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He was grieving.
They had pushed him to the ground, his cheek against the cold gravel as they yanked his arms behind him to hold him still.
He had stayed numb. He didn’t say a word as they screamed in his face, eyes hard and words vile as they called him names and shoved his shoulder hard. He didn’t protest when those circled around him as they pointed, jeered and told him of his guilt; outnumbered, he was, yet he couldn’t find it in him to care.
He had never seen such hatred as they stared on, while his arms were yanked and he was pushed, stumbling but not quite falling while they pulled him away.
He still stayed silent while they spoke of him in loud tones, ignoring his presence as well as the possibility of his innocence. He sat there, torn clothes, dirt stuck to his skin and his eyes dead.
He had lost it all; everything he had ever wanted and everything he had ever loved.
There was more talking, more yelling, and still he felt numb.
He looked back at them with his eyes glazed, the defeat in them apparent for anyone to see.
Finally they pushed him into a room he knew he was going to be. A cell; no more than a few feet wide and a few feet high, with a door that slammed closed ominously with a ‘bang’, a sound reminiscent of the end. The smell was atrocious, the dark dreary hole seeming to match the eternal darkness that seemed to have settled in his heart. He walked around it once, then twice, then felt trapped.
His fingers circled the cold bars that kept him in, the iron burning him with its freezing frost, turning his skin red and sore. He stared at his scarred skin in wonder, the pain not having registered in his numb state. He knew it was supposed to hurt; why didn’t it? Why didn’t it hurt?
Did he know this was going to happen? In some, deep, deep, part of his soul, did he know that he would lose everything and be charged with his own destruction?
No, he thought. It wasn’t me.
His fingers tightened around the bars, his chest rising and falling quickly, the thought that started small growing big in his mind. It wasn’t me.
He gritted his teeth angrily, his eyes studying the dark, empty hall with contempt, while he remembered happy moments one by one. It wasn’t me.
He wouldn’t have done it. He couldn’t have done it. And yet he was blamed, for everything.
“It wasn’t me.”
He said it louder. “It wasn’t me.”
And louder. “It wasn’t me.”
He screamed it, yelled it, demanded he be heard. “It wasn’t ME”.
But all that met him was silence. Silence and stone and nothing.
It started in his chest, a hiccup, a grunt, and then he was chuckling. It started small at first, but grew, little by little it got louder, and bawdier and he was laughing. Sweet Merlin, he was laughing.
He had lost his friends, his freedom and he was convinced, his life. He had lost it all and he was laughing. Why shouldn’t he?
After all, he was innocent. Sirius Black was innocent, damn you. Innocent of it all. He was locked away for something he hadn’t done.
Yes, Sirius had lost everything. But at least he had his laughter.