Chapter Text
In Azkaban's cold walls, Sirius vanishes all happiness from his mind.
He does not allow himself to exist on anything other than a strict diet of misery.
He thinks of James’ bent body and cracked glasses, of Lily’s red tendrils of hair surrounding her head like a bloody halo, of the upturned nursery, of how neither of them will ever laugh again. The suffering in Azkaban is timeless, but he knows that he’s been rotting here for enough time that he missed the funeral. He makes a jagged line in the walls of his cell for every day he spends here. He thinks of his father, all of his strength being sapped away by his illness, of the warm, febrile sweetness of his sick room. He thinks of the night he discovered the dark mark in Bellatrix’s arms, how beautiful she looked under the stars, how much he loathed it.
He focuses on the empty feeling on his arms, where Harry should be.
He can hear some other unfortunate bastards nearby. Just right next to him, Barty Crouch Jr, his brother’s best friend, sobs night in and night out. In Sirius’ mind, he always pictures them with their heads bent together as they walk down the hallways of Hogwarts, inseparable despite the different colors of their uniforms; Regulus all dark curls and pale eyes, Barty’s flaxen head and dark eyes. There has always been something bird-like about him, something that inspired a strange urge to protect him. On everyone but his father, it seems, who had no problem dropping him in hell on earth to save his career. The sound of his sobbing has become a common melody.
More distant, he can sometimes hear Dolohov or Rookwood or one of the Carrow twins, though when one screams the other follows pretty quick. Sometimes he can hear Bellatrix. Sirius’ heart breaks at the thought of her, of all people, being left here to rot. He loathes the face of her she shows to the world as much as he loves that version of her he knows exists only for him. Best friend, mother, and occasionally lover.
Most nights, he can hear as she sings, a sharp sound in Azkaban's echoing walls. Sirius closes his eyes and lets it lull him to sleep as it did when he was young.
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockleshells
And pretty maids all in a row
There is little to do in Azkaban, except stare at the wall. Sirius draws lines on the wall every day, keeps a tally of them so he can make the ones responsible for this pay. He closes his eyes and lets his mind be filled by the sound of storm and sea. The steady beat of them. Every crash of the waves, a heartbeat.
***
The food in Azkaban is gruel.
The guard throws it on the floor without care.
“How’s this compared to a nine course meal, Black?” He asks.
“You’re not a good cook, if that’s what you want to know,” he tells him, and imagines murdering him.
***
One can always feel when the dementors approach. The coldness seeps in your bones before you even turn to see them. Sirius does not turn to greet them. It's a small defiance that serves only him. Under the black cloth that bellows around the small figure, he can see the decomposing skin peeking underneath, their chests heaving like they’re trying to suck what little warmth the damp prison cells have. Decaying corpses, he thinks, hysterically.
Wraith-like, they approach him.
The cold starts in his chest, seeps into his bones, and spreads all over, leaving him feeling off-center and breakable.
He sees Regulus, standing like a straight arrow all in black, on the steps of the grand stairwell of Grimmauld, under the spider chandelier, the lights shining harsh on his thin face. His colorless eyes stare unblinking as Sirius leaves, his fingers tight and knuckles white around the railing. He hears his mother screaming you are no son of mine! He can smell the cloying sweetness of his father’s sickroom, the febrile warmth that drowned them all during his final days. He breathes in the smell of burning bodies, fire consuming flesh and bone until there’s only bone left. His fingers grace over the skin of Bella’s forearm, his her hand gripping her so hard her fair skin bruises. He touches the dark mark, the snake curling around the skull, fingers tracing over the slight elevation of a new tattoo. She hisses in pain, but smiles pleased when he slaps her. He sees James, his brown eyes brimming with anger as he looks at Sirius, reaching to drag Remus by the elbow and taking him away, like Sirius is sick with something contagious, some evil that goes underskin and he can spread to them if he approaches them. He hears Dumbledore ask him, voice cold, did you mean to kill Severus, Sirius?
Sirius looks at him, straight in the eyes and says, If I wanted him dead I would have killed him already.
That knocked his breath away. The realization that it was the truth.
Satiated, they leave him.
He staggers away, feels like he’s made of ice, like he’s going to break and snap into a thousand pieces. This is the sort of pain that only humans can experience.
He wants to disappear. He wants to sink into nothingness.
Outside, the ocean rages, white foam teeth snarling against rock. One day, it’ll have weathered down the stone enough that the prison will topple over. He wants to disappear into it. The sea is so vast, so great, so all encompassing, that it's easy to be nothing more than a single word. Sirius. The brightest star, his mom used to tell him while she brushed his hair, boasting that she’d been the one to pick the name, sharing secret smiles. How old was he?
And he thinks, surprisingly—
Regulus.
Reggie always loved the ocean. Sirius didn’t go to his funeral.
A sob threatens to break out, the well of emotion scraped raw from the inside out. Sirius strips himself from his clothes and skins away his person skin, trembling all over, and lets himself sink into the wilderness inside him, his body metamorphosing in tandem.
Everything is simpler, when he's a dog. The smells are sharper, and he can still pick out Bellatrix’s smell, dead things and leaves, even withering away in jail. The world is brimming with detail. He can perfectly see the crack on the ceiling where the rain and sea sneak their way inside, the cause of the constant chill. It's shaped like a lightning strike, branching out wildly, carved into stone.
When he's a dog, there's less for them to take.
***
Some happy impressions, out of order:
The taste of firewhiskey on his tongue. It burns when it goes down and Sirius blinks quickly to center himself. Warmth all around him, gentlemen laughs as they encourage him to take his first swings of the drink. The feeling of being proud he’s now included in this activities with the men of his home. His father's bemused eyes, Uncle Alphard’s ringed fingers on his back. Later, the joy of smuggling it in and watching his friends eagerly drink it while he laughed at their faces.
Even to this day, Sirius still associates Uncle Alphard with rings. The dig and cold of them on his skin as he hauls him up, the glint of them under the sunlight. Like many in the family, he had been an expert in hiding his emotions behind a blank face. He had never been fully able to hide them in his hands. When he was nervous, he played with his rings. When Sirius was little, he'd let him play with them, too. He'd carry him in his arms, always smelling of expensive cologne and other men—though Sirius, of course, did not know that then. He had always been Sirius' favorite uncle, with his husky voice and his dancer's grace as he glided from room to room.
The simple joy of the boys and him sitting together under the low lamplight, their map growing more and more each day. Young and boyish and thinking themselves infallible. Candlelight caressing faces filled with childhood. Their room smelled like candy.
Regulus by his side, still a little kid, the two of them still playing together, cheeks hurting from all the laughing as they tousle on the floor, a mess of limbs and dark curls. Back then, it had seemed impossible that they would ever not be together. Regulus' high, happy voice would call for him, and his eyes would sparkle, and Sirius would throw himself after him and chase him. Regulus always caught him, when they reversed their roles. Nothing ever escaped his sharp gaze.
