Heavenly Waters||Sirius Black

Chapter 1

The air was frigid, bone chilling. Painful almost.

Not because of the stone prison holding him, but the creatures guarding it.

Sirius Black hadn't ever seen a dementor before he'd been banished to Azkaban. Now he saw them always, even when he was sleeping.

They haunted him, tortured him with whispers of death. And yet he envied them, a life resolved to freedom. Even if that freedom was bought by inspiring fear in the hearts of others.

He looks up from the crude sculpture he'd been carving for weeks, a measly attempt at a dove, eroded by numbness and boredom.

The walls of Azkaban looked blue almost, a comfort to him over the decade he'd been trapped. He liked blue, even the blue that imprisoned him now.

His cell was small, maybe wide enough for him to fit two of himself across. His cot was uncomfortable to the brink of pain. He knew it wasn't meant to be comfortable. It was hell after all. He was sure of it.

Attempting escape was futile with the dementors escorting him to the bathroom. He rarely got food, rarely was given the chance to shower. It was horrible, a sentence worse than death.

He deserves it though, that he believes. The boredom, the pain, the hunger. He deserves it.

Though today he knew he wouldn't be bored. Today there would be a vistitor amongst the lovely cages stacked hundreds of feet high.

Sirius grins, sitting upright when he hears the huffing and puffing he'd grown accustomed to being serenaded by once a month.

"Cornelius!" He cries, clasping his hands together when the round Minister of Magic finally appears. Sirius can't resist reaching out to shake his hand, snickering when the wizard jumps back.

"What?" Sirius coos, his brows raising in faux hurt. "You don't trust me, Fudgy?"

"Mr. Black."

The response is curt, though Sirius still picks up on the fear in the minister's voice. Good. He wanted him to be afraid, needed him to be afraid. Then it was worth something.

Sirius' eyes slip down to where Fudge has a newspaper tucked neatly in his belt. Sirius' hands twitch. He didn't get to read the Prophet often. This edition could keep him entertained for weeks, at least until he grew so hungry that he'd be forced to eat the paper. Embarrassing, but a treat under the circumstances.

He speaks again, eager to avoid the Minister catching him scheming, "What's on the docket today? A little maintenance in the empty cells? Dinner with a view? I hear that Bella's cell has quite the outlook over—"

"Enough!" Fudge demands, flustered and his cheeks pinking. Sirius just grins, shrugging and wondering playfully, "Do you mind my company terribly? I haven't joked around with anyone since—"

"Since the death of your accomplice?"

Sirius grows stiff at the words.

Time had dulled his ability to check himself, isolation had washed away his patience.

The Minister jumps back when the man before him suddenly jumps at the bars, yelling and shouting unintelligible things that sound like a mangled combination of French and English.

Sirius scrambles to get to him, presses up against his cell wall so that he may just be able to wrap his hands around the fool's throat. He's volatile, violent. A shell of himself, broken down to the brink of insanity from the flood of memories.

Her. Hair the color of pearls and eyes that reminded him of inhaling the bitter cold of winter. Smiles and laughs and riddles that made his head spin in a way that quidditch or pranks never could.

They killed her. His accomplice. No, his angel, his beach.

His hope.

They killed Gwenyth Whitlock, and Sirius Black died with her.

Fudge sneers once he realizes he's safe, laughing coldly, "You're pathetic."

"You destroyed her!" Sirius screams frantically, the skin of his arms ripping from the rusted metal separating him and the man that could set him free at the drop of a hat. Sirius would beg, if he thought Fudge would care. "You all killed her!"

"No," Fudge finally says, and Sirius' body gives in. He's too weak to fight anymore, to starved and exhausted to hurt the man. He'd been exhausted for so long. Sirius fights back the emotional words that threaten his throat, the bile that churns in his stomach and the tears that burn his eyes.

He tried not to think about her, he tried not to think about any of it anymore. Because he couldn't withstand the memories and the emotions and the longing. Because he would die tomorrow if that meant reuniting with her.

"You're the one responsible for everything."

Sirius flinches at the words, anger burning through he threads keeping him held together. But the thought of her might've helped this time. Because Sirius looks at the man that is supposed to keep him in prison, and he begins to laugh.

Loud, uninhibited, cackles that scare Cornelius Fudge to the point that he takes off away from Sirius' cell. He leaves the wizard once so respected to wheeze by himself. He also leaves his newspaper.

Or rather neglected to realize it was gone.

Sirius smiles weakly at the folded paper in his hands. Too easy, though he always knew Fudge was a moron. He sits down, his crude sculpture balanced on the frame of the sorry excuse of a bed as he stretches out and attempts to relax.

Then he unfolds the Daily Prophet.

It's instantaneous, his eyes latching on to the only recognizable figure on the front page. Not a human, not a landmark, or a quidditch match.

A rat.

Sirius tries to breathe, but his body refuses to work. His mind screams at him for air, but he's too focused on the rat taunting him from the hands of a boy surrounded by his family.

"He's at Hogwarts,"

He doesn't recognize his own hoarse voice. He doesn't recognize it even when he says the same sentence over and over again until the dementors come back and the sun has clearly set.

He's at Hogwarts. He's at Hogwarts.

Sirius moves fast once he knows it's nighttime, his mind driving him forward through the physical exhaustion. It's excruciatingly painful when he morphs into his animagus. His back screams at the action, his legs buckling as the change shape. It's nauseating, but familiar. He hadn't done this in ages, too weak. Too hopeless. It takes a few minutes for him to stand again, but when he does he feels a surge of energy.

It's easy when he slips through the front of his cell, his dog form so thin that his flanks don't even touch the bars on either side. He was on the brink of death. He knew it. He knew he was close.  He had been for some time.

As tempting as it was and had been for so long, as tempting as it was to purposefully run into a dementor and surrender to the kiss of endless slumber.

Killing Peter Pettigrew was a temptation too great to ignore.

So when the dog pads to the edge of the long hallway of cells, the salty wind whipping his body back and forth, he doesn't think or doubt himself. He doesn't listen to the laughter in his ears, the feminine humming that had haunted him since the day he'd last seen her. He doesn't look down.

He jumps.

And the Ocean greets him as an old friend.