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Sirius didn’t have much to cling to in Azkaban. He had his sanity, which was more than he could say for most people, though he sometimes wondered if letting his mind slip away would be better than this agony. He had Padfoot, and the transformation helped clear away despair when it started to sink in. He had his constant mantra of “I’m innocent,” though that never quite erased his responsibility. Not that he really wanted it to.
And he had Bellatrix. She’d been brought in not long after he had, looking as haughty as he’d ever seen her, and thrown into the cell next to his. When she was awake, she didn’t speak much, save to taunt Ministry officials when they came by or proclaim her confidence that the Dark Lord would rise again, an encouragement to her fellow Death Eaters. She even, at times, whispered promises to the dementors of the feasts they’d have at his return.
But when she slept, he could hear her screams. She’d never had the tightest grip on reality, and Sirius supposed her slip into insanity had been a long time coming. He never could be sure that it came from her imprisonment, even. But the dementors didn’t leave anyone untouched, not really, and he had some satisfaction in that, in knowing evil could finally catch up for a person, that they could get what they deserved.
(He even had a twinge of happiness once, sucked away before he fully acknowledged the thought, that Bellatrix was here and not Regulus, that his brother had died before ever being thrown in such a Godforsaken place.)
It never stayed for long, that sense of pleasure. The dementors always snatched it away, but it was nice when it came, while it lasted.