A picnic with his cousins. The blue and white checkered cloth spread over the green grass. Andromeda's soft hair tied with a green ribbon in a French braid, her tilted hat covering half her face, and Narcissa carefully arranging the food as she hums to herself. Him dragging Regulus with him to roll down in the grass, careless with their white clothes. He even manages to make his brother laugh. They eat from a charcuterie board and drink lemonades with cherry.
Sitting next to his father, half-burying himself into his robes, as they sit in the best seats in the stadium watching Quidditch. He's small and he's excited, more because his father is here, because he took a day away from his work to be with them, and he's letting Sirius hug him, than he is for anything else. Of course, they're high up enough no one else will see this. To his side, Regulus, the real sport’s nut of the family, shrieks and laughs whenever any of the teams does anything impressive. His mom looks at his naked delight with bright eyes. That was the summer after his sorting in Gryffindor. That day, neither of his parents even mentioned it. They bought them popcorn and bubbly drinks and even let them have cotton clouds. When they got back home, Regulus started explaining their uncles and aunts and cousins what he'd seen, vibrating in the living room. Sirius fell asleep in his mom's arms.
All of this, he sacrifices. This is what he gives them. Nothing more than impressions.
Whenever they feed on him, Sirius ends the day feeling hollow and jagged. But he doesn’t cry. He doesn’t break.
***
His name is Sirius Black. He was born November 3rd, 1959. He was twenty one years old when he was illegally sentenced to prison. He did not receive a trial. He has been in Azkaban for 121 days. His father is Orion and his mother is Walburga. His brother is Regulus. His favorite color is red. His best friend is James. His favorite thing to do is ride his bike. He loves his godson more than anything in the world.
***
In his dreams, he’s running wild, the earth on his paws, the wind on his fur. He has his eyes on the rat. He hurries. He snaps his jaws around it. He can feel the satisfying crunch of the bone under his fingers, the metallic taste of blood. He spits it out, still alive, and watches the light leave it’s eyes. And then—
Someone’s rattling the bars of his cage.
Sirius is unsurprised to see it's the buck-teethed guard. “Wakey, wakey, Black, you've got a visitor.”
Sirius looks up at him, a sneer on his face. It is not Crouch Sr or Bagshot there as he expects, but none other than his mother. He almost thinks he'd rather have the dementor.
There is something almost comical about his mother standing in Azkaban’s filthy halls. Her dress is long, and black. It covers her from her neck to the tip of her toes. Her gray eyes gleam in the darkness. Two cold, twin flames that threaten to burn him down. She, with all her vulpine grace, looks out of place in Azkaban’s wet, filthy halls, and dingy cells, with their haggard prisoners.
She looks older. This is the first thing he notices when he looks at her face. Crow's lines around her eyes, a harsh line around her mouth, silver gracing the crown of her black hair. He takes as much pleasure on that as he can, on the physical proof of the effect he has on her life, on her body.
She takes him in too. His equally ragged appearance, his looks of a walking corpse.
She turns and sneers at the guards. “You're still here?”
One of the guards grinds his teeth. “He's a dangerous criminal, ma'am.”
“He's my idiot son,” she snaps. “I know how to deal with him.”
The guards scowl. Still, they fade away.
“Come to gloat?” He asks, because he knows that the best thing to do with his mother is to always begin the conversation, interrupting whatever machinations are happening in her mind. It echoes in the dark halls of Azkaban, cloaked in the darkness of night. Not like it's easy to tell, with the accursed weather the place has.
Her mouth twists., the way it does when she wants to scream at him but they’re in public and she knows she’ll have to content herself with glaring at him. He's surprised by how much he almost misses it. Makes him feel like a kid. “No. I'm here to get you out.”
And they say his mother isn't a comedian.
Sirius throws his head back and laughs.
***
They let him go.
Sirius had never thought he'd feel so grateful to feel the salty brine in his face.
(He does not mention it when his mother's hand reaches for his own, cold fingers clutching cold fingers. It's fine. He's too weak to Apparate. When his mother disappears in a whirl, she drags him with her. Up close, she still smells like bitter tea and wildflowers.)
***
Grimmauld has not changed at all since he was last here. At least, it doesn't look like that through hazy eyes. Same dreadful wallpaper, same aged furniture, even the same flowers. Sirius half expects his father to be reading the newspaper in the parlor, but no. That won't ever happen again.
“Bad Master is back!” Kreacher cries, which Sirius definitely did not miss. “Bad Master is shameless enough to show his face in Mistress's home, not caring how he broke her heart! Oh, bad, bad Master!”
“Oh, shut up,” he snarls. Already, the damned creature's shrieking is hammering straight to his head.
“Kreacher,” his mother snaps. “Go draw a bath.”
“Yes, Mistress,” the old elf simpers before he Apparates away with a crack.
His mom helps him as he makes his way up the stairs. She has enough tact to not mention that he needs her help at all, but he still sees her frown. He walks the steps up to the second floor slowly, cringing at his own inability.
He's ushered into the bathroom, cold tiles painted with detailed patterns, the bath already drawn and warm, scented with something clean and sharp.Kreacher even set up a robe for him. He shakes his mom away. “Go,” he tells her. “I can wash myself.”
Her brows furrow, and she opens her mouth like she wants to argue, but thinks better of it. She exits the bathroom.
Sirius’ reflection is a shard of a man. Skeletal face and body, brittle hair, sunken eyes. He only spares it a glance.
The water of the shower makes Sirius’ muscles loosen as soon as he steps under the spray. A broken exhale escapes him. He scrubs himself clean, until his skin is pink and raw, until the water flows down the drain clear and colorless and no longer stained with filth. He cleans his hair with an old brand he used to buy when he lived here, a terribly expensive thing that Remus used to side eye him for when they lived together.
He soaks water into the floor when he turns off the shower and finally sinks into the tub. He shamelessly moans at the perfect temperature of the water, leaning his head down and closing his eyes. He feels like a body washed out by the sea, chewed up and spit out.
He’s almost half-convinced this is all a dream he doesn’t want to wake up from. He'd rather drown in this bathtub than wake up and be dirty in Azkaban one more day.
But if he isn't dreaming… if this is really happening… then that means that he's out. He has no idea how his mother even got him out, or why she'd even do it, when it comes down to it.
The two of you are too alike, his father said, when he came home to Walburga and Sirius shrieking to each other like banshees, you're going to drag my house down brick by brick. They make each other bleed, scream until they run out of voices, and then they sulk and lick their wounds away from one another. They used to be so close, once. As a child, never had Sirius doubted that she loved him, that she would protect him. His mother seemed to him like a woman capable of moving mountains.
You are no son of mine!
The door creaks open.
His mother has stripped from the severe dress she wore to Azkaban, dressing herself instead in a pale green robe, her long black hair swinging in a loose braid down her back. “Glad to see you didn't accidentally drown.”
“Was that a concern?” He asks.
