Discordia

A Harry Potter Fanfiction

The air is madness.

Something moved near him. It seemed that a clock ticked somewhere nearby, a terrible and quiet rhythm of tiny punctuated beats. That could not be. There was no clock here.

The air is madness and to breathe is to lose one's mind, to weep is to give in entirely, to scream is to break. He is alone in the dark and there is no hope for him now, no sense of supreme justice. He is alone in the dark and there is nothing else.

A tremulous sigh escaped his lips and hoarsely he fought against it. He could make no sound. The slightest disturbance of this perilous near-silence might incite another outburst such as the one that had occurred earlier today, and the punishment for such a thing, if he were involved, would be unspeakable.

The air is madness.

All, my lord, my love, for you....

Her face, her terrible eyes, her face so like his own, the high sound of her laughter echoing all around him, her wicked smile so lovely in the shadows, the final ruin of the noble and most ancient house...

His hand, lost in the darkness, touched the wall. No. Not the wall, not the cold stone against which he had so often huddled these many years, clinging to it though it was the very boundary of his imprisonment. A bar. His quivering fingers closed around it, gripping it as though he hoped to somehow affect it, to bend it or break it, to rip it from its foundations and thus open the door that kept him here. The chill air of the corridor caressed his hand. This air was that of freedom, stale from lack of ventilation, but nevertheless tangible. Beyond these bars was liberation. He could feel it, he could smell it, if he pressed his face to the steel and inhaled he could almost taste it, but he could not attain it, and this simple and inevitable fact was fast robbing him of the tattered remains of his sanity.

All, my lord, for you...

Laughter, a bright smile, his hand on the boy's shoulder, damned traitor, liar, murderer...

"How could you, Sirius?"

There was nothing to be seen in this darkness. When night fell outside the prison became black, save for the small torch that remained lit at the end of every hall. The guards of this ward, after all, needed no light by which to keep their vigil.

He withdrew his hand, tucking it into the folds of his filthy robes. The last time he had reached through the doorway his fingertips had grazed the hem of one of their terrible cloaks, and so quickly had their attentions turned to him that for several days he had feared even to move.

The earth is madness.

He could not hear them tonight. Perhaps they waited outside his cell, seeking out any thought that might enter into his mind that was not rudimentary. Perhaps tonight their business was with some other devil, be he guilty or not.

He sometimes forgot the meaning of that word, and whether or not it truly pertained to him. Throughout the day he was usually able to keep his mind, but in this preternatural darkness he knew nothing. There was no black or white, no right or wrong, no good or evil. There was only the deep night and the cold, against which he had no defense.

All for you, everything, my lord...

He drew his thin robes tighter about himself, folding his knees up against his chest. How long had it been since he had been given new robes, primitive though they were? He could not remember. Clothing the prisoners had never been a priority here as long as he had been one; he had seen several of the less fortunate ones fall into states of being nearly naked, so violently did they act in their cells and so careless were those who oversaw them. He doubted the cold was any worse for them. No garment, no meager blanket thrown callously onto their pallets preceding cell inspections, could offer any protection from the chill of their guards' presence.

The sound came again, the rapid, rhythmic ticking that had seemed to fill the air only moments before. It was not a clock. Someone down the corridor was tapping their fingers against the bars of his cell, either out of nervous habit or in an attempt to gain another's attention. He was answered but a moment later by another man who did the same.

It was tempting, in the darkness, to mimic the others' actions, to answer their cries or furtive sounds with his own. Often he had heard a voice terribly like his own laughing with them, shrieking when they did, slamming his fists against the bars until they bled or screaming the names of anyone who might have screamed his own, the desperate attempts of madmen to somehow earn pardon. In the light of day he maintained the semblance of civility. He was able to speak peaceably to any who passed his cell; he was able to lay quietly on the floor or, when permitted, to even sit at the small table he was sometimes allowed and scrape reticently at a thin and yellowed scrap of parchment with a dulled quill (after all, the administrators of the prison could hardly have their most dangerous ward cut open his wrist with a sharp point and thereby escape his eternal punishment), and if briefly interrogated, which was now quite rare, he was able to answer as simply as possible, though his answers were never the ones sought, as all that was asked of him was a confession. But in the night, left alone to his own vengeful reveries, he was all too susceptible to the madness that infected these halls. He joined in their chants, regardless of whatever name was uttered; he laughed in the same mindless manner until one of the terrible blind guards moved to silence him.

