I, Sirius

TITLE: I, Sirius


AUTHOR: Lady Sirius

PAIRING: RL/SB

RATING: NC17

FEEDBACK: shelley_runyon@yahoo.com


DISCLAIMER: Of course all rights to Harry Potter belong to JK Rowling

- I only wish that Sirius and Remus were mine, other than in my heart!


DEDICATION: To my glorious, talented, wondrous and everlastingly sexy
inspiration - Gary Oldman - and to all those fans whose enthusiasm and kind words keep me going!




I, Sirius
Reflections of the Brightest Star

Chapter X - Some Felines Are Too Stupid To Live

I would much rather serve a year's worth of detention at Hogwarts than spend a single day in Azkaban.

Azkaban.

The very name sends shivers down my spine even now, and there are nights when I can't help but find myself back there again, and I am struggling against them, against the dementors, who seek to suck every last bit of hope from me that they can find, and I scream at them to leave me alone, to go away, but they only laugh - if that is even a word that can be applied to them for I think there was no ounce of humour in their bleak makeup. They press closer to me, cold and clammy and overwhelmingly cloying, and I know what they would do if they could - suck out my very soul, leaving naught but an empty husk to commemorate what once was Sirius Black - and I waken with a muffled scream to find myself huddled against Remus, who holds me close and shushes my fears and tells me that I'm safe now, I'll never have to go back there again, he'll see to that....

Azkaban. Cold, overwhelmingly cold. Temperaturewise and otherwise. And the smell of salt permeates everything, you can't get away from it, it wafts in with every breeze - and there are a lot of breezes in this draughty place, this fortress on the North Sea. And surprisingly no high walls - only rocks and water. Those weren't needed. We were on an island, for Merlin's sake, in the middle of nowhere, but more than that, the guards of the place, the infernal Dementors, made sure that no one really had the spirit to leave - they sucked it from them, bit by bit, day after day, until everyone became a prisoner trapped inside his own mind. Look at how long it took me to leave the place. And that what with longing for and missing Remus every single second of every single day, and wanting to be with him so badly that it was a constant ache in my soul, a neverending pain in my heart. It wasn 't until Fudge's visit - when I asked for and received a copy of the Prophet, spotting Pettigrew immediately in his animagus form on the cover, there with Molly and Arthur and the bairns - that I shook myself from the lethargy that had taken hold of me. I knew that I had to leave immediately, that he was going after Harry - what choice did I have? It's only by the greatest miracle that I did not lose my mind in that place - although I am sure that some would wish to debate that point

We were free to wander about the prison as we wished, but few did so, because one learned early on that the joy of speaking with one's fellow inmates was quickly seized upon and destroyed by those horrendous Dementors. They targeted it almost gleefully, and those that participated found out the hard way what those foul beings could do firsthand. So we kept to ourselves, for the most part, and simply.... survived. Or not. Many did not survive, at least not in any identifiable form. They became lost in themselves; unable to cope with the world any longer, they hid away from it, inside themselves. And then there were others that somehow managed to muddle through. Like myself - but I attribute my survival to Remus, for I hid him away in my heart and brought him out at quiet moments. His image, his voice, his words, all inducements to me to continue to fight, to stay strong, and to survive - most of all to simply survive this experience - and return to him some day. The Death Eaters that were incarcerated did not have such a bad time of it, I think, because they were evil going in, and for the most part didn't possess a lot of happy thoughts or feelings. My cousin Bellatrix - well she became even crazier than she had been before. And we're talking about a whole lot of crazy there. Which did nothing, of course, for that big wide mean streak she had, either. No, not even that - that woman was downright cruel, and she enjoyed it. Her and Roddyboy both. When I think of how very close she came, in the Department of Mysteries, to .... well, I won't even speak of it. Not now. Not here. Luci came out of Azkaban relatively intact, but I suspect he bought his way through the experience - typical Malfoy behaviour. He used his wealth to buy his way through life, I think, doing as little as he possibly could. I wonder if begetting Draco was a major effort for him?

Enough about Azkaban, I've dwelt on it too long as it is. I am just now finally at the point where I think I have gathered back what I lost there, but it's taken a long time, and a lot of effort on Remus' part to bring me here, no sense in falling apart just thinking about the place.

Growing up at Grimmauld Place, we never did have any pets. We weren't allowed to have them, Walburga simply forbid it. I remember asking her if I could have a puppy or a kitten or any of the other normal animals which little boys love to have in their lives. She told me no, under no circumstances would I be allowed to bring a "filthy animal" into her home - hers, mind you, not mine. Ha! If she only knew, mine now. She said that having me was bad enough, I was little better than a house elf as it was. But what was even stranger, and more unexpected, she would not allow Regulus to have one either. Not being stupid, it entered my head that if he asked her, she'd probably say yes, she said yes to everything else he wanted - but this request too was met with a firm, although kinder, no. She simply did not tolerate them in any way, shape or form.