“Well, you're stupid enough to achieve it.”
Sirius snorts, keeps his eyes closed. He hears the rustle of his mother's gown as she takes a seat in the heavy marble edge of the tub. This is a dream, he's sure. His mother would never willingly touch him. She shampoos his hair again, applies conditioner, and carefully lathers it with creams. She starts sectioning his hair with a silver-backed comb, runs her fingers through the tangles. “We might have to cut it,” she says. She almost sounds sad about it.
They had tried to cut it, when they threw him in Azkaban, but Sirius had not let them. No, he had thought with panic, don't do that. Mother will be heartbroken if I cut my hair.
Sirius hums. He doesn't want to imagine how he'd look with shorter hair. Like his dad, or Regulus. But it all seems so distant…
She sniffs when she sees the tattoos, face curdling with displeasure. “Just because they throw you in jail like a common criminal doesn't mean you have to disfigure yourself like one, too.”
Sirius feels the familiar kindles of anger being poked. “Yes, there were many tattoo artists locked up in Azkaban. They had two for one specials on Fridays.”
She scoffs. Still, she doesn't stop brushing through his hair until she has worked her way through every knot and tangle. Then, her fingers trails over one of his tattoos, the one he has on his bicep, her touch ghostly. A small, dark moth that flutters on his skin. There used to be two. “When did you get this one?”
“I got it with Marlene. A friend, you wouldn't know her. There were two moths. One for me and one for her, so we always knew the other was well.” He shrugs. “But she died, so there's only one left.” He's not sure what compels him to tell her this. He knows it will displease her. Maybe he wants her angry.
She doesn't scream at him, even as she's still frowning. The light catches on her silvering hair. Sirius hates it, suddenly. He wants to turn back time so his mom looks just as she did when he was a child.
She points at the name scribbled in his ribs. “This one?”
Almost instinctively, he reaches to touch Harry's inked name, like he's been doing for months in Azkaban every time he misses him. It’s the closest he has gotten to holding his godson in months. “I got it after he was born.”
His mother makes an odd sound, maybe remembering Sirius' loud proclamations of how much he hated children when he was younger. “I do hope you'll do your own children the same courtesy.”
Sirius is too weak to try and laugh, but the idea is so ridiculous he still manages to choke out a sound that's close enough for his intent to be transmitted.
She raises an eyebrow, pinches the tattoo on his hip bone (or tries to, he's more bones than muscle). The inked woman's eyes blink up at them. They're beautiful, round, with long, dark lashes. They've made with some fun times in the bedroom.
“That one I got just because I wanted to,” he says defensively.
“They look like—” She begins but then closes her mouth, pursing her lips. Sirius is half curious to know what they remind her of, and he has half a mind to ask her, but then she trails her fingers to his back, to the line of his spine, to the long tattoo showing the moon's phases that goes from the middle of his shoulder blades to the small of his back. “This one?”
“That one was the first one I got.”
Attacked by a strange vulnerability, he points at the inked Leo constellation under his collarbone. “I got this one after Reggie died.”
His mom doesn't answer. Sirius stares at the ceiling. Even the sight of the ceiling makes him never want to wake up. He doesn't want to go back to the dripping jail in Azkaban, doesn't want to go back to it's constant banging on his floor.
His mom goes back to his hair, brushing and washing and applying who knows how many products to straighten and hydrate it, going at it first with a heavy brush and then dividing it into sections to brush it again, muttering under her breath. It's so warm, and Sirius feels so light.
He feels like he can drown on the smell of wildflowers.
He can hear her asking him something, or giving him orders, but he's so exhausted, so beyond tired, that he doesn't even manage to hear it. All he can hear is the splash of the water.
His mom clicks her tongue and starts draining the bath water, rinsing him again of the bubbles before she pushes him onto his feet and dries him with a flick of her wand. She throws a bathrobe on top of him and drags him to his bedroom. Blearily, he realizes it's still exactly the same as he left it, all in red.
“Don't you even think of falling asleep,” she threatens him. “You have to eat.”
Sirius has gotten well used to the feeling of an empty stomach. The prospect of food is not enough to keep him with his eyes open. His mother's stinging slap is, however.
“Ow,” he says, eloquently.
She rolls her eyes and shoves scones with chocolate smeared on top and tea down his throat, followed by a foul potion. Sirius takes it without complaint. For some reason, her scowl deepens more and more the longer he goes on in agreeable silence, and by the time she leaves, it looks like it's etched in her face.
***
He feels like he's underwater, like he's too heavy. His body is overfull, a sinking rock in the middle of the ocean, salt digging it's claws into it's bones.
He's hot all over, shivering violently, and still the persistent unpleasantness of the salt lodged inside him makes him struggle against the sheet, clinging to him like a snake, coiled tight. There's something wrong, Sirius thinks. There's something wrong with him; a rising sense of unease, a hollow ache that he can't find the source of and still spreads all inside his body, like an infection. His body… there's something off with it, too.
But Sirius can't even be bothered by that. Not when he's pretty sure he's dead or dying. He sees faces swimming above him, distant like stars on an open field. Regulus and Bellatrix and James, and his mother of all people. He never thought losing his soul would feel like the time he caught the pox as a kid and his mother stayed to nurse him the entire time.
She is the one that most appears to him. A part of Sirius wonders if she died while he was in jail and if that strange dream of her appearing was just her soul making the last spiteful act of forcing him to stay with her. She is usually at his bedside, pale and severe; a memory plucked straight from childhood. He can see her long dark hair tied in a simple braid down her back, her statuesque face bent down an embroidery hoop.
Sirius is dimly aware of the fact that he's losing time, slipping in and out of consciousness, the loss being marked by sharp moments of consciousness where he's aware of his mother tilting his head to force a foul concoction down his throat, then washing away the taste with something sweet and creamy. Maybe the afterlife was just this,being stuck half-dying in his mother's care.
He wouldn't complain too much, in the end. He spent most of his time lost in hazy recollections of the past and in his brief moments of somewhat lucid wakefulness, he was mostly filled with a sense of animal contentment, following only his most animal instincts, knowing only that he'd be taken care of by someone bigger than him, a sort of docility that reminded him of a beloved pet and made something that screamed of wrongness inside him twist. His mother always was fond of dogs…
‘Simple creatures, dogs,’ he'd heard her tell Uncle Cygnus once. ‘Loyal creatures, they always heed you when you call.’
‘Unlike children,’ he'd answered dryly.
‘Unlike children,’ she'd agreed.
They had not noticed Sirius spying on them from the foot of the garden—he thinks he was hiding, Narcissa having coaxed them all into a game of hide and seek. Walburga, Alphard, and Cygnus had always looked like they fit together, not simply similar, as many in their family did, but like they were all part of the same composition in a painting, even drinking tea in the parlor of Uncle Cygnus’ house off in the country, decorated to flatter Aunt Druella's fair beauty. They all looked and presented themselves differently, but to Sirius, that just made them more of a perfect triptych.
