Sirius Black was pressed into the far corner of his cell, his back against one wall, his side against the other, pushed as tightly into the corner as he could get, his head pressed against the cold stone. His eyes were screwed up as tightly as they could be and he hugged his knees.
"Sirius, I brought you dinner... c'mon, you've got to talk to me again sometime..." Frank Longbottom begged from outside of the cell bars. He was standing there, holding a sack of food - inside was a roast sandwich and a bag of crisps. "Sirius c'mon, pay me attention will you, for just a second?"
But Sirius shook his head and pulled his knees even closer to his chest.
"C'mon Sirius... please. You've got to be hungry. You didn't touch your lunch..." The bland plate of prison food sat untouched outside the bars on the floor where the auror on duty at lunch time had left it when, similar to this, Sirius didn't move. Frank sighed and leaned against the bars, putting the bag he held inside by several feet. "There, I've left it so you can eat it later if you want." Frank stayed standing by the bars. "Sirius, are you alright? Is it just me you're ignoring or is it something else? Do I need to go get a mediwitch?"
Sirius held up one arm, his middle finger extended.
Frank sighed. "I'm sorry Sirius. I'm sorry. I didn't want to be the one that went to get you, alright, it wasn't a choice. And anyway you should be glad it was me and not some other bloke. Someone else might've been a lot more rough with you, the way you resisted, you could've got in a lot more trouble..."
Sirius buried his face in his knees.
"You'll be out tomorrow, it's nearly done," Frank said.
No response at all from Sirius. His hair pooled around his face.
Frank sighed. He stood there against the bars a couple more minutes before he finally stood up right and turned away, walking back over to the auror desk across the room. He sat heavily down and leaned back in the chair. He'd volunteered to be on duty down in the holding block that night, not that it was hard to be assigned the position - nobody else wanted to do it, after all the commotion and singing of the night before, there weren't any aurors willing to take on the task, all afraid it would be a repeat performance.
Frank rather wished that Sirius would do a repeat performance. Incessant singing was better than this heavy silence.
All Frank could think about was how Sirius had reacted in the vault at Gringott's the year before, and how panicked he'd become.
That's why Frank wasn't surprised when a couple hours later, he heard Sirius suddenly gasp. "The walls --"
Frank got up, dropping the book he'd been studying down onto the desk and went over to the bars. "Sirius?"
"The walls - the walls are caving in, the walls are caving --" Sirius was panicked, he was pacing furiously in the back of the cell.
"They're not, Sirius, I promise they're not," Frank said, but Sirius didn't react, like he couldn't hear him. "Sirius, it's alright!" Frank called over.
Sirius shook his head, and continued on pacing, pacing, pacing, murmuring to himself, seeming to hold a half a conversation with a voice that Frank could not hear. Sirius's hands shook and he was ringing them anxiously.
"Hey, you want to talk about it, mate, I'll listen?" Frank suggested, "C'mere, we'll talk it out --"
"Go away!" Sirius shouted.
"Sirius --"
"Go away, go away, go away!"
Frank sighed.
Long after Frank finally went and sat back down at the desk, unable to do anything else, Sirius was still pacing. He was still pacing after Frank finally fell asleep late into the night. Sirius finally stumbled into the center of the cell and he sat on the floor, legs crossed, holding his ankles, rocking himself, looking around from one corner of the ceiling to the other, watching for signs of cracks in the stone, for dust to fall, for the ceiling and walls to come in... any moment now... They were moving closer together, they would come up and squeeze the life out of him...
"Don't be scared, Sirius," Achlys whispered. "You aren't alone... you've got me..." but the words weren't comforting, they were sinister, and Sirius whimpered. "You've always got me," Achlys said.
Harry Underhill sat behind his desk in his office, pouring over the memo Moody had sent him on the giant attacks in Northern Ireland, a mug of coffee at his elbow, and a pastry beside it. He picked at his teeth with his little finger as he read through the description of damages.
His office door opened and he glanced at his watch to see it was precisely eight o'clock.
James Potter walked into the office, his wool grey uniform pants freshly pressed, the thick belt about his waist, the Ministry for Magic logo centered against his abdomen, embroidered onto the belt in shining silver thread. His white oxford shirt was fitted, buttoned neatly, save for the top four buttons, which he'd left undone so that the shirt parted and his collar bone showed. Black leather holster-style suspenders came 'round his shoulders, squaring him off, and in the leather had been worked a holster for his wand, which peeked out from its place against the side of his chest. His wool coat and dark purple and silver threaded vest hung over his arm. He carried a box under the other arm.
James glanced over at his boss as he stepped to the desk that he'd inhabited for the better part of the Summer and Autumn months of the year before, and dropped his box on top of the desk before tossing his vest and coat over the chair.
"Good morning, Mr. Potter," Underhill murmured.
"Good morning, Mr. Underhill," James answered. He opened his box and reached inside.
Underhill watched out of the corner of his eyes as James set up a small collection of picture frames on the desk, one of Lily and him at their wedding, one of his mother, one of Remus and Sirius. He refilled the drawers with supplies he'd taken home with him last time he'd been there - quills and a biting eraser from Sirius. When he was finished, he magicked away the box and sat down, put his quill and ink pot in place, and took a deep breath.
James looked over at Underhill, who had looked down to keep from being caught watching his assistant set up.
