Previously: Harry turned to face him. "I'm going to find a way out, with or without your help."

Sirius turned his head slightly to the side. "Are you saying what I think you're saying…?"

Harry smiled slightly, "Are you up for it?"

"Am I? I've been in this prison sixteen bloody years, of course I'm ready to get out!" Sirius exclaimed enthusiastically. "When do we start?"

…

It was no easy task, trying to figure out how to break out of Azkaban. After all, nobody had ever done it before. This little fact both thrilled Sirius, and made him a bit heavy-hearted. Nobody had ever done it before, so who was he to go around thinking that him and a seventeen year old would be able to get out of here?

Still, the thought of something challenging made Sirius's heart leap. He was never one to back down from a challenge, even one as suicidal and foolish as this one.

Harry was sitting down in the middle of his cell, worrying his lower lip. His eyes were vague – he was obviously deep in thought. Sirius watched Harry – or the boy he believed to be Vernon – for a while, waiting to see what brilliant plan he could come up with.

After a while Harry let out a string of curses so colorful even Sirius had to feel a bit proud. He smirked without any real emotion as Harry started pacing back and forth angrily in his cell. "Have you thought of anything yet?"

"Nothing – not a single bloody thing," Harry gritted out, looking very displeased with himself. "At this point sprouting wings and flying away seems more likely than any idea I've been able to come up with."

At this Sirius perked up. "What….what did you say?" his voice was hallow, and Harry turned to look at him strange. "Not a single bloody thing?"

"No, no… about the wings…"

Harry cocked his head, trying to keep the disbelief out of his eyes. "You actually think that we'll be able to sprout wings? You're joking."

He felt his eyes widen when Sirius didn't respond. "You're…you're not joking…"

Sirius seemed to snap out of his daze as he sent Harry a glare, "I'm not crazy, Vernon. Not yet at least. I don't think that it's possible for someone to suddenly sprout wings."

Harry looked slightly appeased, but Sirius hadn't finished. "I however, do know a way to get out of here," his voice had gained excitement. "All because of you!"

"I…but… what?"

"Animagus! I'm an animagus!" Sirius sounded shocked by this statement; as though he would never have guessed that he could change into an animal at will.

Harry stared at him incredulously. "What's an animagus?"

It was Sirius's turn to look disbelieving. "You don't know what an animagus is?"

"Well, I've learned about it, but I wasn't really paying attention –"

"How about I show you," Sirius said with a grin. Harry looked on the verge of declining, but Sirius had already transformed.

Harry blinked. Where a man had once been, was now a very shaggy, very thin and very large black-haired dog. Harry might have mistaken him for a grim.

"S-Sirius?"

The dog wagged its tail and approached the bar cells, sticking his long black snout into Harry's cell. Harry was too shocked to do anything but stare.

Sirius let out a sort of whining noise at Harry's lack of reaction, and transformed back into a man. "Well, I was at least expecting a yell," he sounded slightly put-out. Harry couldn't stop staring at him.

Sirius sighed and kneeled down next to Harry's cell. "I think I've found us both a way out of here."

…..

"Are you sure refusing food is going to help you any?" Harry asked for what seemed like the millionth time that day. Days had gone by since Sirius revealed to Harry that he was an animagus. Sirius sighed and turned to Harry, "it's the only way I'll be thin enough to slip through those bars as Padfoot," he explained.

"Yeah but – hang on…" Harry trailed off and stared at Sirius, open-mouthed. "Did you say Padfoot?"

Sirius frowned, "Yeah… why does that name mean something to you?"

"Does it?" Harry sounded excited and suspicious at the same time. "You helped create the Marauders map! You -"

"How do you know about the map?" Sirius cut in sharply.

Harry frowned, "my friends found it in Mr. Filch's desk drawer."

Sirius stared at him for a moment before letting out a barking laugh. "It lives on!"

"You helped make it?"

"I did," Sirius said, sounding smug.

"Wow," Harry breathed, "I can't believe it."

Sirius chuckled, "You'd better believe it."

"Who else made it?"

Sirius leaned his head back against the wall, "Well let's see, there was me, Moony – that's Professor Lupin…. Pettigrew…" he all but spat out the name. "Was Wormtail, and then finally…" he trailed off, and there was such sadness in his eyes that Harry thought a piece of his heart broke.

"Sirius?"

"And finally there was –"

His speech cut off abruptly at the sound of cell bars being opened. Harry backed up until he was against the bars of Sirius's cell. Sirius wondered why, until he realized that Harry's cell had been the one that was open. Sirius thought his eyes popped out of his head when he spotted his cousin standing between Harry and freedom. She looked at Harry with pure glee.

"It's him alright," she said to the Death Eater who accompanied her. Sirius half-expected them to rip Harry away right then and there, but to both of their surprises she shut the cell door again. Harry visibly relaxed, but then stiffened again at her last words: "Your friends wanted me to tell you to say 'hullo'!" she started laughing as though this were the funniest thing in the world. Harry jumped up and grabbed the bars, glaring after her.

"What did you do to them!?" he bellowed, but Bellatrix was already striding away, still laughing. Sirius wasn't sure what to say to Harry. He was breathing heavily and Sirius half expected him to start punching the bars out of pure anger. He suddenly felt bad about starving himself - Harry had enough things to worry about, much less Sirius refusing to eat.

Twenty minutes later Sirius was still sitting down on the hard, cold floor, watching Harry as he paced around angrily. He had started off with yelling obscenities, and was now mumbling very quickly under his breath, seeming to forget that Sirius was there – or that he was even in Azkaban for that matter. The only thing that snapped him back into reality was the sudden cold that washed over them like a wave. A prisoner screamed from very far away, and Sirius covered his ears. He was so used to the screaming by now that it shouldn't affect him, but it did. Each day he rotted away in here, was another day that he started going insane.