His mother, sitting as prim and beautiful as ever in a lace gown, flanked on both sides by Cygnus, the broader and rougher brother, and Alphard, all sharp lines and a husky voice. The three of them, with ink dark hair and pale eyes, had always cut quite the pleasing picture. Sirius imagines that's why Grandmother Irma always poised them like a set of dolls during their childhood portraitures. If Sirius remembers correctly, the conversation had then derailed into Uncle Cygnus and his mother hounding on Uncle Alphard for his refusal to father a child.
Uncle Alphard was perhaps the only person in the country that had the fortitude necessary to deal with Cygnus and Walburga Black at the same time—probably because he had not had much of a choice, as the middle child stuck between them. The forced exposure would do that. Alphard had the patience of a dragon tamer and a mild, unflappable personality, though whether that was simply how he was from birth or if it was the result of being forced to coexist with the two most irascible people Sirius had ever met was anyone's guess. They had surely been no easier to deal with as children than they'd been as adults, of that Sirius was sure.
‘Well,’ Uncle Alphard had said placidly, tapping his ringed finger against Aunt Druella's fine china, the one with the painted butterflies that even his mother had conceded looked beautiful, ‘if I had children, then who would look after yours?’
That was true, and had swiftly moved his siblings into changing the conversation. That had always been the power only Uncle Alphard had, one that had made the cousins more than once seek his protection whenever they were to be punished: he was the only one that could effectively shame his siblings out of whatever crusade they'd partaken on. He was the indisputable master of the ice king mask, which was high praise indeed, seeing as Sirius had been raised by Orion Black himself, and he was so agreeable everyone always confessed their pains and misgivings to him in moments of weakness, which made him so infuriatingly good at winning arguments, to the point not even Aunt Lucretia tried. He had the talent to aim true instead of too hurt, which in the family had about the same effect.
And of course, Uncle Alphard had not been lying then, either. After the absolute scandal that was Cygnus getting Druella pregnant while they were still at Hogwarts and then the subsequent marriage, someone had to take care of the children, and neither set of grandparents found themselves forthcoming with the scandal baby that they each perceived as having ruined their children. His mother was away, then, matched set with her father already, and so, as those things did, it fell to Alphard to take care of the ill-begotten child, which soon became a pattern, when they had another girl-child they had to foist upon him to try and rear half the time, seeing as they were both being forced to take on jobs by their families as continuous punishment for daring to have fun as teenagers, and by the time Sirius came around, Alphard had somehow become the defacto caretaker of the cousins whenever the parents were busy—which was more often than not.
That had, of course, made it quite easy for his siblings to pin the blame on him when their children did not turn out how they wanted them to, but Sirius really thought Alphard blameless in the whole affair. The man had as much a penchant for charity work as he did for women, which was to say: none at all.
Sirius finds himself reliving those halcyon days more than he ever thought he would. The set of cousins running around Uncle Cygnus' house, his mom ordering Kreacher to make his favorite desserts whenever he behaved, Uncle Alphard setting them up to play board games in his flat, the fondness in his father's eyes as Sirius dutifully played the piano and Regulus coaxed mournful sounds out of the violin.
Dying feels a lot like waking up, the percussion of the strings trapped in his chest.
***
He's in a spacious room. After so long in the small cell in Azkaban, that's the first thing he notices. He feels like he can breathe. The bed is large and so perfect he feels weightless, draped with crimson sheets, the headboard has the constellations carved into the heavy dark wood. The tall windows, creeping outside the street like a curious eye, charmed so no one can look into the house, are covered with sheer thin linen curtains and velvet ones half-tied on top.
The walls are covered in so many pictures of half-naked women and motorcycles you can't even see the dreadful wallpaper his mother chose. She has never had a talent for interior design.
All red, all over.
In the nightstand, there's two pictures, one cleaned and the other covered in dust. The clean one is a picture taken when he was young. It's of his family and him, on some distant outing. He can see the tame river behind them, the verdant grass. Sirius doesn't remember ever being that small, but his cherubic face beams at him from the frame, all wide gray eyes and soft cheeks. Somehow, Regulus is even smaller. Sirius does his best to not to look at him and ignores the way his chest feels like it has an open wound. His mom and his dad flank them, looking more like brother and sister than husband and wife.
The other one is a picture of him and the boys, taken during sixth year. He feels a fresh pang of grief at seeing James' young face, realizing that he'll never get to grow much older than that. Remus, at his side, peering at the camera with exhaustion. Where is he? When Sirius was being jailed for a crime he did not commit, where was Remus? And Peter…
Sirius throws the picture in the drawer and slams it close.
He stands up on wobbly knees. He fumbles his way to the closet, not really sure what he's looking for.
Everything's here. From his denim jeans to the thin, white sleeveless shirts he wore during summer, to the shirts from the bands Sirius went to concerts of. He didn't like all of them, to be truthful, but he made a point to get something to commemorate the occasion every time anyway. His old formal clothes and robes remain untouched. Even the leather jacket that he stole from Uncle Alphard when he was still alive is here. It's not at all something Uncle Alphard would ever be caught wearing, which probably means it’s something one of his boyfriends forgot there.
Feeling like he's in the aftermath of a particularly viscous acid trip, he slowly makes his way out of the room. In his haze from—last night? A week ago? A month?—he'd thought the house had remained unchanged, but no—it had simply decayed.
The aconite wallpaper is frayed and faded, the flowers are halfway through wilting, things are left haphazardly and without order in random places. An umbrella is leaning against the cupboard, a pair of men’s shoes are orderly arranged outside one of the rooms, a gentleman’s coat neatly folded on top of one of the old sofas in the living room, the mirrors are covered. And strangest of all, the clocks all over the house are frozen at jagged times; six with twenty-three, twelve with thirty-seven, three with fifteen. Sirius enters the dining room entertaining the very real possibility that his mother has gone insane. It would, at least, explain why she got him out of jail. Last time he saw her was such a blur, he is almost certain they didn't even fight.
His mother raises a thin eyebrow when he slinks into the dining room, her colorless eyes pinning him in place like he's a particularly troublesome dog. Sirius bristles. He notices that this place, too, is not untouched by whatever madness has seized her. The mirror is covered by a white sheet and the flowers are all but crumbling. If let to her own devices, his mother will make of this house her tomb.
“You almost look like a human,” she tells him as a greeting. She is dressed in a dark green tea gown, lace sleeves dragging downwards. His mother has enough dresses and gowns to fill a museum: whenever her husband made her angry, he would buy her countless gifts to get back her affection.
“I see you went through my old things.”
“The Ministry wanted to seize the flat for investigation,” she tells him primly. “I did not allow it, of course.”
“Of course,” he agrees, only somewhat sarcastic. He must still be asleep. Or dying. He can't ever imagine his mother and him ever keeping this cordial of a conversation in life.
