the Black list

Sirius’ hands are magically bound behind his back, wrists digging into the magical manacles wrapped around them. He’s uncomfortable, this being a dank, underground holding cell rather haphazardly turned interrogation chamber in the bowels of the Ministry building, but he won’t let them know that. He’s been in much worse places, after all.

He can feel eyes on him, despite having been left chained and alone in the room. His face remains impassive - as much as it can be anyway, since the small smirk quirking up the corner of his lips is all but etched into muscle memory at this point. Wavy wisps of dark hair have shaken loose from the bun at the top of his head, a result of being crash tackled in the street, and are tickling the sides of his face. There’s a constant dripping noise somewhere above him, the air is stale and the very atmosphere somehow feels mildewed. For hours, he’s remained silent, feeling layer after layer of magic pressing into his skin as security personnel added layer after layer of protection into the walls, the floor, the ceiling, even the air vents and concealed plumbing. His own magic recognised their efforts.

Interestingly - and as he and his partner had anticipated while planning this manoeuvre - he doesn’t feel the telltale cold and accompanying dread of Dementors arriving outside his door. Too eager to try to get him to talk, they kept him at the Ministry rather than lose time - and their own happiness - taking him back to Azkaban. Can’t really expect the worker bees in the floors above to be any kind of productive if the whole building was suddenly plunged into despair, he supposes. He’s rather glad their instincts had paid off, massive gamble though it was. He really didn’t want to go back to that hell hole.

When they had seemingly finished with shrouding the air with magic to reinforce the entry and exit points, suppress his magic, compel him to forget the urge to flee - not that he has one, since he planned to be here, after all - and all manner of other, unidentifiable spells to stop the escapee from escaping, they had sent in interrogators. Sirius remained silent. They started switching up the Aurors they sent in after the first two failed to get him to talk, trying to throw him off balance, or shock him into breaking his silence. Each tried a different tactic, a different approach. None worked.

Eventually, they had left him alone again. He silently encouraged them to regroup elsewhere. He wouldn’t be speaking. Not to them.

Some time later, when he’d figured out how to get the legs of the chair in which he sat to tilt so he could at least amuse himself by teetering on each one in turn, his magic sensed it. A new arrival, just next door. His permanent smirk broke into a little grin. A toothy one. Game on.

The office next door had been in uproar for hours, unheard behind the wards and walls but probably suspected by the prisoner. Aurors yelled, papers ruffled, owls screeched in and out carrying scrolls and letters and memoranda, all the while a war room was thrown up hastily by support staff. So-called experts in one Sirius Black - members of the Auror taskforce dedicated to hunting him down for the last five years, anyway - were called in from their posts or assignments by their superiors. They all congregated, these faceless self-important government employees, to deal with a problem they had no idea was way out of their collective depth.

When their interrogators came back one by one with no fruits to show for their failed labour, they did indeed regroup. The Minister for Magic had finally arrived - nervous, twitchy thing that he was - taken a look at each of the many different magical screens showing different angles of the shackled prisoner in the next room, and then one look at the wall separating the two rooms, which had been spelled invisible on this side of it to allow them an unobstructed view of the goings on in the room-turned-cell on the other side, and turned to the most senior man in the room to ask, “Where’s Kingsley?”

The man had scoffed. “Not called in, Minister. He’s overseas tracking a lead. No need, we have it handled.”

The Minister had narrowed his eyes, turned back to the invisible wall showing Black enjoying his ridiculous little balancing game, and tersely murmured, “I don’t care if you technically outrank him. He’s the expert in this situation. Get him here. Send him to my office when he arrives. And then, he takes over this operation.”

He turned on his little heeled boots with that and swept from the room with the swish of an emerald green cloak.

When a tall, broad, black man with close cropped hair and gold earrings glinting in his earlobes strode into the room a little while later, each and every occupant could sense the shift in the tide. So could the lone occupant of the room one over.

“Kingsley?” said a smooth, calm voice, bouncing off the walls of the war room from the spells enhancing next door’s audio. The first word he had spoken since being brought in. “You finally here?”

Kingsley, apparently content to ignore this, took a look around, midnight blue robes brushing the concrete floors as he lapped the room. Pointed at almost all of the 30 people in it. And then rather unceremoniously told them to get out.

“The rest of you are my support team. Do as I say, stay on your toes, stick to your areas of expertise.”

The (former) most senior man in the room spluttered, outraged that he had been dumped from this, whatever ‘this’ was turning out to be. Kingsley put up one large hand to stop his whinging before it had even started. “I don’t want to hear it, Crouch. Get out. You don’t want a bar of this. Trust me.”

When the room was finally, largely, silent, the hum of the spells the only thing to be heard, Kingsley turned back to the invisible wall. The four wooden legs of Black’s chair were firmly planted on the ground again. Sirius looked at the blank wall in front of him, i.e., right inside the war room, not that he could see anything except grey concrete blocks. He stared right at Kingsley, who stood in front of the void, looking right back at him. And then he stepped through it.

The grin on Sirius’ face got wider, and somehow toothier. “I guess congratulations are in order.”

One of Kingsley’s heavy black brows arched in response.

“You know, for finally getting me.”

“That might mean more to me if I’d actually ‘gotten’ you.”

“Aww, did I steal your chance at glory? Sorry.”

“No need. Now, why don’t we talk? I’ve missed our little chats.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Sirius, you turned yourself in. I assume there may be caveats to that. Can’t help you if you don’t tell me what they are.”

“You’re right, I do have caveats. Only one problem.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t talk to you.”

“You’re talking to me now.”

“True. I’ll give you my demands. And before you start, you will fulfil my demands, because I have something you want.”

“I want something?”

“You’re gonna.”

“And what’s that?”

His grin turned pensive, head tilting slightly to look at Kingsley. He was a handsome fella. Still young - only a a year or two older than Sirius himself - but he had grown up a bit since their cozy little meetings in Azkaban. Big, full, dark lips. Pronounced brow. Massive, and physically intimidating. Hot. If you’re into that kinda thing. 

“Well, Kingsley, I’d love to tell you. But I don’t talk  to you.”

“Who do you talk to, then?”

Sirius’ handsome face - actually, it was downright pretty, delicate, with the sharp cheekbones, angular jawline, piercing silver eyes, lush pink lips and full hair framing it from where it was falling loose of his bun - hardened with what was clearly resolve.

“I speak only to Remus Lupin.”