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The walls were beginning to whisper again. I wish they would talk about something other than the weather, Sirius thought.
He pinched the bridge of his nose roughly, focusing on the kaleidoscope of colors that appeared behind his eyes. After a decade locked in the bowels of Azkaban’s deepest cell block, a little bit of pain helped Sirius remember his humanity.
A loud clattering signaled the arrival of his dinner through the tiny hatch in the door: cold, gelatinous porridge in a dented metal bowl. When the guard left, Sirius relaxed his shoulders and stretched. His limbs began to shift and shrink. Fur grew in tufts across his skin. A few seconds later, a scraggly grey dog stood in his place and Sirius’s mind was blissfully empty.
Survival was easier as a dog. Dementors didn’t feed on animal emotions. The suffocating layer of sadness that sucked the life out of him as a human felt further away from his dog body. Whenever he could, Sirius spent his time as a dog.
Behind him, the door began to creak open. This was not good. Without thinking, Sirius dived under the room’s only bed. The decrepit mattress above him, probably older that he was, reeked of piss and stale body odor. Despite that, Sirius sat absolutely still, with his tail curled underneath his body. Thundering footsteps shook the floor and a massive shadow fell across the bed.
Sirius had very carefully hidden his animagus form from everyone, especially his last cellmate, Augustus Rookwood, and he wasn’t about to stop now. Rookwood exploited any possible weakness and Sirius couldn’t afford to show any. Those months had nearly driven him mad.
“Sirius Black?” A giant bent down to peer under the bed frame. His bushy beard trailed along the grimy flagstones. “What’re yeh doin’ down there?”
He knew that voice. He tilted his head sideways in an effort to remember.
“It’s jus’ me. You remember Hagrid, doncha?”
Sirius tentatively stood and stepped toward the light, poking his head out. Sniff. Not a giant after all.
“Don’t worry. I know yeh’re innocent. I never believed that hogwash the Prophet wrote about you betrayin’ the Potters.” Hagrid rifled through the many pockets of his overcoat, pulling out a broken biscuit. The smell of cinnamon and chocolate hung in the air, sweeter than anything he’d smelled in a long time. “Then o’ course Dumbledore told me what really happened.”
The biscuit melted in Sirius’s mouth, releasing a delicate flavor he had almost forgotten. He stepped the rest of the way out from underneath the bed.
“We’re goin’ to get yeh out of this place.” With one massive hand, Hagrid scratched behind Sirius’s ear. Shifting back into his human form, Sirius stood up. “Took me a few fights to get put into the right cell with yeh. I reckon it don’ matter much how many death eaters I sat on along the way. The bastards deserved it anyway.”
“Bloody right, they did,” he said. “Animals, the lot of them.”
The bed groaned under Hagrid’s weight as he sat on it. The thick metal rails bowed toward the floor.
“How did you get here?”
Hagrid scratched his chin. “I reckon it’s a long story. The ministry thinks I’m killin’ students. I’m not. Dumbledore’ll prove that.”
Sirius didn’t know if he believed in Dumbledore anymore. Rotting in prison for a crime you didn’t commit tends to erode your belief in authority.
“We might be in here together a while, but I promise I’ll not leave without yeh.” Hagrid held out another chocolate chip cookie, a lifeline that Sirius desperately wanted to take.
“You keep it. You’re going to need it more than I will to survive the dementors.” Sirius pulled the waist of his worn uniform pants higher, tightening the drawstring, before shifting to sit on the edge of the bed. “How did you get them to let you keep that coat? The first day I got here they put me in this awful striped outfit.”
Hagrid’s chuckle shook the bedframe. “That was easy. They didn’t have anythin’ big enough for me, did they? No wands in Azkaban either. Too afraid a prisoner would get one and do summat to escape.”
Three months later, Sirius shifted into his animagus form and climbed into the largest of Hagrid’s pockets, inside on the left. The musty fabric still held wisps of the pocket’s previous contents: the sharp tang of lemon drops, the sweet, yeasted smell of freshly baked bread, and a slightly spiced aroma of stewed meat. A strange assortment, yes, but Sirius felt utterly at home.
A few minutes later, Hagrid crouched to step through the cell’s door and walk through empty hallways to freedom.
Curling himself into a ball, Sirius held himself still. He tried not to move. He tried not to even breathe. If they were caught, there would be no second chances, just an endlessly cold dementor’s kiss.
He rocked back and forth with each step, swaying like a baby in a cradle. After several minutes, Hagrid stopped walking.
A sudden chill bit through the pocket, tinging the fabric with a layer of ice. Hagrid’s shoulders sank. Sirius’s hope abandoned him. The dementors would catch him after all.
Without warning, the ice melted and they began to move. Sirius let out a breath.
A high-pitched voice said, “This will get you off the island.” Whatever it was, Hagrid reached out to take it.
“Thanks,” he replied.
A minute later, Sirius felt the world spinning around him, nauseatingly fast. A portkey!
The spinning stopped, leaving Sirius tucked neatly in the pocket where he started. Could he really be out of Azkaban? Was it so easy?
The pocket opened, letting blinding light inside. Hagrid reached one large hand into the pocket, scooped him up, and set him gently down on the grass. Grass! That bright, fresh smell sent a wave of happiness straight to his heart. Giving a little yip, Sirius jumped into the air. He shifted back into human form, a smile splitting across his face. In front of him, still far off in the distance, Hogwarts jutted up into the brilliant blue sky.
“Yeh’re free now, my friend.”
Free. What a lovely little word to describe such profound joy.