“They must think me a fool if they believe I'm letting a single one of their filthy hands touch what's mine. I figured it would be better if I cleared the place, either way.”
Kreacher appears with a pop, floating a tray of food in front of Sirius. Oatmeal sweetened with honey, a bitter tea, an even fouler potion, and a chocolate to chase the taste away. For his mother, a plate of eggs and bacon, a dark cup of coffee. They eat in silence. That is always how meals have gone in their home. It’s a habit Sirius has never been truly able to break himself out of, even back in Hogwarts, he usually waited until his plate was clear before joining the conversations around him.
You know… nothing’s going to happen if you talk while we’re at the table, right? James had asked him, back when they were still first years, learning the finer details of each other. It had been one of his rare moments of shyness. Looking back, that he had noticed, that he had cared about that, was one of the things that had endeared him so quickly to Sirius. He had assured James that it was fine, that he knew it was fine, that there was no need to worry. He just wasn’t used to it.
The moment Kreacher removes the plates from the table, his mother speaks. Sharp and to the point, his mother has always been as subtle as a bludger to the head. “I need you to be honest with me—did you or did you not betray the Potters?”
“Do you really think,” he asks sharply, “that I would ever do that?”
Her face twists into a sneer. “Oh, no. You would never betray him, not your precious James, who you still pined after like a dog with a bone. But I figured that it was that filthy thing killing him that had you making such a spectacle of yourself, murdering all those muggles.”
“So you're telling me,” he says slowly, anger rising inside him, “that you believe I willingly gave Lily and Harry up, that I just hoped James wouldn't be killed too, and then—what?”
His mother's face is drawn tight. “You also have a track record of abandoning those you love. That did not overly help your case.”
“I did everything for him—”
“Oh, I know. Joining Dumbledore and his merry band of men in running around and putting yourselves in danger, all for what? For him to throw you in Azkaban—”
Sirius hates it when his mother has a point. “I did that because it was right—”
“You did it because Potter did it and don't even try to lie. He tugged at your leash and you went wherever he went—”
“He was my friend! Like a brother to me—”
“You had a brother! Remember him? Potter did not deserve you—”
Sirius stands up, his chair making an awful sound as it scrapes against the floor. “I loved him! I was the one that didn't deserve him!”
His mother shakes her head stubbornly, her face twisting into disgust. “He dragged you down to a life of filth, cleaning and cooking like a house elf! Forgive me for believing you might find it tiring, you who hated to so much to fold your own clothes. He had you living below your means—”
“You didn’t even invite me to Regulus’ funeral!” Sirius snarls, chest heaving. The hurt is just under his skin now, something with teeth that snap, wanting to dig and tear into something. He breathes fire into his anger. Anger is better than grief, better than tears. “I had to find out my brother died from Bellatrix of all people! She showed up to my flat in the middle of the night and told me that Regulus was fucking dead! And not a single fucking word from you!”
His mother's face goes disconcertingly blank in the span of the flutter of an eye, expression clearing of everything, leaving Sirius to stare at a white wall. For a moment, neither of them dares to breathe.
Regulus.
Sharp, clever Regulus. Reg, with his future career as a professional athlete, with his eyes that never missed anything. Reggie, always the unmoving stone between Sirius and Walburga. His mother always loved him more than she loved Sirius. She indulged him and spoiled him, always defending him from whatever childish scheme Sirius came up with to draw her attention, forgiving him for slights that got Sirius punished for weeks. Stupid fucking Regulus, who should have taken his way out of the country when he had it.
His mother's lips tighten, like she's holding back a curse. Her eyes are shiny. “You will not,” she warns him harshly, “speak of your brother to me. You abandoned him—abandoned this family!”
“This is why you got me out of Azkaban, isn't it? Your favorite son is dead so you're only left with the disgrace, and we obviously can't have the family dying out, can we?”
“Merlin!” His mother cries. “I got you out of Azkaban because I care for you! And I love you!
Sirius scoffs. “You got me out of Azkaban because Regulus is dead.” And you're alone, he doesn't say. Maybe she hears it in his voice, anyway.
“You need me!” His mother exclaims, something bright in her colorless eyes, a strange fervor drowning the anger in her voice. “I got you out of jail, I freed you, I gave birth to you! Who do you think worked day in and night out so you can breathe fresh air?”
“I'm leaving this place again,” he threatens, mind racing, wondering if he can manage to pack everything up and somehow get in contact with a healer before the day is over, maybe steal some of his father's things. Just being trapped in this walls makes him feel like he's choking.
And then, his mother does the thing she hasn't done towards Sirius in years: she smiles.
Sirius' blood turns to ice in his veins.
“You have to stand trial,” she tells him, voice terrifically cheerful. “You're legally in my custody until you do.” She stands up, suddenly, and is by his side in quick strides. She takes his face in her hands, cold as they were that night in Azkaban. “You have to stay here, with me, until you do.”
He doesn't answer. He doesn't know how he can answer without giving her the satisfaction of winning.
Her other hand reaches to touch him, shifting position, so she's now cradling his gaunt face in her bone white hands. Two sentinels of a slow demise. He breathes in. Bitter tea, wildflowers. Her hands wrap around his neck, rest on his pulse. It's a threat. She's not tightening the noose yet—but she can.
Sirius' eyelashes flutter into closeness, face overcome by something without name.
He never thought he'd survive the war anyway.
Sometimes, he thinks he's already dead.
***
His grandfather, at least, has done Sirius the favor of remaining the same since the last time he saw the man. He’s ancient, yes, but he’s always been, and still as keen-eyed and severe as ever. He was never the sort of man who indulged his descendants by tucking them into bed and telling them charming tales of his youth. Still, seeing him here, in his black robes, makes something break inside Sirius.
Despite his many opinions on the man, he can't deny that every time he sees him he's filled with the knowledge that everything is going to be alright.
“I knew I’d see you here eventually,” he says wryly.
Sirius does his best not to snarl at the man with his future in his hands. “I did not come running to mommy’s skirts for protection.”
“No,” his grandfather agrees. “But she got you back, anyway.”
***
He sits on the piano bench.
The piano sits in the parlor.
The place hangs heavy above him, the wallpaper so faded it just looks gray, the lights flickering on and off, the tables stained and creaking with age.
The piano is still pristine.
Sirius remembers when it used to be in the music room, back when Regulus and him were young and their attempts at playing were downright offensive to the ears. His mother had always loved music, though, and Sirius has many memories of the family going to El Orfeo in Spain, the biggest magical music and opera house this side of the pond, to listen to the music playing just because his mother felt like it. She had been the one that had moved the piano here, so Sirius could entertain guests with his playing.
“Do you know where my wand is?”
A wand is an extension of you, his father had once told him. It's like a heart outside your body. You cannot let anyone take it away from you.
His mother, sitting in the small sofa, does not take her eyes away from his fingers. She nurses her glass in her hand, swishing around the blood red wine. Day-drinking, he thinks wryly, is also one of those things that must be passed down by the umbilical cord. “I have it. Your grandfather just sent word that he's coming to see us soon.”