The water is madness.

He sometimes believed he was the only sane man left in this ward. The others, regardless of crime, had fallen to the dementors early on in their imprisonment, for they had been without the skill that had preserved him for so long. And yet he could feel that his sanity was not entirely intact. It was becoming harder now to undergo the transformation and harder still to undo it, for with each passing day his powers of concentration were slipping. He could focus on nothing purely. Peter's face emerged before his eyes; he saw the bloody finger laying in the street. He saw Lily and James and the others he had so well known in his youth; he saw them laughing, he saw Remus's face light up when the final charm was put on the Map; he saw his mother with her sharp demeaning eyes, he saw the Mark on his brother's arm... the world was a jumble of senseless images and every day he sank further into them. He feared he would someday drown in them.

A low sound issued from his throat, a quivering emission strangely like a whimper. His long hair fell into his eyes. It was much too long now, his hair, longer than that of most women. He had once thought to calculate the length of his imprisonment by the length of his hair, but now he could scarcely remember how long it had been when he was first placed here. His nails were ground only by the stone, when as the dog he moved through the cell. It occurred to him vaguely that it had been ages since he had even been permitted to wash his face, though some of the prisoners were allowed the slightest cleanliness before inspections. He doubted that if, given a mirror, he would have recognized himself.

He was answered by a quiet laugh, a nervous titter that sounded eerily like leaves rustling in a night wind. He had heard this laugh several times before but he knew not to whom it belonged. There were no names here given as identities; they existed solely as accusations. To say a name was to offer the identity of another criminal.

Not all exchanges that transpired amongst the prisoners were these awful wordless sounds. There were conversations, he imagined, in other wards and even in this one, furtive whisperings between bars and through stones. In the daylight he often heard other voices coming very close to coherency, though the speakers were not possessed of sanity. A few times he had even heard small pebbles being thrown about upon the floor, as though occupants of nearby cells were engaged in some crude semblance of a game. He had been unable to stop laughing at the thought of this, had in fact tossed a stone of his own through the bars in the hope that it might find its target on another man's head, until the dementors were again summoned to restrain him.

He could see no one else from his cell. Prized as the most wicked felon here, he was kept at the very end of the corridor, and directly ahead of him through the bars he saw only the stone wall. The nearest cell to his was several feet away, and even when long ago he had passed his arm through the bars he had been unable to feel the steel grating of another cell's doorway. But he was surrounded, he knew, for there were levels above and below him, and the cells never ceased to be full. He could hear the voices of those in the other levels through the drafty cracks that ran through the walls.

The fire is madness.

The night was the longest for him. In the dawn the light would begin to creep down the corridor, bathing each stone and each bar in a soft blue glow, but so far was his cell from the window that it was not touched by this meager illumination. In his first months here he had often sought to stretch his hands so far beyond the bars that the light banished the unearthly shadows from them, but never had he been able to reach it.

It was not until nearing midday that his cell was properly illuminated, but this had ceased to matter to him. The longer the darkness remained the longer he was able to veil his mind from the dementors by assuming the form of the dog, though he feared what would happen if he were ever unable to reverse the transformation by the time the light reached his cell and a guard that was not so blind happened to pass through the corridor. Would he be placed under stricter supervision? Would he be bound by some spell, perhaps, to prevent him from exerting any mental strength whatsoever? He doubted he would receive so light a punishment. He was too feared by the administration of the prison, by the public, and the dementors wanted him too badly. If his transgression were discovered, he would undoubtedly receive the Kiss.

The fire is madness.

All is madness.

All has ceased to exist, and there is only the feel of the cold stone and the unending darkness.

A high laugh rang out through the corridor, the unmistakable voice of a woman. There was only one woman held in this ward to his knowledge, for he had seen or heard no other in the entirety of his imprisonment. His cousin's cell was somewhere high above him, with those of several of the other Death Eaters that had been brought to Azkaban shortly following his own incarceration. He had not seen her since the steel door was closed upon her and she was forever shut away, but several times in the night he had heard her, and when she was silent there were always the eager whisperings of the daylight hours to inform him: Bellatrix was restrained last night... Bellatrix is trying to use magic without her wand, she's powerful enough to do it, you know... Bellatrix spoke with her husband, they're going to escape... Bellatrix wept last night... Bellatrix spit on Fudge during inspections.... the Kiss was threatened... After one of her many outbursts talk of her seemed incessant, even amongst those who were neither supporters of her or of the Dark Lord.

