crusty, bloodied fingers.
The dementor’s chill had nothing on the chill Sirius felt when he let his thoughts wonder into the darkest crevices of his mind. Sometimes he swore that he could feel the cold mist slithering into every inch of his brain.
His mind became plagued with flashes of green and piercing screams, the rage and fear that fueled his darkest nightmares was barely distinguishable from each other.
The line between nightmares, memories, past and present became more and more blurred as the days merged into one. In a constant dissociative state, he could never be sure what was real and what was not.
On the one occasion where Sirius made the mistake of prying his hands away from his ears, he swore he could hear James whispering to him from outside the bars of his cell, amongst the screams of the prisoners he could hear laughing, like how they both used to laugh in school,
Pads, we’re going to be late
Late?Late for what, he thought,
Sirius wracked his brain for days about what James could have meant. In the back of his mind it occurred to Sirius that James would never care about being late, he was always the last person to arrive anywhere. So, of course, that voice couldn’t have been James. Could it?
Merlin, he was truly losing it.
It wasn’t until some time later that he heard from James again, the ticking of water dripping to the floor sounded eerily like footsteps, he couldn’t distinguish any sold words from mumbling he heard on the other side of the thick cell walls, but he knew without any doubt that it was his Prongs. For a brief second Sirius was sure that he even saw the slither of a hand around one of the metal bars, though due to the darkness of the night, he couldn’t be sure. The hand looked paler than he remembered James’ looking, dirtier too.
No. That had to be a figure of his imagination, he decided.
After that Sirius took to sitting in the corner of his cell, his eyes trained to the thick metal bars, never leaving even when his food, a few slices of bread, was thrown in.
Though his stomach roared with hunger, he couldn’t allow himself to move, he couldn’t risk it, James could come back at any moment and there was no way he would miss it. Not for some silly stale bread.
At some point he must have succumbed to sleep; when he awoke he could hear the gruff mumblings of voices echoing around the hallways outside of his cell room, he knew in an instant that the voice wasn’t James and he couldn’t help but feel a stab of disappointment.
“Absolutely of his nut that one, suppose t’was going to happen. They all go mad eventually, the lot of them. Especially his kind- you know, the Blacks”,
Sirius frowned at the voice, mad he would accept, but he would never be associated with the Black family again. The sound of a second voice was muffled and he couldn’t make out what it was saying. It was strange what his mind was capable of conjuring up, he thought.
Where was James?He just wanted James back.
He jumped at the clanking of the metal keys on the bars as the it went through the rusted key hole. The noise was so deafeningly loud and so foreign that Sirius jumped to cover his ears. It was just like a dragon, he reminded himself, just like the one he and James had seen on the holiday he had go on with the Potters. The dragon had two heads and one tail, they had taken a portkey from a big open field, it was a book, no. A boot. And they had travelled to France, no, Belgium, no that couldn’t be it, but they had had chocolate. So Switzerland maybe?
Chocolate Chocolate, chocolate reminded him of a person, floppy brown hair, chocolate hair? No. Chocolate, the food.
Sirius mumbled to him self, his shoulders twitching angrily, he hadn’t noticed the two men standing over him.
“Told you, no use speaking to him” The low voice irritated Sirius as it interrupted his thoughts.
“Just give me a few moments with him”. Sirius stopped, the voice sounded familiar.
James?His mind unhelpfully suggested. No. Not James. Someone else. But still someone like him.
Sirius cracked open one eye,
Curiosity killed the cat, his mothers voice hissed at him.
He immediately recognised that he knew the man standing above him, he was eerily familiar and his name hung on the tip of his tongue though Sirius couldn’t place it for life of him, like his brain was buffering on a muggle computer and searching for a file that was no longer there.
The man looked worried, nervous even.
He didn’t get time to wonder why as Sirius was hauled to his feet, by the man in the guards uniform with the annoying voice. His feet gave out from under him, years of disuse had left his legs limp and useless. He was pulled upwards and placed into a chair in another room, before he even had time to protest.