“Won't you give it to me?”
The tea is deep and red. There's something vaguely floral about it.
Under his mother's watchful eyes, Sirius drowns the whole cup.
“Won’t you play me a song?” She asks.
Won’t you play me a song? She asked, whenever Sirius would get angry as a child, throw a tantrum, and sulk. That was her cue to let him know she wanted him to forget whatever had made him angry.
The piano is a slick black thing, the complex machinations capable of making music whirling inside of it. His fingers grace over the white and black teeth.
He does not press on any key.
***
When he arrives at the dining room, the Daily Prophet issue is laying on the dining table. A remnant of his father's routine, probably. Sirius has never known his mother to care for the news. It reads: WILL POTTERS' TRAITOR WALK FREE?
Sirius does not read the article. He's too busy looking at the picture and feeling like the world splits open under his feet, at the warm family in their perfect home. Lily with her long dark red hair spilling down her back, Harry tugging at it with a smile in his face, James looking at them with eyes brimming full of love.
Peter had taken this picture, a week before they went into hiding.
They say a picture says more than a thousand words. Here's what Sirius picks up in translation:
Love, in the corner of the smiles, in the soft eyes. Family, in the way they all lean into each other. Betrayal, dyeing the image with grief.
(Here's what the image doesn't say:
James and Lily organized the get together to say farewell to their friends. From James' side: Peter, Remus, and Sirius. From Lily's side: no one. Her old best friend is part of the group trying to quarter her, Dorcas is dead and Mary… best not think about Mary. Euphemia and Fleamont were dead already, as were Lily's parents. He had no siblings, but she did. Petunia had not answered any of her calls.
James had tried to cook. He'd been trying to learn to do it ever since Lily complained about his parents' house elf and he let the thing go, with more or less… mixed success. The kitchen smelled of burnt greens and spice—nevermind that neither belonged to the plate that James served them. At least he could make a good pasta. Lily's sister had gifted them a cookbook from recipes from all over the world, and James thought it was a sin to let it to gather dust in news of his recent culinary adventures.
They ate James' decent pasta alongside a nice wine Sirius procured, talking and pretending like that wasn't their last night seeing each other together and ignoring the neatly packed boxes symbolizing their moving.
Remus left first, citing urgent Order business, and Lily and James let him go with a heavy hug and kisses. James was already tearing up by then. Then, Sirius had dragged them to another room while Peter held Harry and told them he couldn't be their secret keeper.)
In a flurry of dark green robes, his mother sweeps in. They still keep to their old routine, as if his father and Reg are simply away in a trip and will walk up the door any moment. As if nothing's ever changed. Two living dead people catering to a dead man's wishes in a house waiting to become a mausoleum, he thinks, hysterically, and chokes down a noise.
His mother shoots him a look that then turns into a glare when she sees the paper on the table. Her hands are like talons when she snatches it away, face souring even further. “Clearwater, of course,” she says with derision. “It seems that little fool forgot the time I hanged him upside down from the door to the great hall.”
It reminds him uncomfortably of what he did to Snape. “And how long did he stay there?”
“Oh, the whole night,” she says unconcerned. “Alphard made himself useful and helped me with making a potion so he wouldn't pass out and miss a single moment of it.”
Uncle Alphard had always been quite skilled with healing potions and charms, though Sirius had always assumed it came from having five hyperactive children shoved in his house for days on end. Seems his talent goes back to even earlier than that. He remembers one time that Uncle Cygnus got drunk and started raving about Grandma Irma’s physical punishments.
“Kreacher!” His mother screeches, uncaring for the twist of his thoughts. “I told you I don't want this filth here!”
Kreacher, who had been setting the table let out a cry and started hitting himself in the head. “Kreacher is sorry, Mistress! Kreacher’s been bad! Kreacher needs to have his ears boxed!”
“Stop that right this instant!” Sirius demands. The damned thing keeps on bawling. Disgruntled, he turns to look at his mother. “Tell him to stop!”
“Stop!” His mother commands. The elf stops, though he still makes pitiful sounds. “Finish your duty here and let me think,” she dismisses.
Kreacher does so, sniffling, and Sirius wonders again for the creature's reason for being as devoted to his mother as it is. She had been the one that told the elf to cease heeding his orders, back in the day, and he had obeyed gleefully. It wasn't even that she treated him nicely, like how Regulus had. Sirius suspects his devotion to his mother counts as some sort of self-flagellation. He tries to find his anger towards her inside him, and feels it too deep under heavy, sluggish waters to bother and grasp it.
Sirius is forced to eat seeds and nuts and sliced bits of fruit, plain drinks and tasteless soups. His mother gets a cut of something fine and tender, the skin still pink on the inside. She slices into it, tiny little pieces, and bites into the flesh. He eyes it enviously.
He finishes faster, stays sitting in his high-backed chair, contemplating her like a chess piece does to the one opposite to him. The queen, he thinks wryly.
Sirius looks down at his clean plate. No fruit, no seeds.
They do say the best way to keep a secret is to eat the evidence.
Once they have both cleared their plates, Kreacher pops back up with tea, scones, and sugar. He sets a cup in front of his mother, another in front of him. Something that smells floral, something that scratches at the back of his mind.
His mother begins her nightly interrogations.
“And what did you even eat?”
“It might surprise you, but I can pour milk over cereal.”
“You couldn’t have possible have subsided only of that. Cease this juvenile attempt to make your mother angry at once.”
“James could cook… somewhat good food.”
She frowns. “Potter cooked,” she says, like she’s asking.
“Oh, yes. Between that and take out I made do.”
“Greasy muggle food, then.”
“I know some places where they make the grease particularly tasty, I should take you there, consider it fine dining.” The tea, the tea. He’s almost sure it’s on the tea. “Grandfather was here today, wasn’t he? That’s why the Prophet was here.”
She scoffs, turns her head away. He can see her veins with how white her skin is. “Was it worth it? To try to escape so bad and still end up here?”
“Yes,” he answers. The tea is not the blend she’s been serving him his whole life. Exhaustion clings to him. Something new and unfamiliar. At least she hasn't been foisting chocolate down his throat. She knows he hates chocolate. “I got to be away from you.”
Her eyes narrow. Somewhere in the house, something creaks.
He finishes his tea, imagines it spilling on the floorboards like blood, and then he goes up to sleep, drowsy as he always is these days, and it only takes him a moment of tossing and turning in his bed before he's dragged down into unconsciousness.
***
In his dreams—
His fingers twitch nervously, before he wills himself to stop it. His mother would scold him for that and his father would just raise a single, poised eyebrow at him. Even Bellatrix would tell him to get himself together.