Flashes of James and Lily and Harry flew before his eyes. He was remembering the last time he saw them all alive. The image was so clear that Sirius actually gasped out loud and covered his eyes. The image still burned bright. They were laughing, smiling as though everything was right in the world. Sirius wanted to scream at them, tell them to stop smiling – they were going to be dead by tomorrow – it wasn't right that they should be this happy when their death was only hours away. Even the baby Harry was letting out cooes of happiness as his parents doted on him.

At first he ignored Harry, focusing mostly on Lily's vibrant red hair, James's reckless grin, but when his attention was brought to baby Harry he instantly thought of Vernon.

Before he could dwell on the matter he heard another scream, and the scene was replaced by another, less happy one. It was the day that Sirius found James and Lily, dead. He was riding on his motorbike, fear making his heart pound. He knew that Wormtail had been the betrayer, he knew it. All this time he thought that Remus had been the one giving up information, when all along it had been the rat!

He found himself blinking tears out of his eyes as he slowly descended into Godric's Hollow. What he saw made his heart stop; his breath caught in his throat as he stared at the completely destroyed house that held his friends. The motorbike was dropping and Sirius wasn't in control of it anymore. It was all he took not to throw himself off the bike then and there – there was still hope. Maybe one of them had survived…

As soon as the bike hit the ground Sirius was off it, racing towards the house. Once he reached the door (which was already blast open) he hesitated. He sensed it. Death had fallen over this household.

With a shaky breath he carefully stepped through the doorway. At first everything seemed to be right; the china was put away nicely, the couches seemed warm and inviting, the floor seemed stable. It was the walls that caught Sirius's attention first. They were blast apart, and Sirius felt as though the whole house was about to crumble on him. He tried not to look at them as he walked through the drawing room, taking in everything. He saw the legs first.

The sight of them made Sirius sick to his stomach. He knew who they belonged to – but he had to see for himself. He needed to…

He was barely aware of his limbs moving as James Potter's body got closer and closer. It was only when he saw his face that Sirius fell to his knees. He let out a sound that was somewhere in between a cry and a howl of utter, complete sorrow. At that moment nothing mattered. His friend, his James, was lying on the ground. His eyes… his hazel eyes were empty. His face though, was filled with emotion. Shock, fear, determination… it was all there. His wand wasn't in his hand, and Sirius shook his head. There weren't tears enough for what he was seeing. He knew exactly what had happened just seeing his friend's face. James had never been caught by surprise in all the years that Sirius had known him. Even when Sirius showed up on his doorstep, asking to move in, James hadn't been shocked.

This though… it was completely different. It was alien, it was foreign; it didn't belong on his face. For a long moment all Sirius could do was stare at him. "J-James," his voice was filled with emotion. "Don't… please, wake up…"

He felt as though a part of him was missing. James didn't move, or respond at all to Sirius's pleads, which only grew stronger. "Don't leave me! James, JAMES WAKE UP!"

His mind refused what he was seeing. There was no way that James Potter… JAMES POTTER… was dead. It wasn't real. He was dreaming this up – this horrible nightmare. The tears came, streaming down his face. He'd never cried so hard, so much, in his life. He cradled James's body as though he were a baby, and rocked him back and forth. He took off James's glasses and closed his eyes. He couldn't bear to see those hazel eyes, those once reckless and happy eyes, empty. Now he looked as though he were just sleeping. Sirius had half a mind to pick him up and place him in bed.

No, he couldn't do that though. He had to find Lily and Harry, he needed to see…

Sirius wasn't sure why. He wasn't sure that his eyes would be able to take in the sight of Lily and a dead baby. Still, he got up and practically glided up the stairs. He wasn't in control of his body anymore – not really – his life seemed to have left him when he saw James dead.

He saw a shock of red hair. She was lying on the floor as well, right in front of Harry's crib. He tried to hold in a sob, but at the sight of her, crumpled on the floor as though she were nothing, he started crying hysterically. How had he hated this beautiful woman once in his life? How had he been jealous of her for taking up James's time? How had he ever had the guts to do something with Harry that she didn't approve of? How could he ever make anything up to her? "Lily I'm so sorry," he sobbed.

He cautiously entered the nursery, stepping over Lily's body. The nursery was the worst of the house. The roof and walls had been completely blown away, and the floor was rotted. He was waiting to hear crying, he was hoping to hear sobs from the crib. He moved towards it, expecting to see a dead baby.

There was nothing.

Not a hint that Harry had even been there. He was baffled – had Harry been kidnapped? Had he been there in the first place? Answers… answers that he would only get in Azkaban, where they threw him without a trial. He'd only been told one thing: Harry James Potter was dead.

With a loud gasp he woke up from the nightmare. The coldness had left him. He heard Harry moaning, but he couldn't find words. He'd never had a dementor affect him like that before. Had it done it on purpose? Was it aware that he and Harry were planning on breaking out? Did it somehow know?

"Sirius?" he heard Harry gasp from next to him. Sirius didn't think he was capable of moving at the moment, much less speaking.

"Sirius…" it was a groan this time, as though Harry were falling into a deep sleep. It took a while, but finally Sirius stirred. He sat up, shaking violently, and looked around for Harry. Harry had his knees drawn up to his chest; his head was buried in his hands, and Sirius was certain that he was crying. Sirius felt close to tears himself.

"Vernon…?"

Harry didn't answer. "Vernon…?"

"That's not my name," Harry finally spluttered out, looking up at Sirius. Tears were swimming in his eyes, but they hadn't fallen yet. "My name isn't Vernon Dudley. It never was."

"Then…then what is your name?"

"Harry Potter."