Consumption

Lily sat in Dumbledore’s office. After James had run out of the house in response to Dumbledore’s call, Lily felt a pit in her stomach. James had messaged her after they took Sirius to FBI headquarters, explaining the situation and what they had found. Lily was furious.

“Look me in the fucking eyes and tell me you couldn’t see that he was breaking.” Lily shouted at the man across from her, his face stayed almost indifferent.

“Of course I could see it.” Dumbledore sighed, fixing the glasses on his face.

“Yet you still put him out there!”

“Every decision I made regarding Sirius’ mental health was made under the advisement of a respected psychiatrist. Who you recommended.”

“Remus had to have known!” Lily sat back in her chair, amazed that these so-called professionals had let this go on for so long. “He had to have seen that something was wrong.”

“Not until it was too late, just like everyone else.” Dumbledore made an effort to look ashamed, but it definitely was not his best performance. “Dr. Lupin said he was exhibiting signs of dementia; memory loss-”

Lily cut him off, her voice loud as she spoke, “Dementia isn’t a disease! It’s a sign of disease. We have to figure out what’s causing it and treat it!”

“The concern, Dr. Evans,” His tone was patronizing, making Lily send him a sharp look. “Is that there won’t be anything to treat. Sirius had a brain scan; they didn’t find anything.”

“Well, they obviously don’t know what they’re looking for!” Lily stood up from chair, sending a disappointed glance towards Dumbledore before she walked towards the door. “Sirius’ blood is on all of us.”

The interrogation room was stifling as Sirius sat at the table staring blankly at the one-sided window in front of him. His reflection stared back at him, his eyes empty of emotion. Sirius knew Dumbledore was on the other side of the glass, looking at Sirius and wondering what went wrong, when had Sirius become this cold-blooded serial killer?

They had put him under suspicion of four murders; Alex Terrel, Dr. Podmore, Pandora Wesia, and Eduard Szabina. Mr. Szabina was the first copycat victim Sirius had brought up with Dumbledore. The series of events that occurred after that–the murder of Dr. Podmore and Sirius’ insistence that it wasn’t Pandora–had caused Albus to look further into that murder and connect it in any way possible to Sirius.

The whole thing was ludicrous to Sirius. Some killer had the entire FBI under his thumb as he toyed with Sirius’ life.

The door to the interrogation room opened, snapping Sirius out of his thoughts.

“Hi.” Sirius said in slight shock at seeing Lily Evans walk through the door.

“Hi.”

“You look like you’ve been yelling.” Her face was flushed and her eyes slightly damp.

“I have.” She glanced quickly at the viewing window.

“I could use a good yell right about now.” Sirius attempted to send her a smile, but it quickly fell flat.

“I’ve been in touch with animal services.” She said, reorganizing loose papers in the file she set on the table. “James will be picking up Snuffles tonight. We’ll take care of him until…whenever.”

“Whenever could be a long time from now.” He didn’t feel like sugar coating it. He knew that the evidence was compelling, and it could get him sent away for a long, long, time.

“We’ll take care of him until then.” Lily said with a sad smile, looking at her friend in this fragile state.

“Thank you.”

“We have to do some tests.” She opened the file, her hands tightly gripping the papers. “They’ll be the standard psychopathology tests.”

Lily asked him a variety of questions, occasionally writing down a few of his responses. It was all very to the book, and Sirius started to feel like a lab rat. He missed Remus. Remus wouldn’t make him feel like that.

“Sirius,” Lily looked up, holding out a piece of paper and pen. “I’m going to ask you to draw a clock.”

“A clock?”

“Yes.” Lily nodded, setting the paper down. “Just a simple test.”

He looked at her briefly and her tense expression. He drew a circle, numbers going around the border, drawing the little hand at the two and the large hand at the twelve.

“Telling the time isn’t my problem.” Sirius said, turning the paper back to Lily and leaning back in the metal chair.

Lily picked up the paper, holding back a small gasp as she looked at the skewed clock. The numbers slowly slid off the edge of the clock face, like a flow of water pushed it all away. Lily looked back up at Sirius, that same sad smile on her face, “No…It’s the least of your problems.”

Lily left the room, tucking his clock into her folder. She was quickly replaced however by Albus Dumbledore.

“You’re sick Sirius.” He said in lieu of greeting.

“Never did enjoy taking my vitamins.” His head was pounding, he felt like his skull was about to explode, brain matter coating the interrogation room’s walls.

“You’ve got a pretty high fever. We’re going to move you to a secure medical ward, get to the bottom of whatever’s wrong with you and make sure you get whatever treatment you need.”