He had seen her only once since he had, while still a boy, left home. The day her guilt had been determined and she and her accomplices imprisoned he had had the misfortune of glancing through the bars of his cell when the wide doors of the ward were thrown open and she, bound with her wrists behind her and hobbled by a spell to prevent any sudden movements, was escorted inside. The guards that flanked her, the men who watched with wands held at the ready, had not perturbed her in the least. As she was pushed through the corridor she shouted curses at the guards, promising the vengeance of the Dark Lord once his power was regained. The horrid smile never left her face. Her husband and his brother followed behind much more placidly but with their eyes locked on her; a small smile played upon her husband's lips. Behind them a young man wept as a guard steadied him.

She had not seen him, alone in his cell at the end of the corridor, face pressed into the bars to watch her passage. She and her condemned entourage were led up a stairway halfway down the hall. But until the evening he had heard her shrill voice, screaming curses and hexes that were quite meaningless without her wand, rallying whatever other Death Eaters would admit to their crimes to join in her fanatical ravings. By the evening her husband's voice was almost as loud as hers, for she had grown hoarse but refused to cease her deranged cheers. A pretty pair they made, he had thought then, much as he had on the accursed day they were wed. On that day he had realized just how closely they resembled a pair of serial killers.

But the night had claimed her as it did every new prisoner. The air was incessantly chilled with the dementors' presence, but in the night it became colder, and the whisperings died away with the quietest sound of stirring robes. He imagined that each prisoner acted as he did when the guards passed, huddling against the back wall of their cells and praying that it had not been they who had caused offense. Some of them began to weep. And when finally the dementors came to their new prey the darkness had filled with the sounds of sobbing and screaming, of loud gasps, for even the infamous Bellatrix Lestrange had not been able to withstand their torment.

His own introduction to the prison had not been dissimilar. A pair of wizards had all but literally dragged him through the doorway as futilely he struggled against his bonds, and all the while he had shrieked Peter's name. He well remembered feeling tears course down his face even as he laughed, pleading with his captors to merely listen to him. His feet dug into the stone floor; his struggle caused his bound wrists to bleed. And when they had pushed him into his cell he had immediately thrown himself against the bars even as the door was locked against him, and desperately he cried the fiend's name again, continuing after he was left alone, continuing even into the night. When the darkness began to fall about his cell, to everyone and to no one he had even betrayed the method of Peter's escape, incriminating himself, and the dementors had come eagerly to silence him.

Above him in the dark, Bellatrix continued to laugh, ascending from a low, mindless chuckle to hysterics. In her first years in Azkaban he, along with every other man on this ward, had literally heard her fall to madness. But this was nothing. Rare indeed was the man who did not lose something of his mind here.

He fought the urge to become the dog. He was too weak to perform the transformation tonight, and any mistake in it was too costly to be risked.

A man further down the corridor took up her terrible laughter. A convicted Death Eater, he was, and in his second year in his cell he had admitted such to whomever would listen, confessing proudly what he had formerly denied. Perhaps he had been inspired by Bellatrix's declarations.

He hated her now. He realized this steadily with every night in which it was her voice he heard above all the others. He did not need to see her or even to speak with her to know what she had been given that he had not. The rumors were more than sufficient. Bellatrix had admitted to torturing the Longbottoms; she had never denied her devotion to the Dark Lord. When she was arrested the sleeve of her robes had been raised and all present had seen the Mark. And even so she had been given the benefit of a trial, at which, word had spread through the prison, she merely admitted her crimes and proudly threatened Voldemort's vengeance upon her persecutors. One so guilty as she had been given the opportunity to defend herself, where he was immediately imprisoned, pronounced guilty merely with an indictment. The Mark was not on his arm. His wand had not issued the spell that had destroyed the street and twelve Muggles along with it. The finger that was the only trace of Peter's body had been cleanly cut, not torn as though by violent dismemberment. But none of these things had mattered for him, for despite any evidence against it his guilt was so obvious that no trial was required. And yet for one as wicked as his cousin justice had been offered to all parties involved, while he was condemned to rot here.

He moved further into the darkness, until at last his back touched the rear wall. This was not far enough away. Their voices would still reach him here, and even if he pressed his hands to ears so firmly that they bruised he would still be able to hear them.

