Minerva McGonagall's words had shaken Sirius more than any others that had been spoken that night - and such a lot of what had been spoken that night had shaken Sirius quite a bit.
Her accent was so thick... it always got thicker when she was emotional or impassioned by what she was saying.
"When ye killed James Potter," she struggled to finish, "Ye killed a bit of me as well. I hated that ye taked him away from me... But I hate ye more for taking away yerself!"
Her words wrapped around him, devastating him. The chains cutting into his arms were nothing compared to the words that were cutting through his heart when she lectured him like that. His whole entire heart was shattered by it. It was the most intense emotions he had felt in twelve years, since the dementors had taken away a lot of his ability to feel.
Oh god, why did it hurt so much?
She shook her head, backing away from him, as though she didn't dare to turnaround - as though he might hurt her somehow if she did. Like she didn't trust him. "Tha's all that I have tae say to yeh. I haven't got another word. Tha's all I want tae say... and dinnae think I can take another moment being in the presence of yeh."
She turned and hurried to the door.
It was like watching a real mother walk away - a real mother, not a mother like his own had been, but a real, true, honest to God mother.
His heart felt like it was fit to burst. Her hand was on the door knob. He wanted to scream for her to come back, to listen, to just hear him out for just a moment, but the words - and his breath - was caught up and although his mouth formed them through sobs that shook his whole body, he struggled to even come close to uttering the words.
"The Headmaster and Minister are on the way, and they'll bring with them the dementor who will see to it that I havenae never to look upon ye again... Ye have only God to answer to, Mr. Black."
God would be easier to answer to than the people here, Sirius thought. God could see the heart of it, at least. God knew the truth of what happened already.
It was the people that didn't understand.
Minerva McGonagall had the door open.
If you don't say something now... you'll never get to. She'll walk out of here thinking you betrayed her for the rest of her life. You're going to die and she's never going to know the truth.
"Minnie!" he wailed.
The name echoed off the walls of the chamber ad he saw her body go stiff at the name. She stayed back-to him, he couldn't tell what her face was doing, what she might be thinking or feeling or anything, if she was annoyed or offended or any thing. She stayed stock-still in the doorway.
But she hadn't stepped out.
She was listening.
He had one shot. One shot and he had to make it count. Sirius's voice cracked along every seam and every syllable, "You're the only person that ever properly believed in me back then... Don't give up on me now."
There was a long pause.
Excruciating, it felt to Sirius anyway, this pause.
It seemed like a hundred years passed.
He'd expected her to turnaround, to come back...
But instead she left. She left and she slammed the door and Sirius couldn't believe it. He stared at the door as the silence fell around him like snow, settling after the explosive bang of the wood door hitting the frame so hard it shook the rafters.
His jaw was dropped and his eyes stared, willing her to come back. But the door stayed closed, and Minerva McGonagall stayed gone, and Sirius broke, his entire insides felt like they'd been scraped up and scooped out and chucked on the floor. He didn't need a dementor to tear out his soul - Minnie had just done that.
Sobs like he'd never felt before shook his body and he cried then not just for Minerva McGonagall and her leaving the room but for every unfair thing that had happened to him in his entire life. He cried for twelve years in prison and for separation from his husband, who he loved and knew may very well have been killed or captured by aurors himself by now...
He cried for the sorrow and wailing and death cries he'd heard all around him coming from the other cells, the cries that escalated and quieted like ocean waves in a violent storm day in and day out as the dementors fed... He cried for the hand that slipped around the corner of his cell, that grappled trying to find his own more than once, trying to find some solace or some resemblance of forgiveness from the next cell block over. He cried because he never did have it to give.
He cried for Potters, for the broken roof of their house and the smell of the magic settling as his whole world burned up in an instant, the second he saw James Potter's lifeless body. He cried because he hadn't had enough time - enough time with James, or enough time at all, in life. Everything had been shambles and there were so many fights and tears shed and terrible dreams...
Dark, dark, dark, everything had been dark for so long...
Ace Dante's face floated in the back of his mind, and the feeling of filth he'd washed and washed and washed and how long it had taken to feel human again after that. There was Snape and lies and terrible ideas and regrets and rings being returned, and a shiny knife covered in blood.
There was Regulus, and the words Sirius had never meant - all of them, over years and years, all jumbling together, all the names and hateful dismissals.
All the times he'd lay in bed crying over letters sent by owl post and the feelings of being not good enough and downright bad - downright horrible.
There was the cruciatus and the pain of electric magic flowing through every vein of his body, every nerve, scorching him from the inside out.
There was the knowledge that this - this moment when Minerva McGonagall had slammed the door and given up on him - this feeling he had now? This was worse than any cruciatus.
He'd never cried like that before.
And I never will again, he thought.
For a brief moment in the Shrieking Shack, when Remus Lupin had held him, Sirius had allowed himself to have hope. But there was no hope, he realized. There was none, not even a single little speck of it.
And he heard something.
A rhythmic whooshing or thumping and he opened his eyes and looked around as best he could as he was still chained to the chair.
The sound was coming from behind him, from the balcony where he and James had spent countless times smoking over the years they'd been at Hogwarts. He heard the door open behind him, the hinges creak loudly from disuse, and then --
"Sirius!"
His heart stopped with surprise of it.
"H-Harry?" he asked, confused.
Harry Potter came careening around him, his trainers squeaking on the stones as he ran and knelt before Sirius in concern.
"Harry!" Sirius gasped. "What are you doing here?"
"I wasn't about to let them take you away from me, not when I've only just gotten you back!" Harry exclaimed.
Hermione's voice came from behind him, "Ooh they've got these chains so tight on you. Your arms must hurt so much. Look at you, you're all torn up! Oh Sirius..."
Sirius's words trembled. "Tis but a scratch."