"Ready for duty, sir," James said. "What have you got for me?"
Underhill didn't even look up. "See the envelope in your inbox?"
He hadn't noticed it, but James plucked it up from the tray now, "Yes, sir."
Underhill said, "Deliver that to the auror on duty in the holding cell block on lower level 4. You're to escort the prisoner home."
"And then?"
"That's it. That's your day's work."
James hesitated. "So... you had me come in... just to go get Sirius."
"Yes. Have a good day, Mr. Potter."
James stared at Underhill for a count of about fifteen seconds, then opened the envelope, saw the signed papers of release for Sirius Black, and bolted out of his chair. He was all the way to the door when Underhill cleared his throat. "Your coat, Potter?"
"Oh right." James doubled back, grabbed the coat and vest, and said, "Thank sir," and ran back out the door.
Harry Underhill rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Tosser," he muttered. But he looked over at James's desk, all neatly arranged, and he nodded, satisfied, and turned back to the memo. Tomorrow, he'd put the boy to work.
Sirius was laying on the floor of the holding cell, as he had been doing since the night before, convinced he was watching the walls and ceiling compacting closer to him by the second. His eyes were trained on a fixed point, though he wasn't focused, his mind was wandering aimlessly at top speed through a hundred thousand different topics, even as his mouth repeated the same few bars of a song. His voice was quiet, his singing no more than a murmur by this time. "I fought the law and the... law won... I fought the law and the.... law won..."
There was a clanging at the bars of the cell, but he was too dizzy to look. He closed his eyes. That was probably the sound of the bars snapping under the weight of the ceiling coming down to crush him like a bug.
There was a shout somewhere off to his right, but he just squeezed his eyes all the tighter. They'd noticed the cell caving in and they were shouting about it. Probably the aurors were laughing, relieved the singing would stop, and Sirius rolled onto his side, giving his back to the bars, his knees clutched up to his chest.
The dementor in his chest was shrieking with laughter. He felt so cold from the inside out. "Stop, stop," he whispered, "Stop it..." He was sure he could hear the aurors laughing. "Stop, its gonna crush me, it's gonna crush me, gonna crush --"
Suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder.
"Sirius?"
He was too caught up in his delusion to respond at first, he rocked himself.
"Sirius, hey... hey it's Frank. Your paperwork's gone through. You can get out of here."
The hands were tugging at his arm.
He shook his head, "Go away, go away..."
The hands fell away from his arm. There was some more clanging of the bars, and heavy booted footsteps behind him.
He could smell James Potter.
Suddenly, there was a voice right in his ear. "Sirius?"
"James?"
"Let's go home."
He opened his eyes slowly. The ceiling was still a ways up, they weren't crushed, and he tentatively turned his head to look at James's face. He was down on one knee behind Sirius, leaning down against his other knee for support, his face close to Sirius's, his brown eyes full of concern. Sirius rolled over quickly and sat up, wrapping his arms around James's shoulders.
"Please get me out of here. Please get me out of here..." he begged.
James nodded, "That's the point, mate."
Struggling, James stood up, pulling Sirius up with him, and Sirius hung onto James's shoulders so that once James was upright, they were sort of hugging and James squeezed him tight while Sirius pushed his face against James's oxford shirt.
"I didn't think I'd see you again," Sirius said.
"It's okay, mate," James promised.
"I swear I'll never do anything bad again, I never want to be here again, I never want --"
"I know," James said, "C'mon, let's go home and we'll talk about it there, alright?" he lowered his voice, "There's like six aurors watching us right now and they already think we're both mental, hey?" he chuckled.
Sirius nodded weakly, and James put his arm 'round Sirius's shoulder. "Alright then, c'mon." He led Sirius 'round and out through the opened cell block door and Sirius stumbled but James caught his weight and steadied him. They paused by the desk to collect the bag of Sirius's personal stuff and James shouldered the bags and his own coat and vest and said bye to Frank and the others.
"You want help out getting him home?" Frank asked.
"I'll be alright. I sent a message to Lily, so she'll be meeting us upstairs," James answered, "Then it's just a short floo home."
"Alright," Frank said.
James helped Sirius up the stairs and with each step Sirius could smell the air getting fresher. James got him onto the elevator and Sirius heard the whirring and dinging, but it felt so far away, and he clung onto James's shoulder all the more.
"Almost there. Hey, Lily's going to be glad to see you - she's been a right mess all night..."
"Me too," Sirius murmured.
James squeezed his shoulders.
The elevator door dinged and opened and the noise of the crowded atrium flooded them suddenly, as well as the lights, and Sirius opened his eyes and his hands slid away from James's shoulders. James braced him a moment as Sirius took a couple shaky steps forward. He was still in stocking feet - James held his boots in one of the bags - but he was out of the elevator, out of the confined spaces - and the atrium had never seen so big and bright and --
"SIRIUS!" Lily's voice cut over the sound of the crowded room and his head snapped in the direction of it, seeing her, and she was running toward him and she got to him and wrapped her arms around him so tightly, crying as she pulled him into her. "Sirius! Oh my stars, Sirius. I love you so much. Oh my god you're okay. You're out of there, you're out of there, oh my gods, you're out of that horrible place." She had tears pouring down her face as she gasped the words.
The way she kept saying it, Sirius knew she could feel everything he was feeling.
James put his arms around both of them. "C'mon, let's go home."