“And then what? Denoaks State Hospital for the Criminally Insane?” Sirius was disgusted at the idea. “Have Snape fumbling around in my head?”

“I desperately want to be optimistic for an alternative.” Dumbledore rested his elbows on the metal table, staring at Sirius with not an ounce of emotion on his face. “But every fiber of the evidence is telling me not to be.”

“I can’t confess to something I don’t remember.” He was getting angry. Angry at the man sitting in front of him, angry at The Artist for getting him into this mess, angry at himself for continuing his work at the FBI knowing it was deteriorating his mental health.

“And that’s the problem Sirius.” Dumbledore sighed, “The question is, how much more is there that you don’t remember? My biggest fear is that we’ll learn you knew what you were doing the whole time.”

“Yeah well, you don’t have to be afraid of that Albus.” Sirius thought for a moment, his eyes darting around the room as a small layer of sweat formed on his brow. “There is something you should be afraid of, though.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“Whoever’s doing this to me…” Dumbledore let out a sigh, watching the erratic man in front of him speak.

“Someone’s doing this to you?”

“They’ll be close to you,” His hands wrung together in front of him as he spoke, “It could be someone here, working with you.”

“So that’s it? It’s a set-up?”

“They know the cases, they know forensics.” Sirius’ words were fast as he spoke, “They know that I’m unstable.”

“Do you hear how paranoid you sound?”

“Or” Sirius had a sick grin on his face as he looked up at Albus, “It could just be you. Then I’d be really screwed, wouldn’t I?”

“I wanted to be the one to do this.” Dumbledore stood from the chair, looking down at Sirius with his dehumanizing stare. “Sirius Black, you are under arrest for murder, you have the right to remain silent-”

Sirius’ heartbeat was obnoxious in his ears as two police officers forced him out of his chair, handcuffing his hands behind his back. The orange jumpsuit they put him in was suffocating against his skin as he made the humiliating walk towards the ambulance. His friends watched from the side, equal expressions of dismay on their faces as they watched one of their closest friends being taken away in handcuffs.

Sirius’ face was closed off, staring up at the ceiling of the ambulance from where he laid on the stretcher. They had moved his handcuffs to the front of his body, allowing him to lay more comfortably. The two officers in the back with him stared blankly ahead, refusing to even look in his direction. This made his job easier.

“He disarmed the guards. He threw the guards and the driver from the vehicle. We found the ambulance in an alley a little bit out of town.” Dumbledore paced back and forth throughout his office, Lily and Remus sitting in the seats across from his desk. “These are not the acts of an innocent man.”

“They’re the acts of a man who’s impaired.” Lily pulled out the file, taking out Sirius’ drawing of a clock and placing it on the desk. “I had Sirius draw this clock to test for cognitive dysfunction.”

Remus leaned forward in his seat; a grimace settled on his face as he looked at the disfigured clock.

“That is extreme.” He opened his own file, pulling out a piece of paper. “This is the clock I asked Will to draw for me two weeks ago. It’s normal.”

Lily’s state of shock brought a small smile to Remus’ face which he quickly schooled. He knew Lily was smart, he had expected this response to Sirius’ state, which is why he had prepared this drawing ahead of time…It was all going to plan.

“What disease would progress gradually but plateaus for various lengths of time?” Lily asked, her eyes flicking back and forth as she recounted her days as a student.

“Sirius has periods of clarity.” Remus continued, “We’ve seen him lucid and aware one moment, and then the next he’s not.”

“Could be some form of encephalitis.” Remus' eyes flicked to her; he was almost proud.

“Auto-immune encephalitis?”

“It’s hard to diagnose.” Lily looked up at Remus and Dumbledore as she spoke, her confident voice booming in the room, “There’s no tumors or lesions. You wouldn’t even see it on a brain scan if you weren’t specifically looking for it.”

“Just tell me if he could kill four people and not be aware of it.” Dumbledore insisted, his tone annoyed. He stood behind his desk, staring down at the two doctors across from him. “This doesn’t feel like dementia. This is an intelligent psychopath.”

Dumbledore took a moment, looking at Remus and Lily as they shared a look of contemplation.

“Let me play the devil for a moment here doctors.” Dumbledore continued, “This clock test…Could Sirius fake something like this? Would he be able to do that?”

Remus stayed silent. It was entirely possible. Sirius did have a history in the psychiatric field, he knew the tricks, he knew the tests, it was 100% possible.

Lily let out a sigh, her voice defeated, “Yes.”