Another laugh, an indiscernible direction. An unintelligible plea. It began as it always did, with these quiet utterances that strangely the dementors refused to acknowledge, and so routine was it now that he knew they never would. Thoughts of freedom or happiness perturbed them into action; the ravings of the insane must have seemed to them the very sweetest music.

"I didn't do it," someone whimpered further down the corridor. He recognized the voice; only last week it had confessed to bearing the Mark. "I didn't do it, it wasn't me..."

"...he made me, he made all of us..."

A different voice, more distant. They rose in a chorus all around him, echoing upon the chilled stone walls, filling his head until it seemed his blood pulsed with them. He could not bear this again, not tonight, not now...

"...I didn't have choice..."

"...we never knew..."

"...filthy bastards..."

"...there was nothing I could do..."

"...tried to stop them..."

"...Avada..."

Elsewhere in the ward Bellatrix laughed again, a high and terrible cackle that froze his spine. He cowered against the wall. It seemed that her voice echoed in the stone, that all of them did. There was no protection from them. Even if he could muster the transformation now, he would only hear their voices more acutely.

The air is madness the earth is madness the fire that oft in the night rages in his mind the water that crashes so violently upon the jagged shores beyond these walls all is madness and he cannot resist it...

Quietly, he began to laugh. A hush fell over the corridor. Around him the voices continued but in the cells directly surrounding his there was silence, as all paused to hear the maniac speak. He knew somewhere in the back of his mind that he was feared by all here, even those who, having seen Peter in palaver with the Dark Lord themselves, knew of his innocence. Azkaban, it was believed, had claimed his mind most deeply until he was mad and cunning as one of the true Death Eaters, able to feign calm normalcy during the day whilst in the night a victim of his own insanity. His cousin was but a paltry harpy in comparison.

A futile scream in the distance, an echo that would save nothing.

"I never did it! It was Dolohov!"

Down the corridor someone else agreed: "Dolohov!"

He whispered the name in the darkness. It was not entirely unfamiliar to him. It had been screamed hundreds of nights before here; it was screamed during inspections, when the prisoners made their useless pleas to Fudge, in hopes that this time he might believe them. There were certain men who shouted it in their sleep, so obsessed with attaining freedom that it pervaded their dreams.

"Dolohov! It was Antonin Dolohov!"

"Macnair! Avery! Nott!"

How many of these men whose names were given in accusation were already here, cowering in their cells even as he did? He did not know. He shuddered and drove his trembling hands into the tangled mass of his hair, gripping it so tightly that strands of it broke against his fingers. He could not bear to hear this tonight, not these desperate accusations, not this endless string of names that included both guilty and innocent alike. His own madness threatened too closely tonight. The dementors would put an end to it soon, he was sure. They would be roused from their silent vigils and move to silence each of the prisoners, and these fits would end before he joined in them, before the dementors could turn their full attentions to him, bored of merely acting as his guards...

"Lucius Malfoy!"

A shout went up in agreement. Malfoy's name was repeated throughout the corridor, above it, below it. The admitted Death Eaters shrieked and beat upon their bars in outrage. What was the rumor? That Malfoy had denied all involvement with Voldemort, that he had claimed to be a victim of the Imperius Curse and had, unlike many of his associates, been believed?

"Malfoy! And his family, the lot of them!"

"Cornelius Fudge!"

A group of them laughed, but not with much humor. In the daylight such things were shouted either out of insanity or in cruelty to the man, but in the night it was believed by all. No one was truly innocent in this darkness. There was only the desire for freedom, only the mindless urge to scream whatever entered one's head in order to gain clemency.

"Fudge! I saw him myself, kneeling at the Dark Lord's feet!"

He bit into his lower lip. The taste of his own blood filled his mouth. He couldn't endure this tonight. Another whimper left his scratched throat and quite unintentionally he moved forward on the floor, crawling like a dog. Realizing his mistake he reached backward, groping for the wall, but it was too late: it was no longer there. He had left it for but an instant and it had disappeared into the impenetrable dark.

"I didn't... I swear I didn't..." It was a voice frighteningly like his own, but he had never intended to speak.

The world is madness.

Another voice nearby. Perhaps it was the man in the next cell.

"I'll tell you anything, I'll give you all their names! Malfoy! Macnair! Jugson!"

"Augustus Rookwood! Rookwood!"

"Severus Snape!"

