A soul-shattering scream rent the air. Sirius exhaled, watching the puff of air crystallize before his heavy-lidded eyes. Two today. His eyes slid to the chart he’d begun to keep etched in the walls. That made five in the past week. They’d likely had their fill…
He sighed, leaning back against the frosty stone wall. Flickering images began to fill his head, as he only allowed himself once the dementors had presumably consumed enough souls for the week. James and Remus in the common room, James howling with laughter as Remus served him with what he always thought was a disapproving frown, but was actually barely concealed laughter of his own. A stag, dancing ahead of him in a moon-dappled forest as he barked with joy. Remus again, head on his shoulder as Sirius begrudgingly quizzed him on his Runes textbook – he had never been able to refuse that hopeful grin.
Just as he had begun to feel the familiar warm spark he treasured from those vignette memories – relics of a time long lost – it was doused, and Sirius’s eyes shot open. Shit. He shoved the memories away, back under the bed in the photo box in his mind, snuffing out the light.
At his cell door, long, graceful deadened fingers curled around the bars. He was looking directly into the creature’s face: framed by a draping black hood that curled like smoke at the edges, deep, rattling breath shaking the very foundation of Sirius’s mind, smooth, translucent and gray skin where he anticipated eyes would normally be. Most noticeable, as always, was the icy numbness that he’d come to expect from their presence.
He contemplated the creature in miserable curiosity. He’d found, over the years, that the only emotions Dementors snuffed out were joy and hope – their overwhelming aura of despair did tend to reduce most people to a shivering mess, but somewhere along the way he’d managed to compartmentalise it with the rest, locking away the magic-induced depression in the same box he kept all his worst moments hidden. Therefore, he was able to regard the blasted thing with curiosity. Curious, that.
The Dementor at the door trailed closer, tendrils of cloak-smoke reaching through the door in a manner Sirius could only call intrigued. He chuckled under his breath – mirthlessly of course.
“Want them, do you?” He contemplated the expressionless face. The Dementor clutched the bars tighter. Sirius tilted his head. Frustration, perhaps? Fucking mental, this interaction. Occlumency. Who knew? “Sorry. Mine. Away with you, boy.” He made a lazy shooing motion at the thing.
After another minute in which Sirius had a staring contest with a creature with no eyes, the Dementor took a deep, rattling breath – more rattling than usual, he’d say – and left, its cloak-smoke fluttering behind it rapidly.
***
Another nightmare. Sirius’s eyes flew open as he sat bolt upright, James and Lily’s drawn out screams still echoing in his mind. He curled over in agony. Fucking – his fault – if he hadn’t… He took a ragged breath.
It had all been his fault. Harry, his godson – could be in a fucking orphanage, couldn’t he? Because Sirius Black had gone and fucked it all up, as he was so often wont to do. He took another deep breath and fucking screamed. They were dead. They were dead, and here he was, in a cell, in Azkaban, with his firelit memories and his fucking life - he dared to use Occlumency? Dared to lock it away, to forget, to deal with it later? They were DEAD –
He deserved to fucking suffer.
Calming himself, he drew deep breaths and dusted off the photo box under the bed. Sirius remembered. He remembered as loudly as he could, cupping the spark of joy fiercely, breathing life into it – come on, come on… and there.
The Dementor was at the door again, its floating form enchanting as he fixed his gaze upon it, moving closer, closer – just there – not too close, not to lose it all… just to lose enough – and then, he seized every box he had, and threw them open.
The pain was nothing he’d ever endured before. He dropped to the ground, shaking, mouth twisted in a ghostly scream. Sirius embraced every second of it. Every flash of James’ unseeing eyes. Every wicked grin on Peter’s face as he morphed into the blasted rat. Every. Last. Second.
It was over far too soon.
“No,” he rasped. “No – come back – I need – I need it…”
But the Dementor was a wisp of smoke in the wind, all the joy he’d dared to feel was tucked in its miserable rotting cloak, and Sirius was an empty rag, wrung dry of all the happiness in the world.