I, on the other hand, love animals, and always have - always will. Especially a particular sexy wolf..... Yes, you, you chump, don't look at me like that. What? Oh, kidding, are you? Silly Remus.... But yes, I have always loved animals, and sometimes I would attempt to take care of the ones I ran across, in the yard, or at school, or wherever - any creature that looked homeless or helpless or in need of someone to love them. My attempts generally didn't come to much, and I honestly didn't get much opportunity to ply my good samaritan skills, as such. Most animals would not come near our back yard - probably sensed all the black magic that simply oozed from the house. Maybe that's why I took to the idea of becoming an animagus so much - of becoming an animal myself, doing what animals do. It simply appealed to me. And maybe that is one reason why I got along so well with Hagrid, but more of him later.

That all having been said, I hated Mrs. Norris the first time that I saw her.

Scrawny, nasty little feline - and I have nothing against the species whatsoever normally. Minerva - she's a tabby, did you know that? Scottish tabby, I guess. Now as a cat, I think she's actually nicer than in her human form. Well, at times, anyway. But then her animagus form has never pulled on my ears or given me detention, so I may be prejudiced. We were coming from the Great Hall one day, I think it was just after breakfast, we'd not been in the school long. It might actually have been the first day, I dunno any more. But there she was, standing in our way, as we were attempting to figure out where our first class was - the colour of dirt she was, all nasty grayish brown or something with big yellow eyes like the headlights on the Hogwarts Express. Something in her put me off right away. James too, I think. He was starting to skirt around her, a bit warily. But not so Remus. That man simply has an affinity for animals. Even as a boy, it was apparent. It's the kindness in his heart, you know. He can't resist an animal or a child, either. If you have any doubts on that point, you should see our home. It's filled with both. Her strange appearance notwithstanding, he made the mistake of trying to be friendly to the beast, leaning down and putting his hand out where she could sniff at it - which, he assures me, is the proper way to make overtures to any strange animal, to allow it to smell you so it can figure out that you're friend, not enemy. Well, his Pollyanna attitude didn't go over very well with this particular cat. She had marvelous fast reflexes too, and before we knew what she was about, she had put a right proper long scratch down the palm of his hand, yowling in a rather admonitory way as if to tell us she had no use for our shenanigans, before she tore out of the room, leaving poor Remus bleeding pretty good. I thought Peter was going to be ill, he looked so queazy at the sight. I was a bit more handy than that, as I fished out a handkerchief and bound the bleeding paw. I could see tears forming in his eyes - probably from shock as much as pain and surprise. James was angry and wanted to emasculate the cat on the spot - easy to say, seeing as how she'd already left. And, as we learned, she couldn't be emasculated, for obvious reasons. But we all four swore to get our revenge, then and there. And we meant it.

At that point, of course, we had no idea whose cat she was, nor did we particularly care. But when we learned who her owner was, well, that only gave us added impetus to do something to her. Something unpleasant. We couldn't very well kill her, of course, and I don't think we really wanted to. Not siriusly, maybe in the halfhearted way of children when they are angry, as in, I hate you, I'm going to kill you, that sort of thing. But we meant no permanent harm to her - we just wanted a way to get even with her for what she'd done to Remus, that's all. And maybe to spite her owner too, alright, I'll admit it.

James and I met Argus Filch first, before the other Marauders did. In case you don't know who he is, Filch is the caretaker at Hogwarts, as well as being a damn nasty human being - and I do use that term loosely, as I have no real proof of his humanity - and he is/was also the owner of Mrs. Norris - I've no idea if that horrible feline still stalks the earth or not, nor do I really care. And on top of all that, he was a squib. That means that he had wizards for parents, but that he was never able to do magic himself because he wasn't born with the right stuff. Kind of a reverse of those wizards that are muggleborn. I like to call it being magically impotent - and yes, I've told him that on more than one occasion. Not when I was eleven, though. I wasn't clever enough to make a joke like that back then. Still a bit innocent in that arena, after all. His being a squib was both bad and good for us - good because we never feared that he could do anything with a wand to harm us, which I've no doubt he would have, on many occasions; bad, because I think he took out his squibness on the rest of the world, making up I suppose for his great feelings of inadequacy. Right bloody bastard, he was. Still is. I'll remind him of that the next time I see him, just to make myself feel better. No, I don't consider it childish. Hush.

