October the Thirty-first of Nineteen Ninety-three by ficexchange

Merry Christmas, Katy (Grimm_Sister)!

October the Thirty-first of Nineteen Ninety-three

Right, left, right again, keep on going straight, and turn left. His pace slows down, and his steps get heavier by the second as he tilts his head to his sides and remembers that he is not alone. Who said portraits couldn't burn holes with their eyes? His one, two, three four paws never quite stop moving. But it's not as if he still has control over them, they are simply moving on their own accord, leading the step, showing the way.

His head has nothing to do with it. It's busy— somewhere else entirely, miles and miles and years and memoirs and wars away—thinking about how this was the corridor he first got to second base with a girl. How that was the corner where Remus cajoled James, forced him to cut his bloody hair, and how Avery got him a black eye on that classroom over there.

Something tugs the corner of his heart, his mind clouds for a moment and he just stops moving—nothing has changed.

He feels like vomiting (but he knows he won't, it's not like there is anything inside him to get rid of). He's been gone ten, fifteen years, and wonders if he will find his brother in a desperate attempt to convince a dreadful redhead to go out on a date if he turns left at the end of the corridor. Will he find McGonagall tight-lipped, creases across her forehead, scolding a student for being out of bed this late if he crossed that wooden door and turned left?

The vomiting sensation vanishes as his legs carry him forward once more. Never has he thought that romantic poets could be right with their whole butterflies in my stomach rubbish, but he believes them now. His dripping tongue wriggles out of his muzzle, and he is startled at how familiar is feels; it hadn't happened in years. His tail wags. The point of his paws crawl a bit. It feels almost human. He reaches the bifurcation of ways and looks left, but it's empty. He blinks, his tail stops wagging, and he peeks meekly across the door. But it's empty. Too.

Everything has changed.

Whether it's the cold of the stone floor, the muted hushes of what is a dog doing in the school's grounds, or that dog seems rather familiar that come from the walls that brings him to his senses, he does not know, but his mind has come back in the most abrupt fashion and reality hits him hard. His head cleares and he remembers why he is here in the first place.

*

Sirius Black had never considered breaking out from Azkaban until he found a reason worth doing it for. Azkaban was his own personal punishment: the pain, the misery, and the nightmares seemed to come in a combo along with it, and he had earned his ticket to go to it rightfully. The towering walls, the stormy sea, the chain, merely superfluous details, useless props – every prisoner builds up their own prison. The real fun laid with the Dementors.

It was funny that he managed to get out the very first time he tried.

He had not planned it. The world with no Marauders holds no promises, not more than Azkaban did. But the rat, the picture, the news—there was no way of escaping the truth: the bloody little traitor was alive and breathing and hiding. In a student's pocket, no less, and he got fed and traveled around Egypt (the pyramids were in Egypt, weren't they? He never understood the idiocy of having to remember such trivial information). He even appeared in the Daily Prophet, little Peter Pettigrew. He himself would not have believed it if he someone had told him when he was younger. Even through the picture he could he make out only nine, and not ten, little fingers.

He was in the middle of the ocean twelve hours later.

*

He still knows the way to the tower, his tower, by heart, and for the first time he feels just a bit younger. The Fat Lady is still exactly the same, and will not let him go inside. He can't help but notice that she doesn't immediately recognise him. Why? Has he honestly changed so much? But when she does, she screams for her life.

He tears the canvas apart, her falsetto screams fading with each rip and gash of her portrait. He doesn't regret it.

Without even blinking, he transfigures back into Padfoot and flees at the sound of distant voices.

*

He returns not much later. It isn't hard to re-enter the castle when you have got a feline working with you, and the staff too worried about his god—Harry's safety. His excuse for a heart sinks a little bit, but he shakes it out of his mind because tonight is about Peter, not Harry.

He wonders if he is a bad godfather. It doesn't take him much time to see the answer.

The castle is different now, though, than the last time he entered it. Spider webs seem to hang from the walls, and he is sure he is not crazy believing that there is an orangey light in the air. He ducks his head just in time to prevent two bats from flying over his head. Is it Halloween? For thirteen years he never thought of time. It was startling to remember something so constant he had forgotten about.

He can feel the parchment getting softer in his muzzle, and he starts to panic. Ink does not fade with saliva, does it? He hopes not. There must be a treasure of passwords there, probably a month's worth, and there are simply so many of them – they didn't use to change passwords so often, what has happened?