A small laugh escaped him, though he knew not truly why. He thought he knew this name. He saw behind his eyes a boy on the cusp of manhood with dark, suspicious eyes and oily black hair. A meaningless phantom.

"Severus Snape," he muttered, almost amusedly. The words seemed vaguely familiar to his tongue, like the taste of some old, forgotten wine. His voice was a low musical whisper. "Snape, Snape, Severus Snape..."

I was watching him, his nose was touching the parchment–

...What're you going to do, Snivelly, wipe your nose on us?

"Severus Snape." He felt his lips moving, tight with an inexplicable smile. His hands grasped at the floor so harshly that one of his fingernails tore free, and raising his head he began to laugh. "Severus Snape!"

"Crabbe! Mulciber!"

Someone in a cell above him sobbed helplessly.

"Barty Crouch! Crouch's son!"

He crawled on slowly, following the pattern of stones on the floor. His bleeding finger shrieked with pain with his every movement.

"Mulciber!" he shouted, feeling the grin upon his face widen. "Goyle!" His arm collided with the steel bars of the doorway. The dementors were only feet away from him now but strangely they made no move to silence him. Perhaps they reveled in the havoc wrought in this place by their true master.

"Bellatrix Lestrange!"

High, cackling laughter above him. All around him. "Bellatrix Lestrange!" his cousin screamed, and it seemed that her voice broke, as though she sobbed whilst laughing. "Bellatrix Lestrange, and the Dark Lord knows her name, and will repay her services tenfold when he returns!"

A ripple of excitement traversed through the ward. From his isolated cell he heard some of the Death Eaters groaning uneasily, as though they feared that by speaking so Bellatrix would call down Voldemort's wrath upon them. Others cheered, rising to their feet and bringing their hands down upon the bars. Faintly he could hear Rodolphus Lestrange's voice, inciting his wife to continue.

So proud of their guilt, while far below them an innocent man rotted away, struggling to hold on to his mind even as it poured through his fingers.

"Bellatrix Lestrange!" he yelled. They were only words to him now, and he was unaware of any connection to him they might possess.

"Rodolphus Lestrange! Rabastan Lestrange!"

More cheers, further down the corridor. He found himself tempted to join in them, to stamp his feet upon the floor and rattle the bars, to raise his voice with theirs and bellow their strange chants, regardless of what they meant. He knew he had done so before, though afterward he could never truly remember it. The sane convicted murderer who so bewildered the human guards during the day with his continued rationality did not exist now.

Again Bellatrix laughed, only further inspired by the threats that rose against her own. "I alone was loyal to him! I alone have remained faithful! All others denied him, all others hid their faces and his Mark! I alone remained his servant!"

Her husband shouted his agreement. She called sweetly to him, and then quite abruptly she began to weep. Great, gasping sobs erupted from her throat, echoing throughout every corridor, within every cell. Her voice grew soft, until he could only barely understand her:

"...left us, he has forgotten us..."

Rodolphus spoke to her quietly; the ward became quiet, as though all held within strained to hear him.

"He will not forget us!" Rabastan's voice, taking up the same high insistence that hers had, only moments ago. "He will not forsake us! When he returns we alone will know his glory!"

Glory of madness, glory of nothingness, alone in the dark and There Is Nothing Left.

"He will not forget us!" Another voice, closer to him now. Did the speaker even know the meaning of what he said? "He will not forget us, we will not forget, we will not forget him..."

"...be quiet, mad fools all of you..."

He let out a high laugh at this. I am a mad fool, he thought, and laughing rose up onto his knees. The pain in his hand subsided to a dull ache.

"It was Malfoy, I saw him myself!"

"I saw him speaking with You-Know-Who!"

"I heard him admit to it!"

"He bears the Mark!"

"The Mark!" he echoed, chuckling softly and deeply, so that his stomach tightened with pain. "He bears the Mark and I do not! How do they explain that?" It was a question without an answer. There was no explanation: whatever the crime, he was simply guilty, though only by circumstance. The physical evidence pointed only to his innocence, but what did that matter? He was a murderer, though he had killed none.

How could you, Sirius?

...the boy's face before him, with his sharp nose so like that of the rat and his strangely innocent eyes, the vague smile that touched upon the corners of his lips as he withdrew his wand...