James and I had decided to take a bit of a stroll one night, just to see what we could see. Get the lay of the land, so to speak. Or of the castle, I should say. We were both just curious boys, that's all, wanting to embark upon a voyage of discovery in this strange new world we found ourselves thrust into. Alright, maybe that's a slight exaggeration. We wanted to see what mischief we could get up to near the Slytherin dungeons, if you want the truth of the matter. And maybe, just maybe, it was done in the middle of the night when properly we should have been abed, as Remus and Pete were. But, as you'll come to notice in these pages, James and I were never what anyone might consider the good boys of this story; we were not seen as proper obedient boys, not by any stretch of the imagination. Yes, Remus, they did call us hooligans and troublemakers and other nomenclatures which I shall not repeat. I prefer the word spirited myself.

Of course we had been told that there was a curfew in place at Hogwarts, and that there were times when we were not allowed to be outside of our House. I think it was after eleven o'clcock, maybe. Did that stop us? Obviously not. We thought that we knew what we were doing, rules were made for other people and not for young gods like us - ah, the brashness of youth. Or the balls. Take your pick.

I'd like to say that we handily snuck inside Slytherin, using our vast knowledge of picklock charms, and proceeded to play the best and biggest joke of all on the sleeping snakes, something so vast and significant that they are talking about it in Gryffindor even to this day. I'd really like to say that but alas, that would be a complete and total lie. The truth of the matter is that we were still in the act of maneuvering down the staircases - a skill which we apparently hadn't quite mastered yet, especially not in the middle of the night, a task made more difficult by the presence of a certain pesky poltergeist, damn Peeves anyway - when we heard a sudden cry, and we looked up right sharply to find a most unpleasant hunchback of a man with long grey hair and a horrible scowl descending upon us.

"Run!" James cried at me, and I tried to do so, but a treacherous staircase that I hastily leapt upon had quickly rotated and led me right back to where I had begun, and by then we had both been grabbed by the scruffs of our necks by this scrawny grayhaired smelly newcomer, who growled at us in his awful highland burr and demanded to know what we were doing sneaking about the school at this time of night. Claiming that we got lost on the way to the loo did us not a bit of good as of course there was one of those right inside our dorm, so no need to be gallivanting around the school for that reason. He marched us straight to Minerva's room, who wasn't the least bit happy at being disturbed in this manner or at this time, and promptly gave us what was probably our first detention - to be served under the watchful auspices of one Argus Filch. We were bitter enemies from that time forward.

Therefore learning that the malevolent feline with the nasty disposition was his was like throwing oil on a fire. Only caused the flames to leap that much higher.

It was James' idea, I admit, but I went along with it, and Remus and Peter simply followed our lead. Yes, we were the ringleaders, the instigators, the shit-disturbers par excellence. Damn proud of it, too. James went to the library, searched through some of the basic spells books, as we were just beginners after all, and found a book of basic spells which had just the one we wanted, and then he taught it to us, not knowing how many of us it might take to get the spell right. We came upon Mrs. Norris one day, unawares, napping unexpectedly in one of the hallways, stretched out in a stray ray of sunlight - that was her undoing. We crept up upon her and cast the spell, waiting just long enough to see that it had taken effect before hightailing it, laughing our asses off. Yes, you too, Remus - you laughed til you cried, I remember. That night we had the satisfaction of watching Filch march into the Great Hall, with a pink striped cat in his arms, demanding that the headmaster find out who was responsible for this atrocity and let him, Filch, beat the wickedness out of them. I swear Albus looked right at us while Filch was yelling, and James said he saw a twinkle in the old man's eyes. He never said a word to us, though. Score one for the Marauders! We surely got our revenge that day, our evens for what she'd done to Remus.

Oh Remus, before I forget, you'll never guess whom I ran into the other day? That old crackpot herself. Yes, Sybill Trelawney. Looks about the same, near as I can tell. Not that that's good, mind you. She ever get married, that you know of? She did? To him? Really? I thought Dedalus had better taste. Oh well.

Oh yes, we knew her at Hogwarts. The same Sybill Trelawney that taught Harry Divinations. Or tried to. The same one that Hermione walked out on so bravely in her third year of school. What spunk that girl has! Sorry, she's a woman now. Sometimes I forget. Sometimes I have trouble remembering what year it is, or how long has passed since everything happened. Time is so dicey, sometimes....

But I do remember who she had a terrible crush on at one time. Sybill, I mean, not Hermione. Oh yes, I do remember that. I bet you remember too, don't you, Remy? What do you mean, you'd rather not talk about it? Oh she thought you were quite the cat's meow, didn't she? How many times did she offer to read your future? Tried to get you to take tea with her so she could read the leaves. No, I'm not laughing. Really. What's that? Your secret admirer? Hell no, I don't want to discuss that. Dammit, now you're laughing. Yes, you are. I can see you. Wasn't funny. I can pout if I want to. You know I hated that. Very much. That won't work, Remus Lupin, don't even try it. No, don't try to kiss it away. No, don't.... don't...... d.....