Sirius stares straight ahead at the empty seats in front of him. He could go look for Narcissa or for Rabastan, but that would make him feel too much like a little kid that needs to be coddled, and he isn’t. Some of the kids his parents used to arrange play dates with are here, he knows, but he refuses to go and search them. If they want him, they must come to him. Besides, he doesn’t even get along with them that much. He can’t imagine sharing a room with them for 7 years. He can’t help but think, resentfully, that at least Reggie is going to have a friend when he comes to Hogwarts next year.
Sirius busies himself reading one of the books Andromeda gifted him, sneaking them to him with a wink. It’s a muggle book, and it’s not one children are supposed to be reading. He loses himself in the words, fingers drumming on the cover. Muggles are so funny, he thinks, imagining things that have no way of happening all just because they have no magic.
He’s halfway through the fifth chapter when there’s a knock on the door. Without even waiting for him to answer, they slam it open.
Two kids blink at him.
Sirius blinks at them. One of them has a chubby, round face, full of freckles, and a dirty blond mop of hair, looking at Sirius with frightened dark eyes. The other one is the smallest eleven year old Sirius has ever seen. He’s sure even Regulus is taller. He has dusky skin and bouncy black curls, all gangly limbs and knobby elbows, two warm brown eyes behind his glasses. He looks vaguely familiar. The blond one hides behind the small kid, who beams at Sirius and asks if they can sit with him.
He says yes.
The smaller kid is the ringleader, clearly. He’s the one that introduces them both. The blond boy with wide eyes is Peter Pettigrew, and he likes board games. The small kid introduces himself as James Potter, and he likes Quidditch.
“I'm going to be Captain of the Quidditch team,” he informs them both, face strangely serious.
Sirius introduces himself, tells them he's down for almost everything, so long as it's a group activity. He comes from a big family and is not used to being left to his own devices.
“Black?” James asks, while Peter eyes him warily. “My grandma's a Black. Maybe we've seen each other before?”
“Dorea, right?” Sirius, who has the entire family tree memorized, asks, and that's all they need to get past that.
James and Peter ask him what it's like to have grown up in London, surrounded by muggles, and in turn he asks about where they grew up. Godric's Hollow, they tell him, a small community full of wizards. James and Peter are neighbors, he learns, and they've known each other since they were children.
James tells them, smiling, “I think we're all going to be great friends.”
Sirius had no idea of why he said that, but it was clear he believed it. That was just how James was. He said something, with so much conviction, that there was never any choice but to follow.
Sirius has been practicing chasing him into wakefulness, ever since they met.
***
He makes his way out of bed with unsteady legs, feeling like he's going to fall, feeling like he doesn't exist. He feels like he's incorporeal, has done since he left Azkaban. He imagines going to the rooftop and letting himself fall, disappearing forever. He doesn't do that. Instead, he goes to the bathroom and strips off his clothes.
Sirius floats naked in the water.
In the days before his trial, this is what he does the most, aside from sleeping and wandering his childhood home like a wraith. If his family were not wizards, he's sure the house would be haunted from the roof tiles to the bodies buried in the garden. Though, if his family weren't wizards, they probably wouldn't be as crazy as they are.
He's fine with sleeping. It's like dying for a short moment, and away from the walls of Azkaban, his slumber is simple darkness. He's prone to waking up in the middle of the night, regardless, and the sight of his mother sitting at his bedside or standing at the foot of the bed, simply watching him, has become one so constant he's sure that must simply be his brain playing tricks on him now. Usually, he's only awake for some moments before being dragged back down, sleep coming to him with a sweet melody.
He's tired of skulking around the manor, watching the decay of the place. It was never a placed filled with warmth and kindness, that's just simply unlike his family, but it was happy. As happy as they could hope to be. The cobwebs and dust gathering make something awful twist inside of him. He blames his mother for this. There's no one else to. His father would have never allowed their home to fall into such a state of disrepair.
But then again, his father's death was what ushered their slow demise.
He rather likes to stay here until his skin is cracked and fingers pruning. It's a lot like sinking quietly in the beach or a river, something Sirius has a lot of experience with. Regulus loved swimming, and his parents always indulged him in it, taking him to water bodies. Sirius, significantly less talented in the subject, entertained himself playing on the shore or the river banks.
Naked, there's nothing for him to hide, and no one to hide anything from in an empty room. There's nothing for him to hide at all, he reminds himself. Least of all today.
The water swishes around his body when he pushes himself up, and drips on the cold floor when he's standing, a pillar to a house turning mausoleum. The bathrobe he's wearing was once his father's. Everything he owns was once his father's, even his room. A rare show of sentimentality, that.
It’s still dark outside, but Sirius does not need to flicker the lights on to make his way to his parents’ bedroom, even though he was never the sort of child that ran to his parents’ room after a nightmare. That was Regulus.
The bedroom is swimming in darkness when he opens the door. He knows this room well, the dark wooden panelling of the walls, the marble bust resting on the table, blank eyes staring up ahead, curtains drawn tight. The bed is empty. Sirius spends his days sleeping, and his mother spends her nights awake. He’s almost sure she’s downstairs, locked in her gallery. She’s not an artist, but she’s a collector of beautiful things. She buys them and puts them in a glass case and spends her days staring at them with a wine glass in her hand.
Sirius is unsurprised when he steps into the walk-in closet and finds all of his father’s old clothes folded and hung as they should be. He purses through them slowly, laying them on the bed.
That one there with the silver trim is one his father wore for a Yule Ball the Malfoys threw when he was younger, this one with the dark brocade is the one he wore to Bella’s wedding, and this is the simple gray one is what he wore the day Sirius went off to Hogwarts. Slowly, he makes his way through the clothes until he finds something that won't make him feel like a little kid playing with his dad's clothes. He selects something dark, pins it with a red brooch at his throat. It makes him look like he's had his throat impaled, but he likes that, the reminder that there's red blood flowing in his veins, trapped in the river cycle of his body. He's still alive, and the blood red reminds him of this.
When he's finished changing, he begins his quiet descent to the servants’ kitchen, the plainest, most boring room of the entire house, all flat surfaces and boring chairs. The linen white curtains are pulled close and Sirius can't hear the outside world. Kreacher's not here, and only Merlin knows where he's gone and hidden himself and what he does in his spare time. Kiss his father's old portrait, most likely, Sirius thinks unkindly.
It's different from the flat he used to live in, where he soon grew used to the constant sound of humans and their lives, to cars rushing down the street and people laughing loudly as they made their way back home after a night of drinking. He used to be an expert on the last one, with the boys or with Marlene. Now, he thinks that if he touches a drop of alcohol, he's not getting up again. He's half tempted to try.
But no. That can wait for later.
As this might be his last day as a free man, Sirius decides to indulge himself with a large slice of cheesecake with strawberries and cream and cherries on top for breakfast. He boils an egg, which was one the first things James and him learned to reliably do, and he eats it with toast that he has to drag from the very back of the pantry. He downs a full glass of milk, then goes back to pondering that alcohol. His father was not much of a drinker, but his mother is, so he figures he can grab one of her bottles of gin while he still has time and drown it in one go.