No Imperius Curse was this; that small smile proved it. The boy knew what he did and had known all along. His friends' blood covered his hands and his greatest concern was to save himself, and thus doing sentence another friend to wither away in the dark of Azkaban and leave the other alone in a society that shunned him. He was not the boy he had known in school, the frightened child who adored his friends to the point of reverence, who laughed even at their stupidities and constantly begged Remus to give him his homework to copy. Only this traitor existed now.

He knew not the meaning of these thoughts, these strange, detached images. In the night and the frenzy that consumed him therein memory and illusion were inseparable.

"How do they explain that?"

"Lucius Malfoy!"

"His brains will be dashed upon the earth beneath the Dark Lord's feet!"

"Karkaroff!"

"Igor Karkaroff!"

"Crouch!"

"I never did it! I swear! It was she!"

He shuddered violently. How like his own were this boy's pleas, though rumor had it that the Mark had been found upon his forearm.

"I never did it!" he screamed. His bleeding hand hit the bars of the doorway and like a dog he whimpered. "I never betrayed them! I loved them!"

–How could you, Sirius?–

"I was trying to help them, can't you see that? He would have thought it was me! No one would have suspected Peter! I loved them!" Tears streamed down his face. A desperate sob escaped his parched throat.

His own words were repeated to him by lunatics who could not understand: "...I loved.... I loved him... He will not forget us... I never betrayed him..."

"Don't you see that? It was supposed to keep them safe!" He wept profusely, wiping at his eyes with the filthy, tattered sleeve of his robes. "It was Peter the entire time! Peter Pettigrew!"

Someone far above him hissed. Bellatrix's sobs gave way to a shriek of outrage. Bars clattered vehemently. Here yet were more men who could incriminate Peter, and still he would not be believed.

"Peter Pettigrew!"

"He will pay, he will pay with all the others!"

"He took him from us! He betrayed all of us!"

He spit upon the floor, covered his tear-cleansed face with his sleeve. He was innocent of the crime for which he had been imprisoned but he could gladly commit it now, even without his wand. All he required was that his door be opened; he would strangle these men through the bars of their cells. They despised Peter for what they thought he had done to Voldemort; they knew nothing of the two people who had died for Peter's cowardice, and they had not the right to speak of vengeance on their behalf.

...the boy laughing, smiling, following his and James's steps whilst Lupin walked slowly at their sides, head lowered as he pored over the book he held, looking up only when they came to a staircase, the boy's strange adoration, the four of them in everything, Messrs. Moony, Wormatil, Padfoot, and Prongs...

How could you, Sirius?

"How could you, you bastard?" he growled from behind his clenched teeth. A violent sob wracked his body. Even the dog could not save him from these thoughts. He was helpless, locked away within the bowels of a monster from which the only escape was you, you 't, could you, bastard..."

"...how could you..."

He struggled to his feet, grasped the bars with his trembling, aching fingers. "Peter Pettigrew!"

"Traitor!"

"Lucius Malfoy!"

"Traitor!"

"Regulus Black!"

His head jerked upward. He knew this name somehow. It seemed he had heard it several times before, but now he could not remember where or when, or most importantly, why. Regulus Black. Black. His brother. An image arose in the back of his mind of a boy with sharp eyes and long dark hair, a handsome young man draped in the finest robes and upon his finger a small ring bearing a familiar crest. Was it fear he saw in those eyes, despite the boy's smug finery? Was it suspicion?

"Regulus Black," he murmured, smiling tearfully. "The stupid git.." His words were too quiet for anyone to mock them. Regulus was dead now, wasn't he? It seemed that he had heard such once, years, decades, ages ago. Regulus had been killed when he refused to do as Voldemort commanded him. He had tried to escape and had paid with his life, for that was what the Dark Lord required of his servants, regardless of the manner in which they gave it, either in servitude or in death.

Peter should have chosen such a path. Peter should have died rather than betray the friends who had loved him so dearly. Even for Regulus, there had been more honor.

Again he shuddered. He did not want to remember them now, he did not want to see their faces. He wanted to know nothing about them. But he could not stop this torrent now, and the shouts that came from all directions only further incited it, and mere feet away in the blind darkness the dementors waited patiently for whatever thoughts might enter his brain...

A name, a name for freedom, a name that means nothing, for it belongs to the Mark. Freedom is the only thing that matters, for There Is Nothing Left here. This is the noble and most ancient house of Madness, of Nothing.

"Peter Pettigrew!"