***
It’d become a sick routine. He’d have a good day, daring to curve a smile. Remus’s laugh would echo in his mind as he went to sleep. Then, he’d wake again, and remember. He’d never been the strongest Occlumens. Never for too long.
And then the rattling breaths… the eager fingers, beckoning him closer, the trance he couldn’t wake from as he slowly approached the hellhole of icy blackness… and he’d lose it all again.
Every time it happened, he’d be curled sobbing on the ground long after the Dementor had gone. He’d come to embrace the shock of pain, the jolt of pure feeling that came with their time together. It, too, had gleaned pleasure from the routine – he heard anticipation in its breath when it approached, saw the excited twitch in its fingers, the beckoning curl of its cloak-smoke as it reached for him.
***
And then, a newspaper discarded carelessly in his cell – a miracle on the front page – a grim sense of duty and determination – and less than a week later, he’d escaped. Not free, though. He’d never be free.
When he’d finish travelling for the day, he’d usually camp somewhere near water. Dunk his head in – relish the freezing blackness – and when he was about to lose consciousness, he’d surface, gasping in pain and satisfaction.
The bare branches of the trees almost sounded like that breath. Each shadow a tendril of cloak-smoke. He felt, oddly, like a part of him was gone… Like he’d lost something to that black hole, something that could never be filled again.
***
“Remus, what if I forget? It helped – it helped me remember how it felt, how I deserve to feel… What if I forget that?”
Remus had pulled him into a warm embrace. Oh, how he’d dearly missed those days. “Pads, you don’t deserve that. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault, Sirius.”
He’d cried, then. Wasn’t proud of it. Probably ruined Remus’s sweater. But there was a hole in his heart, forged by pain and cloak-smoke, and Remus spent the next several hours there in the Shrieking Shack filling it with warmth and hope and whispered reassurance.
***
Peter hadn’t gotten away. Sirius loped out of the Shrieking Shack with his godson beside him, his best friend on his other side, and a newly hatched hope of returning to Grimmauld with a newfound family.
Of course, it couldn’t be that simple. As the full moon peeked over the horizon, Remus went rigid, and years of full moon dalliances flooded back into Sirius’s mind.
“Run,” he told Harry and Hermione urgently. “Run, and don’t look back.”
They’d taken off, Peter stuck between them, reaching for a wand on the ground – but surely, surely Harry got there first - and with that, he’d transformed into the dog and pelted after his other half, howling.
***
Remus had disappeared. Sirius stood in the forest, bleeding from several shallow wounds but otherwise unharmed. He glanced around before resuming human form. Fuck. He just hoped Harry was alright – he’d rejoin them as soon as he figured out where he was.
Suddenly, a familiar chill filled the air. The blood in his veins turned to dread.
No.
Not anymore. He couldn’t take it. Had nothing left to give – but he did, but he wouldn’t… couldn’t… couldn’t lose that.
A familiar hand slunk out from behind a tree. Wisps of smoke. A hood. A piercing thrill of agony, echoing screams from that night…
And just as suddenly as it had come, the dread was gone, replaced with a white hot rage. For now – now, Sirius had something to fight for. Remus was here, Harry was here, they could be together again – and Remus had told him, had promised him he wouldn’t forget… They had Peter now… and he couldn’t, wouldn’t let the Dementor rip that to shreds of smoke.
“Fuck,” he whispered, straining. “Fuck – you. FUCK YOU – EXPECTO PATRONUM!”
But he hadn’t a wand. All he had was hope, and love. So much fucking love. And that… that was exactly what it wanted, wasn’t it? The cold… caressing him with its familiarity, its shock of numbing despair… yes, this was… yes, hadn’t he missed it?
Triumphantly, the Dementor moved closer. Sirius sunk to the ground – not like before, never like before, it was different, he didn’t want this – but all the same.
As his eyes closed, the last of the rage and the hope and the love all at once – disappearing, gone… forever? No, please –
A silver stag galloped toward him from across the lake. And Sirius remembered. Remus had told him he would, hadn’t he?
“James…”