The Fat Lady is gone, and a daft knight who calls himself Sir Cadogan guards the entrance. He doesn't have the time for the nonsense that comes out of his mouth with each second and cuts him off with the password. The knight doesn't quite shut up, but the painting opens anyway; he doesn't hesitate a second longer so he gets in with a big step and becomes part of the dark.

He stands still (not a sound, not a movement) as the ramblings from the other side of the wall fade along with the light. With a soft click, the entrance is closed and he is alone in the very centre of the common room. The silence has an ominous feel to it, and a shiver goes down through his human spine. A door creaks upstairs, tears the silence; his ears perk up and try to listen beyond. His dog-ear is much more trained and effective than his human one, but he can still make out those distant, muffled snores coming from various dorms. His body tenses, his knees buckle a bit, and he asks himself for the hundredth time that night if he is doing the right thing. He comes back to himself in no time, persuades himself that there is nothing right when your best friend and his wife are dead, when you never had the chance to prove to be a good godfather. When you have seen your entire life ripped apart in front of your eyes and had nothing in your hands to stop it from crumbling.

He is frozen, a marble stone, and the parchment he holds in his hand slips a bit in between his sweaty fingers.

Someone is coming down the stairs. He can feel it.

He doesn't even attempt to run away, even when he knows he has got no escape if he is recognised, defenseless to screams of help. All he can think is how the stairs never caused so much noise when he was at school—he knows, he knows, he was a Marauder, this was the kind of stuff he used to live for.

He can't see a thing but he knows it is okay when he feels something rub along his leg. He still has to get used to the fact that he is not working alone anymore. It's hard. Everything is dark, but the cat's eyes as he looks at him with that ugly face of his before turns to lead the way.

The cat hastily scurries to one corner of the room and disappears under one of the velvet seats near the fireplace. Not too late after, it creeps from underneath it and something shines. It carries a knife in its little mouth.

Things like cats and knives shouldn't be seen; this, this is what war creates.

Sirius kneels down on one knee, offers his hand to the cat and it lays the knife on it, as its lantern eyes look sideways for any sign of trouble. There isn't.

His hands curl around the knife and he years to feel reckless once more. He can't. He has grown past that stage of life. Does he still have a life? He can't be bothered to remember. The knife glistens in its temporary cleanness. The cat understands, as always, and swirls around, proud, valiant—much like a soldier. Sirius follows at a close distance, and manages to climb the stairs without even making a sound. He finds he has never quite lost his skill at skulking, years and years of being a Black taught him that. He reaches the last step, and the cat is there, beside a wooden door, looks at him and nods in approval.

It makes him feel a little bit pathetic to need the approval of a cat.

With a slow motion, he points with his paw to the door he had been looking for.

There is no going back now.

And yet he falters. He knows James is not going to come back, and he knows his life will not ever come back because of that sick rat and yet -- yet he falters. You don't plan to kill one of your childhood best friends every day.

It's only for a second. He forces his hand to reach the golden door handle and push down, hardly. It shakes. So do his thoughts. He breathes. Quick, open the door, get in, close it, don't make any sounds. The cat is outside.

It's not dark inside the room. It is filled with a pearly white light. The moon. He tries to stifle a laugh, wonders if it's all in purpose: the light, the moon, the night, the ghosts... Could it be, could it be that they had all gathered there tonight, for one last reunion?

The four Marauders, together, one last time?

This time, it is the knife that slips and makes a screeching sound when it reaches the floor. One of the bulks on the bed turns but then keeps still. He is short of breath and tries not to breathe too loudly as he picks up the knife. His grip on it is now harder and stronger than it should be, but this is his only chance and he cannot let something so utterly idiotic ruin it.

From afar he can make out the figure of the redhead boy. Peter must be with him. With heavy steps he approaches the bed. Putting his whole weight in each, his eyes search for the rat. Everything fades—the noises, his surroundings, his thoughts. It is all about the rat now, but he cannot find it and he is nowhere in sight and, fuck, where the bleeding hell can he be? He couldn't have escaped again, no, not again, he couldn't have won yet again. He seems to have forgot all about staying quite, keeping still. Hell, Sirius, you are at Hogwarts, for Merlin's sake.

As the curtains of the redhead's bed start falling in pieces as he violently tears them apart with the knife, as he should have tore apart Peter's throat if he had been smarter.

It's a nightmare. It's appropriate.

It's Halloween, after all.