He considers the pros and cons for a moment before he decides fuck it, and goes and grabs a mug where he serves himself his mom's alcohol. He likes firewhiskey a lot more than he likes anything else, but at least his mother had never been the type to drink giggle water or stupid things like that. Having done this, he saunters to the dining room and waits, the curtains pulled wide open so he can watch the sun as it slowly rises, flooding the room with light.
His mother sweeps in when he’s already finished, looking ready to scold him, before her breath catches.
He looks at her face. Hard and aged and just like his own.
She's always wanted him under her thumb. He watches the silvering of her hair, the lines on her face, the bruising under her eyes, the thin and haggard line of her neck and collarbone, the dig of the tooth into the meat, the way her mouth wraps around the silver. He can see the weight of life over her body.
She looks like she's carved of marble, like one of those ancient Greek statues.
His mother, at last, draws breath.
“You look so much like your father, Sirius.”
***
Sirius is standing in front of the Wizengamot in a dead man's clothes.
He feels their heavy eyes, sees their mouths twisting, knows what they're thinking.
His grandfather sweeps in by his side and endorses Sirius, eyes on fucking Bagshot, that bitch with her face like the back of a bus, sleek as an eel as he always is. He imagines murdering her, imagines leaving her in Azkaban to rot until she dies.
His jurist, a tall man named Davis, begins laying the opening statements. “We are public servants, we must serve the public.”
“Do you consider this serving the public, Mr. Davis?”
“Absolutely, Mr. Crouch. If the law can be broken so boldly by our own body of government at the whims of our governors to throw a man in Azkaban without even getting a trial, then I consider that a sign of great danger to the public. If it can happen to a single one of us, what's stopping it from happening to the rest of us?”
Tittering and chittering from the stands. Crouch’s face sours.
Is he thinking of his son, Sirius wonders. Of bird-boned Barty Jr with his bright black eyes and how he's in Azkaban having the happiness sapped put of his body by the marrow, losing himself to that fog of misery.
He doesn't have to talk much, says nothing unless what his grandfather and Davis coached him into, only when he's prompted. Yes. No. I was away drinking with Marlene McKinnon in a bar of ill-repute the night of the killings, you might have seen the Witch Weekly article assuring we were going to marry in a week.
Up in the stand, he recognizes some faces aside from Crouch and Bagshot. Dumbledore, of course, which makes an ugly thing rear its head inside Sirius that he pushes down until later. Bagshot is Dumbledore's woman. Nothing she does is without the old man's seal of approval, and that means that he knew that Sirius had not betrayed Lily and James. And he still sent him to rot in the misery fog of Azkaban. Whatever sort of complex feelings he may have had are pushed away when he thinks of Harry being ripped away from him, and he settles pretty firmly on hatred.
He can see Lucius, which also inspires an ugly set of feelings he doesn't want to examine. It feels unfair that Lucius is outside, breathing clean air, while Sirius was languishing, while Bellatrix is in prison.
He answers all the questions, even when he imagines them dead, expressions stricken with horror.
Were you ever a Death Eater or sympathetic to the cause of You-Know-Who? Were you ever the Potters’ secret keeper? Who was then? Did you have contact with any of Voldemort’s inner circle? Why did you kill those muggles?
No. No. It wasn’t me. It was Peter Pettigrew. We're circling the same thing. That wasn't me.
Veritaserum and Occlumency both reveal he's telling the truth, that he was never the Secret Keeper of the home or had any contact with Death Eaters, though they can both be cheated and he knows that’s what Bagshot is going to argue. Crouch's face of displeasure, at least, is a fun thing to immortalize. He tries to focus on that and not on how he can't seem to get enough oxygen in his lungs, how the floors give up under him when he goes too long without blinking.
He focuses on his mother, on looking for her, until he sees her figure painted in black and white amidst the crowd. One time he got lost, separated from her when he was a child, but when it came down to it, he was able to find her just from seeing the back of her head. He'd know her by that alone.
When he was young, she was the only woman in the world.
She stopped being the only woman in the world at some point during his childhood when Bellatrix grew curves and his father told him that one day, when he grows older, he's going to be the one that needs to protect her and his cousins. More came and went, girls that kissed him and that took him to dark closets to do more than that, that smelled of smoke and cherries, but now.
There's something wrong with her, he thinks. There's something wrong with her and she's spread it to him. He must have picked it up before he was born, lingering inside her body next to the seeds of this under skin evil.
But now she's back to being the only person in the world.
And he knows that's all she'll ever be, when the verdict is announced as not guilty!
***
Not innocent. Simply not guilty.
Sirius can’t be angry about it. A strange euphoria overcomes him when the verdict is announced, when everyone’s faces break into outrage.
Inside him, for the first time in a long time, he finds the spark to fight back.
***
His mother has a music box.
It's a pearlescent oval, silver and pink and powder blue under the light, engraved with swans gliding gracefully across the smooth surface.
It's too soft and girlish. Sirius can't ever imagine her owning this.
It used to be my mother's, she said.
***
The tea is the same deep and dark red he's been served ever since he came back.
“Do you know where Harry is?”
“I’ve no interest in Potter's progeny,” his mother sneers.
Sirius bites his tongue. Obviously it's no one that could have any semblance of a link to Voldemort, even if the Blacks are his closest living relatives on this side of the pond. Could he have been sent to live with those elusive cousins outside the continent?
Sirius tilts his head up, considering. He doesn't drink the tea.
He wears his eye bags like shackles.
***
He tries not to think of Bellatrix, of how she’s still there.
Sirius drops his china cup, the tea spilling over the brim and staining the white table cloth. It breaks with a clatter, the pale flowers breaking into pieces. The question is on the tip of his tongue, Have you been drugging me, Mother? A polite fiction where they both plead innocent.
He stops himself. He feels like his body is about to fall. Before he face plants on the table, he forces himself upright and leaves the dining room, stumbling up the stairs, and rushing to his red den of a bedroom.
Sleep comes easy now. The world keeps on turning outside, and Sirius is not allowed to know anything of it.
This might just be the rest of my life, he thinks, with horror. Shapeless days that bleed into nights, perpetual drowsiness, wandless and defenseless, with only his mother as company, two sentinels of a slow demise. No, he tells himself. I cannot allow this. I have to win. I’ve already won before.
But it’s hard to take himself seriously when he feels like his limbs are made of lead. He could have escaped from Azkaban, he knows, if only he had lost some more weight. A month more, maybe, and he could have slipped away from the guards and the dementors as a dog in the middle of the night. He could have swam through until he reached the coast. Regulus was always the best swimmer between the two of them, but his propensity for the beach had ensured Sirius could defend himself as well. And then—
Then he would have taken Harry.
He'd find him and steal him and then run away to where no one knows who Sirius Black or Harry Potter are.
He can still do that, he tells himself. He's escaped from this house before, he can do it again. He just has to bide his time.