A Little Risk ★𝒮𝒾𝓇𝒾𝓊𝓈 𝐵𝓁𝒶𝒸𝓀☆ |On Hold|

Countless Hours

Chapter 2

Countless Hours

Sirius, despite being locked up in the most merciless, depressing, horrible prison in the wizarding world, was smiling. Well, almost smiling. As a dog, curled up in a corner, the most that you could say was that his lips were generally in an upward direction. In other words, he was smiling. His eyes were closed, his tail gently wagging, in the middle of a great dream. Normally, when a dog was like this, you'd assume it to be dreaming about a squirrel or a bone, and anything somewhat dog-like.

Sirius' was in their dormitory room in the dream. In the common room, the sounds of a loud party could be heard. On any other occasion, he'd have been down there, making sure that everyone knew that he was the life of the party, though they all knew that regardless. However, that night, he was with his Moony. They were sitting on Remus' bed in the dorm room, snogging. Then, suddenly, the dream took a turn for the worse. Remus pushes Sirius away and started shouting. It was impossible to decipher it all, but it was clear that Remus was accusing Sirius of betraying the Potters, killing Peter, and that he, Remus, would never love him again.

Sirius snapped awake with a jolt, his doggy ears down, panting. Even as a dog, he could still feel, perhaps not as strong as he would if he was human, but he could still feel. He whimpered quietly. He couldn't help but think that the dream was real, that if he ever saw Remus again, things would go the same way. After all, it was he, Sirius, who had suspected Remus of being Voldemort's spy, though he still didn't know how he'd come up with such an idea. Remus hadn't been as ready to just jump into things like he and James were... but that didn't mean Remus would do something like betraying them to Voldemort. No, that was Peter's job.

And it was he who had switched Secret Keepers with Peter at the last minute, without telling Remus, thinking that he would go to Voldemort as soon as possible. Heck of a husband he'd been. 

Suddenly, light flashed in between the bars of his cell, illuminating the whole thing. His ears pricked up, and he stared upwards to see that the clouds had moved ever so slightly, a full moon peeking out behind them. 

Sirius, or should we say, Snuffles, looked away, thoroughly depressed by the realization that Remus Lupin, his Moony, was alone on this full moon night, despite having access to the Wolfsbane Potion, which Dumbledore provided for him. Not to mention, he also knew that he probably hated him, since as far as he knew, it was Sirius who had betrayed the Potters, killed Peter Pettigrew, and all the surrounding eyewitnesses with a single curse. 

And to add on to those thoughts, Remus, with or without the Wolfsbane Potion, probably didn't have a job, though Sirius was unsure about that. All he knew was that- he didn't even want to say the name, the slimeball, that git, had exposed Remus as a werewolf, which made it impossible for him to go into a career after Hogwarts. Sirius didn't know what had become of him after that. 

Too tired and depressed to think of the matter anymore, Sirius closed his eyes and fell into a dreamless sleep. 

He woke up at noon. He supposed that the one good thing about Azkaban was that there wasn't much of a difference between night or day there. It was just cold. But if it wasn't the light, or the birds chirping, not that any bird in their right mind would go anywhere near the prison, then what had woken him up? Footsteps rang in the hall. Sirius tensed, and transformed. Mere seconds after he had done so, Cornelius Fudge walked up to his cell and looked into it. 

"Mr. Black."

"Hello Minister, I hope you're well."

Fudge raised an inquiring eyebrow. 

Sirius had to resist a smirk. The man had no idea how ridiculous his bowler hat looked. Then again, what were they gonna do if he laughed at it? Lock him up in Azkaban? Too late for that. He grinned cheekily. 

"I am... very well, thank you, and, you Mr. Black?"

"Likewise Minister. I see you have a copy of the Daily Prophet."

The minister glanced down at the pocket of his trench coat. "Well- yes, I do, best to stay in know."

"Indeed, though I was under the impression that you authorized what goes in the Prophet, or, rather, what to know."

Fudge flushed. "Well, I-"

"Are you finished with your copy?"

"Yes, I am," he replied testily, irritated at having being interrupted. 

"May I have it? I've rather missed doing the crossword."

Fudge was now wearing an expression of utter bemusement. "Why- yes of course," and he tentatively held the paper through the bars by the tips of his fingers, as though he expected Sirius to grab him and pull him into the cell as well. 

Sirius took it, and Fudge tried discreetly to snatch his hand back, though he failed quite miserably. "Thank you, Minister, good day."

Fudge struggled to regain his composure. "Y-yes, good day." And he strode away looking back every once in a while, set on getting as far away from Sirius Black as possible. 

"I love your hat!" Sirius called, and Fudge started sprinting, which was clearly quite a feat for him, tossing a last haunted look over his shoulder. 

Sirius chortled. He opened the newspaper, realizing that he'd never asked the minister for anything to do the crossword with. He sighed and flipped over to the front page. The headline, "GRAND PRIZE WINNER VISITS EGYPT" blared out at him. Well good for the grand prize winner- oh wait, it was Arthur Weasley. That made all the difference. The last time he'd heard, the Weasleys weren't too good with money, though they of all people deserved it most. He peered closer at the picture, of the whole Weasley family, posing in front of one of the pyramids in what he assumed to be Egypt, waving merrily back at him. 

Six boys and one girl, damn that was a big family, he thought. In total there were 9, including Arthur and Molly. No, wait, 10 if you counted pets, which Sirius definitely did. On the shoulder of what he presumed to be the youngest Weasley brother, there was a rat. God, did Sirius hate rats. It looked... familiar, though, why wouldn't it. If you'd seen one rat you'd see them all. This one, despite looking so tiny in the picture, looked quite ragged though. Thin, a missing toe, a ragged ear- wait, a missing toe? Sirius practically stuck his nose through the paper in his hate to identify the rat. Yes, the toe was definitely missing, the middle one. That couldn't be a coincidence. 

It was him.

The rat that had ruined him. That had ruined everything. The rat who went by the name of Peter Cecil Pettigrew. 

Sirius slept uneasily that night. His dreams were full of rats, scurrying about the corridors of Hogwarts. 

He mumbled, "He's at Hogwarts...," unknowingly.

Suddenly all of those rats had disappeared, replaced by one, perched on the shoulder of the boy from the Weasley photo. 

Then it was back to a dormitory in Hogwarts, where the boy was getting ready for bed with, no-. That couldn't be James. Even as he watched, trying to comprehend, the boy lifted his hair back from his forehead, revealing a lightning scar. Not James, Harry. The rat jumped from the boy's shoulder and onto Harry's. And as Sirius watched, he leaped back, and transformed, replaced by Peter Pettigrew, holding a knife to his godson's neck. 

"No!" Sirius shouted, snapping awake. Breathing hard, he clutched the cell bars for support. That was it, he'd had enough. No way was that little rat destroying the one connection he had to his happiest memories. 

He got up and started pacing. There would be only a few hours left until morning, but to Sirius at that moment, they were infinite, countless. But once they were over, he was going to get some much-needed revenge.