They’re going to kill you.The voice purred behind his left ear, he realised with a start it was the voice of his mother.
His mother, oh how pleasant of her to join him. Gracing him with her presence. He laughed, she would be loving this.
Ignoring the prisoner’s maniacal laughter, the guard checked his chains, locking down his arms on either side of the metal hair chair. He pulled them a little too tight so that they were digging into his skin, Sirius winced though said nothing.
The man in the dull brown suit moved to sit on the other side of the table to face Sirius, he looked tense, Sirius noticed. You could see it in his shoulders and his finger twitched and clenched his palms.
“Fuck.. Sirius…”. The man wheezed, pulling his hair and pinching his fingers at the bridge of his nose.
“What the hell…. Do you even…” The man sucked in a breath harshly, thickly. “Sirius, please look at me” he said desperately.
Sirius stared harder at the table where the mans hands were lying, he just couldn’t work it out, he knew those hands, he had visions of them buried deep in his memories, the same place where memories of James were stored.
He swore he could almost imagine the feeling of them without even touching them, rough, calloused, but comforting. He wanted nothing more than to reach out touch them. A thought which stuck him as odd.
“Sirius. Please.” The voice was strained now, which made Sirius trace his eyes from the tip of the mans fingers up towards his face. It was then that he noticed the mans honey eyes, bright, wet with tears, though covered by thick brown hair.
Chocolate hair.
“What was that Sirius? I don’t understand” The man pleaded.
Sirius frowned, he hadn’t meant to speak, “Choc-oc” he tried to say, though it came out hoarse and weak before he was interrupted by his own spluttered cough.
He looked into the man eyes pleading with him to understand.
“Water?” The man asked pointing to a glass bottle with clear liquid inside, Sirius nodded.
The man held the water up to Sirius’ lips as he drank gratefully, he winced for a moment at how different it tasted to the water he had become accustomed to at Azkaban.
“Thank.. you” Sirius wheezed once the man brought the cup back down onto the table. “You.” Sirius paused “You know James”, Sirius realised as he stared at the man.
He saw realisation dawn on the mans face as he realised that Sirius didn’t know who he was.
“Yes, I knew James” He hesitantly replied, swallowing the hard lump in his throat that was beginning to form.
Yes. Sirius thought triumphantly.
“Where is he?”
The question left the man dumbfounded. Did Sirius not remember anything at all? Sirius must have actually lost his mind. But the man had asked so desperately, his eyes so full of hope. How could he ever explain that his best friends were dead, long gone.
“Sirius” the man looked pained, “He’s… he’s not” he sucked in a deep breath, “James is dead’.
James is dead.
Dead.
The words repeated themselves over and over in Sirius’ head. Dead. Flashes of green swirled in his memory, but now he knew what they meant. Dead.
He felt sick. Sirius’ ears rang and he could hear the faint muffling of the other man’s voice, the whooshing in Sirius’ head was all he could hear. He was going to be sick. He needed to get out.
“Siri please” The man was desperately trying to calm him down, he reached out to try and stop him from screaming his throat raw, Sirius’ arms were bleeding from trying to break his way out of the chains that locked him down.
Get out. Get out.
Out
Out
Out
“Sirius please. Its me. You have to remember me”
but he couldn’t, he couldn’t.
“It’s Remus”
Remus. Sirius halted as a wave of memories flooded back. Of course. Remus his Remus, Moony.
Before either of the men could register what was going on the guards had taken Sirius back to his cell and Remus was being ushered away. The sound of Sirius’ screams haunting him even as he got into bed that night.
That night Sirius lay on his concrete floor, the blanket of lies he told himself now gone, laying him bare. He trembled under the moonlight as he thought of Remus, of Hogwarts. Letting every stab of pain consume him as he wallowed in the horrors of his past. He thought of all his family and friends who had died, all of them dead because of him.
Murderer.
He murdered them.
He was a dirty dirty murderer just like his family.
James. Lily. Marlene. Dorcas. The Prewetts. Regulus.