Harry laughed. "Monty Python, yeah?"
"Yeah!" Sirius looked at him, "Bloody hell. You know Monty Python. Your dad - he would be --"
"Proud, yeah, you've mentioned a few times now," Harry said, but he was grinning.
"Harry, help me with these chains, will you?" Hermione asked.
"Oh. Yeah, right. Coming." Harry ducked 'round behind Sirius, and Sirius could feel their hands and the heat coming from their wands as they worked hurriedly, trying to strip away the chains from his limbs.
There was a sound on the other door - the one McGonagall had left through. Sirius stared at it, wide-eyed. "They're coming," he panicked.
"Nearly there," Hermione let him know.
"You can't be caught here," Sirius gasped.
"We're nearly done, Padfoot," Harry said, and Sirius thrilled at the sound of a Potter boy calling him that name.
But he could hear raised voices and his heart was beating so fast from nerves.
"Harry, get his ankles. HURRY." Hermione cried.
The chains at his wrists broke loose and Sirius nearly fell forward, not realizing he'd been putting his weight against his arms like he had. He was rubbing his wrists, trying to return feeling to his hands, which were all pins and needles, the circulation having been hindred by the tightness of the chains.
Harry was knelt to his right, burning away the chains at his ankles.
"I REFUSE TO ALLOW YOU TO DESTROY SIRIUS BLACK!" the words rang through the door and Sirius, Harry, and Hermione all paused and looked up.
"Is that - is that Professor McGonagall?" Hermione asked, her face pale and shocked.
"I - I think so," Harry answered.
"HE IS INNOCENT! THIS BOY -- THIS BOY! THIS BOY DID NOT KILL JAMES AND LILY POTTER, WHATEVER YOU SAY, AND I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO TAKE HIS LIFE FOR IT!"
"Yeah," Sirius said, smiling, "That's Minnie."
Sirius thought that in all of his life, he had never heard music so beautiful as those words.
The chains broke free from Sirius's ankles and he jumped up from the chair - free again at last - and he looked at the door. "Bloody hell, how are we going to get out of here?"
"The same way we came," Harry answered, "C'mon." He grabbed his godfather's hand and pulled Sirius away from the door - even as more shouting and arguing came from outside. There was the sound of magic crackling through the air and Sirius felt the urge to go back and defend her rise up in himself. "Come on, hurry!" Harry urged him. "We haven't got much more time!"
If it'd been anyone but Harry holding his hand, Sirius might have gone the other way, might've decided that escape be damned for the sake of defending his Minnie - but Harry was right. They had to go.
Out on the balcony, Sirius could barely believe his eyes when he saw the hippogriff, standing there, preening, Hermione already bowing to it. The hippogriff paused and bowed back and lowered to his knees for the three of them to climb on. Harry slung his legs over the back of the beast like an old pro while Sirius threw himself up with a grunt of pain, the wounds on his body leaking and discoloring the hippogriff's grey feathers. Hermione climbed up behind him and clung onto him, her arms cinched around his waist in the closest thing to a hug from someone who was not Remus in ages...
The hippogriff took off, wings spread wide as he dropped several feet over the side of the balcony before the air currents caught him and his wings began to beat. He soared slowly, gliding down over the castle turrets in a wide looping arch, down, down, landing in the courtyard outside of Ravenclaw tower, where the four trees stood, feet away from the entrance to the Muggle Studdies corridor was.
"Sirius - you'd better go quick," Harry said, "They'll get in there whatever McGonagall does and they'll find out you've gone and they'll have every auror on the grounds looking for you."
Buckbeak pawed the ground, tossing his head, and Hermione gave Sirius Black a final squeeze of a hug before sliding off the back of the hippogriff and onto the ground. Harry hesitated, then slipped down, too, turning around quickly. He looked up at Sirius.
"What happened to Ron?" Sirius asked.
"He's going to be okay, Madam Pomfrey says she'll be able to make him better. You - you have to go before they catch you!" Harry said. "Quick -- go!"
Hermione was looking nervously around, up at the turret they'd come from - the balcony easily visible from where they were now.
"How can I ever thank --"
"GO!" Harry and Hermione both shouted together.
Sirius laughed because they were both so adamant - and Harry's face was so full of love and panic - Sirius could scarcely breathe for how much he looked like his mother.
He could feel her - Lily - in that moment.
"We'll see each other again," Sirius promised. "I - I expect letters. I expect loads of letters."
"I promise," Harry answered.
"As often as you can write them."
Harry nodded.
Hermione suddenly squeaked, "Harry - we've got to get back. We only have a couple minutes or we'll be in really a lot of trouble."
Sirius gripped Buckbeak's neck, his knees clutching into the hippogriff's sides. "Oh bloody hell, Harry."
"What?"
"You were so brave - both of you... You are -- truly your father's son, Harry."
And with that, Sirius kicked gently and Buckbeak understood - rising up into the air, the wings beating as he took off and Sirius stared down at the dots that were Harry and Hermione as he rose up over the roof tops of the school, flying slowly 'round a loop-de-loop of Ravenclaw tower, and down, low over the courtyard once more - Harry and Hermione were running through the door of the muggle studies corridor now, but Harry waved as he went- and then Buckbeak was lifting up, gaining speed enough to soar --
Suddenly, the sound of midnight ringing in emanated from the pinnacle of the Bell Towers. The bells clanged musically... and Sirius closed his eyes, listening.
It was like Hogwarts was saying good-bye... wishing him good luck...
"We have one more stop to make, Buckbeak," Sirius said, leaning forward and wrapping his arms around the hippogriff's neck. "Down there -- see that clearing? We'll wait there for sunrise..."
The hippogriff swooped and they passed some thestrals that were hovering over the trees.
"We have to get my Moony."