Peter's anxious smile, the three of them creeping across the darkening grounds to retrieve Lupin, his wide eyes searching desperately for a paper to copy during a test, the four of them collapsing in a pile laughing after their first night of causing disturbances using the Map, still attempting to huddle under James's cloak, so that they appeared a conglomeration of disembodied arms and feet...

"Peter! It was Peter Pettigrew! He was an animagus, a rat! Why won't you listen to me! It was Peter!"

The other voices died down; all ears seemed inclined to him. The air grew even colder.

His brother staring at him, his eyes both beautiful and full of fear, his arms folded weakly over his abdomen so that his hands rested on his forearms in such a manner that Sirius wondered if he had born the Mark so soon. For one moment there was an expression of pleading desperation. His eyes narrowed painfully; his lower lip seemed to tremble. No insult lay upon his tongue now, none of their parents' platitudes. In this moment he was a frightened young man on the verge of committing a transgression that could (and would) end his life solely to live up to an ideal that was not truly his. And then he had turned away to face their mother, whose beaming smile had made his decision for him, and between him and his brother all had ended there until the night when he had seen the Mark upon Regulus's arm...

"Regulus Black!" He clung tightly to the bars, pressing his face between them as if he hoped to slip through. The air became colder still.

They could not do this. He was innocent, and they could not take an innocent man, they could not, they could not be allowed to. He would do anything to stop them.

"Peter Pettigrew! Regulus Black! Bellatrix Lestrange!"

...two girls who were the darlings of the family, her odd laugh that was always either too loud or quietly deranged, her terrible eyes that would cease blinking and from beneath their heavy lids simply stare at whatever was in their path, her sister with the smug but angelic face and light hair that had not appeared in their family for generations, who spoke only in biting criticisms...

"Bellatrix and Narcissa Black! Narcissa Malfoy!"

–cold so cold deliver me from Nothing–

The night is madness.

...a boy, freshly out of childhood, with a sickly face and a scarred cheek, hiding the Map between the pages of a book when a professor walked by, so fragile he had seemed in those days and yet he had been the strongest one of them...

"Remus Lupin! He and Peter! They were in it together!"

...Remus huddled in a chair, his eyes filing with tears when they told him that they knew, begging them to stop even as they laughed...

...the moon bright and ominous in the sky, his own hackles rising instinctively when the wolf first saw him, the feel of the moist grass under his back as the wolf playfully tackled him, the two of them chasing after the stag as the rat fought to keep up; and the wolf was not a mindless beast in these nights but his friend and there was no one who could ever understand that...

The night is madness, the moon is madness.

"Lupin! He was a werewolf! Remus Lupin!"

Something moved in front of him, an indiscernible shadow in the darkness. His own voice was drowning in a sea of others; they could not come for him now–

...mussed dark hair, the glimmering Snitch reflected in his glasses...

–This'll liven you up, Padfoot–

"James Potter!" These faces were insignificant to him now; the dementors were near him now, approaching the door of his cell. His face was flushed with tears. "James Potter! Lily Evans! James and Lily Potter!"

Hisses all around him. He did not care. He was an innocent man; no name was unspeakable to him.

The air is madness, all is madness, all are dead and there is nothing left save himself and the demons that torment his every waking moment.

...his dearest friend dead in the moonlight...

How could you, Sirius?

"James Potter! For the love of everything sacred!"

A chilled, rotting hand brushed against his own. He let out a furious sob and withdrew from the bars.

–cold there is Nothing I am Nothing I am–

"Sirius Black!" His voice cracked, yielding to a terrified whimper. He did not know the meaning of this name but he expelled it with all the strength he could muster. "Sirius Black!"

"Sirius Black!"

"...kneeling before the Dark Lord and weeping..."

"It was Sirius Black!"

Others repeated the name, in their mindless delusions only requiring something new to be uttered before they believed it. It began at the end of the corridor, a terrible whisper of hisses and pleas that filled the night as heavily as any of their former screams, and quickly moved throughout the ward. Men above him shouted it; once he could almost hear it exploding from Bellatrix's throat, as if by putting her entire will into it she could summons her Lord back into power and into her cell. A chorus rose around him, silencing his own mind whilst his lips continued to move, and his own tremulous cries were lost.

"Sirius Black!" he bellowed, slamming his fist into the bars. Vaguely he felt a warm trickle of blood course down his wrist.

