Not that I'll ever remember to check this bloody thing.

Countless times Sirius had read Rowling's books since he discovered them upon the rec room shelf in his first months on the island. He had known, in a dim and distant fashion, what Azakaban was, and then, through those accounts, gleaned an idea of the imprint it would leave upon him, body and soul ( Read more... )

The first hour was a total blur, one event melting into the next. He remembers the feeling of Buckbeak strong beneath them, the flash of blue water skimming below. The intense feeling of relief that couldn't be blown away, not even when Rob had hustled him into a white, sterile room and poked him in the arm ( Read more... )

As of yesterday, it's two weeks that Sirius has been trapped on this damned rock out at sea. There's been no forgiveness earned for all his time spent, and the hours stretch as long and hopeless now as they did on the first day. There's little to do but watch the shadows move across the cave floor as the sun sweeps across the sky, or watch the ( Read more... )

By the time the sun had begun to touch the horizon on the first day, Sirius had stubbornly screamed himself hoarse. In the fading purple light of dusk, he'd carefully taken inventory of everything that had come with him to this tiny piece of hell: Two apples, two fruit muffins, one thermos of orange juice. Three hand-rolled cigarettes, one small ( Read more... )

There's no fanfare to it at all, no sensation to warn him, no tug like the feeling of disapparating. He is simply walking down the well-worn planks of the boardwalk one moment and facing steel gray walls the next. Instinct throws a hand out to buffer his momentum before he runs into the cold, rough-hewn rock, but his mind balks, thinks wildly for ( Read more... )

Whether by design or simple coincidence, Sirius' life seems to strike a balance in recent months. When he feels able to worry less about his godson, his girlfriend provides him new and confusing concerns, and Sirius, who has never considered himself particularly skilled at worrying over anyone, can't help but wonder why the hell everyone can't just ( Read more... )

There have been very few places Sirius Black has ever felt at home. The Potters' had been one of them-James' parents house, where he first spent summers and then was taken in after he left the dim, dank corners of Grimmauld Place. Hogwarts had been another, but for a long time that was it; his habit of bouncing from place to place kept him from ( Read more... )

There had been no frantic searching, no misplaced hope. In retrospect, Sirius would come to reflect on the particular way his heart had dropped down into the pit of his stomach when he'd come home that day. The way he'd known, instinctively and down to his very marrow, that James was gone ( Read more... )

Neil hitting him was really the least painful part of their argument last night, but that doesn't make Sirius any more eager to let James see the result of it. He'd managed to slip off this morning before James was fully awake, but there's only so long Sirius can avoid him ( Read more... )