Work Text:
These days, all Sirius ever focused on was the steady drip drip drip somewhere off in the corner, or the once-unnerving scratching sound by the bars that got louder at night. Hardly anything fazed him anymore. Nothing except the rattling breath and putrid scent that visited his cell at odd hours — and even then, he would transform into a dog to turn away from it all. Padfoot was his saving grace in the end.
There were a few instances wherein he thought he’d seen something else in the dankness of the cell, but when he looked over, it would be gone, just like a wisp in the air. After two years of being imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit, he wondered if he was finally losing it completely. Would he end up like all of the other Blacks before him? There used to be whispers about madness running through their blood; maybe it took Azkaban to finally crack him and show the world his true nature, one he’d only been running away from.
Fears like these that he normally never succumbed to became an everyday thing here. That’s when the dog took the place of the man more often than not — when his own fears were too much to handle. The dog’s emotions were simpler, less involved. He felt fear and pain, but he didn’t dwell.
His senses, on the other hand, were much sharper. That thing he thought he’d been seeing visited again. However, now that he could see clearly in the dark, his canine eyes narrowed in on the misty thing in the corner, and he lowered himself to the ground, belly scraping across the damp floor as he crawled slowly to investigate.
Before the dog’s senses could make heads or tails of it, the misty thing folded in on itself and exploded outwards. It was so bright that he had to shield his face with a paw, snuffling in annoyance and a tiny bit of fear.
‘Padfoot,’ he heard so faintly, it might’ve been a memory.
‘Padfoot, you daft mutt.’
That was definitely not just a memory. The words were familiar — the voice, even more achingly so. The dog whined low in his throat with his paw still covering his eyes. His emotions might have been simpler, but he felt sorrow and loss just like any other creature, and that voice brought it all back to a painful crescendo.
The voice didn’t prompt him again, not right away. For a near-hysterical moment, Padfoot experienced fear and loss and grief all in one. The tumble of emotions had him whining, on the verge of a mournful yowl if he didn’t see what he desperately wanted to.
Urged into action, he slowly cracked open an eye, lowered a paw carefully, and like a prayer answered, saw the very thing he’d both dreaded and wished for as long as he could remember. James. Hovering as though he were a feather caught in a breeze. The silver outline of his body was beautiful, ethereal, inhuman. That’s when he knew that this was no ordinary hallucination.
Black fur morphed seamlessly into sallow and dirty skin, tattered prison rags, and scraggly hair. Sirius risked his sanity to face this vision, even if it wasn’t real. He needed to see James again.
‘James, are you…?’ His voice was coarse, rusty like a nail dragging over the uneven cement floor of his cell. He hadn’t had much cause to speak, only to yell out in agony in the beginning. Now he didn’t even do much of that.
The spectral figure seemed to nod. What’s more, it… smiled. That toothy, full smile that quickly blossomed into a familiar grin which brought a pang to Sirius’s hollow chest. Feelings he’d long denied came bubbling to the surface and Sirius reached out. His fingertips were on the verge of touching a hand that was coming out to meet his and then — nothing. They passed right through one another, like the ghost that this was.
‘Padfoot, I’m sorry. I’m here, but not really. Not like you need me to be.’ He sounded sad, almost guilty.
But by Merlin, what had James ever done to feel guilty about? He was the pillar of goodness and strength in the world. The only thing Sirius had left — the only thing he didn’t rightly deserve. He couldn’t think about the lonely werewolf they’d all turned their backs on, trudging along in the world robbed of perhaps more than Sirius himself.
No, he couldn’t let these thoughts consume him. The Dementors would sense what he was feeling and they would amplify it. He inhaled slowly, shallowly, and then tried to speak.
‘It-it’s enough, Prongs,’ he breathed, barely a whisper of words. His heart ached to speak that nickname again. Unbidden, a small quirk, almost a full lift, found its way to his lips. ‘Prongs, I’ve missed you.’
Spectre-James nodded again and reached out. Even though they couldn’t touch, Sirius could try to remember what it felt like to hug his best mate, to tackle him in a mock-fight, to pin him in a headlock and ruffle up his unruly hair.
A small spatter of tears bounced off of the cold floor, unnoticed.
‘Padfoot, I don’t have much time here. Please just know that I never meant to leave you. Neither did Lily. You’ve been such a good mate, such a good godfather.’
At that, Sirius felt his stomach contort and flip uncomfortably, but spectre-James wasn’t done yet. Sirius needed to hear whatever else he had to say, like he needed air to breathe. He held himself completely still, kneeling stiffly on skinned and scabbed over knees while the silvery fingers ghosted over his face and hair, as though trying to memorise.
The familiar smile dissolved from his friend’s lips and was replaced by a serious look that seldom crossed this carefree man’s face. This was a look that always spoke volumes, even more so now. ‘I know you were only looking out for us. We love you for being the best brother and friend we could have asked for. Lily and me both. And we forgive you.’
The voice echoed in his mind, almost like a taunt. A stream of unconscious monologue that he’d always said to himself but never thought he’d hear from his friend. ‘…forgive you.’ Like a mantra, over and over again, in James’s voice, spoken with his lips, touched with his fingertips. As though it was just yesterday that they were all vibrant and alive and looking forward to the future.
He couldn’t take the rush of emotions flooding through him, so his eyes fluttered closed, a few salty tears escaping down his drawn-in cheeks.
If he focused hard enough, he could almost feel the fingers curiously running through the tangle of inky, greasy hair, James’s voice teasingly calling him ‘Snivellus’ now that he’d ‘let’ himself go. He could hear the rumbling of laughter rising from James’s chest before it burst out of him like a ball of energy that seemed endless and bright. James was always so lively, so clever, so very dear to him. A real smile grew and infected Sirius with the tiniest hint of happiness. He wanted to see James again, so he took a deep breath and steadied his rapidly beating heart.
When he opened his eyes, the spectre was gone. Just like the dreams he used to have as a young and vibrant man, with a bright future ahead of himself. Now all he had left were ghosts and the echoes of sounds.