...blood on his hands on Remus's face scratches made during his transformation, they could help him after it was over but they could not help him when he needed it most just as he had not been able to help James or Lily...

"Sirius Black!"

To exist is madness, to lose one's soul is grace–

...red hair a dead woman's face so young the two of them and with an infant son...

How could you, Sirius?

"Sirius Black!" He fell against the door, sobbing painfully. All around him the chant continued: Sirius Black....Sirius Black... It was he... Killed all of them... Sirius Black...

"Sirius Black," he sobbed, falling onto his knees. The bars bruised his forehead. "Sirius Black.... I can't do this..."

He did not have to. The cold consumed him, chilling him so deeply that he could scarcely move. The hem of one of their heavy robes touched his hand.

"No," he whimpered, raising his head and peering into the darkness, though he could not see them. He backed away from the door on his frozen hands. "No, please... I won't... please don't do this..."

The bars clattered as the door was thrown open. Outside his cell the horrid chant continued, but he could barely hear it.

He pressed his face into his bloody hands, concealing his mouth from them. Such efforts were futile. If they wanted him they would have him, and there could be no resistance. "Please don't...."

If they truly heard his plea they gave no sign. They surrounded him, blocking any further retreat.

–deliver me from nothing for I am nothing myself–

The fur rose on his back; his claws dug into the floor. His own damnable name echoed in his ears. The dementors closed in on him and whimpering he went down into the cold, where he knew nothing more.

The air is madness, but the light absolves all...

The morning light crept slowly into his cell, putting to rout the shadows that had so infected his mind and warming the stone floor so that the preternatural chill began to leave him. He awakened gradually, as though some pleasant dream held him, offering him the false promise of existence beyond the walls of the prison. He had not slept on the pallet, he saw immediately, but rather had lain sprawled upon the floor with his face pressed into the stone. The prospect of how he must look in this position, like the corpse of a drowned madman, was enough to bring a small smile to his face.

He remembered almost nothing of the night before. Withe sleep, as always, had come forgetfulness, and the only knowledge with which he was left was that there had been another outburst in the ward, and he had participated most vigorously. He did not remember the accusations that had left his own lips, though in his early days here he had made them quite consciously. He did not remember the dementors coming to silence him, without saying a word threatening the Kiss.

Perhaps it was because of this brief amnesia as well as the dog that he had so long kept his sanity.

He struggled to his feet, wincing as the soreness in his limbs became more acute. The ward seemed much quieter than usual, he realized; only the voices that babbled in endless incoherence could be heard in the morning stillness. Unnerved, he limped to the door, seeking a glimpse of what held the others' silence. In the back of his mind he thought of the great commotion that had occurred the previous night, and he wondered if the dementors had been set against some of those involved, at last given what they wanted.

He shuddered violently. Even to the guilty the Kiss was a frightening concept, regardless of their crime.

He brushed the tangled mass of his hair out of his eyes clumsily and pressed his face between two bars, straining to see down into the corridor. He was quite unprepared for the sight that met him.

Cornelius Fudge walked in the middle of the hall, dressed in elaborate robes the sight of which Sirius had not seen in years, carrying in one hand a board and quill and under the other arm what appeared to be a newspaper. Two wizards flanked him but to them he did not speak, so intent did he appear as he stared into each cell, taking an occasional note with the quill. Upon his face he wore a rather pleasant smile that appeared more suitable for a ward of mental patients rather than one of convicted murderers and sadists.

His eyes fell to the newspaper. An old pastime of his more bored moments occurred to him, and tightly he smiled.

After several minutes Fudge reached his cell. Smile eradicated from his face, he made as if to walk past it and through the door that, though he had never seen it, Sirius knew lay next to it. The paper held under his arm, Sirius saw, was a fresh edition of the Daily Prophet. Before he could pass by, Sirius, on the verge of laughing, cleared his throat. Fudge merely looked at him in response, his face contorting into an expression of fearful apprehension.

He slid an arm between the bars, opening a hand that was still lightly crusted with dried blood. "Forgive me, Minister," he said, managing his most civil smile, "but I wonder if you're done with that newspaper?"

finis

(Author's Ramble: Hope the ending is successful in achieving my intent with it. This was my first attempt at writing a Harry Potter fanfic, but due to my current near-obsession with the books I couldn't resist. Perhaps the mentioning of Bellatrix is a bit excessive, but she is my favorite villain, after all. Feedback terribly welcome!)