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The first letter came in the dead of winter, when Sirius had already stopped counting the days. At first, he thought it was a trick. Azkaban didn't hand out hope. But there it was on the damp stone floor, his name written across the front in her handwriting.
His hands shook when he picked it up. He expected it to vanish, to dissolve into dust the way his memories have been as of late. But it didn't. It was solid and real, and when he broke the fold, her voice spilled out across the page.
Sirius closed his eyes. For one blissful moment, he wasn't in this place. He could almost hear James's laugh echoing through the Gryffindor common room, see Lily trying to scold him through her smile. He could see Harry— their Harry— streaking across the yard on a toy broom, her chasing after him.
He read the letter again. And again. By nightfall, he had memorized every word.
At the bottom, written smaller than the rest, there was one last line:
𝙄 𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙗𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙚𝙫𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙮𝙤𝙪.
The parchment smelled of damp stone, of everything he's gotten used to, but Sirius pressed it to his face anyway, pretending.
The second letter came months later. Then another. Never on a schedule, never often enough, but they came. Enough to string him along through the emptiness of his world.
Sirius traced the words with his finger, wearing the ink thin.
She always wrote about Harry. His milestones, his laughter, the trouble he got into when he grew bold enough to climb. Through the words, Sirius watched him grow, month by month, year by year, even as he wasted away in the cell.
