Hate How Much I Love You|| Sirius Black [2]

Chapter 8

Life in Azkaban gave Sirius the freedom to relive his memories, to think over past mistakes, to understand events from other's point of views. There wasn't much else you could do shackled up in a prison cell really. In between planning an escape, shielding himself as the dementors swooped past and yearning for Madison, Sirius closed his eyes and watched his life back like a muggle movie, pausing at certain moments to relish in them or even ponder over what he could have done differently.

To some people, if they had observed his life they would probably question why he cares for Madison Parker they way he does. After everything she had done to him, it seemed foolish for him to pine for her so badly. Yet, he understood it all. Yes, she had hit him, kicked him also, but she showed her deepest regret about doing so many times. If he hadn't have grown up in an abusive household, a couple of slaps (when, even Sirius believed he deserved them), would have been brushed off. He and James fought each other often, kicking and punching each other and even James whacked Sirius a few times when he deserved it. Sirius also hit people too. Now, that is not to say that hitting someone is alright, because it is certainly not but Sirius truly believed that she deserved to be forgiven for her actions.

Whilst James provided Sirius with a physical home to feel safe in, Madison provided and emotional home. When she held him in her arms he felt as though he was untouchable, she was warm and truly was caring. She just made mistakes, terrible, mistakes and definitely was on par with Sirius for her dramatic tendencies but really Sirius could not blame her. 

She was a regular, invisible girl. Shy and always buried in a book, she had no worries and didn't have any people she really depended on like she and Sirius did to each other. That was until Sirius came into her life. Yes, he never really understood what made her scared of him, and he definitely didn't see how she had nightmares about him but the time he spent reliving his life in Azkaban, he slowly saw some reasons. 

He and James did bully other students. Especially Snape (but he still believed he was deserving of such bullying). They did torment people with their pranks. They ran through the halls without minding the other people walking down them, they pushed and shoved and stepped on anyone in their way. 

Then, in the deepest, darkest depths of his mind, hidden in a far corner, shadowed by the ghosts of his family's treatment laid a day. A day he had long forgotten until now.

One day, in first year, not long before Christmas when spirits were high and other student were buzzing to go home for the holidays, a girl sat in the corner of the common room, her nose nuzzling a book, her knees tucked into her chest. 

James and Sirius bounded into the common room, Remus and Peter went to chess club after lessons so it was just the two of them. the pair caught sight of the girl and shared a smirk between each other, creeping over behind her. James ripped the book from her hands and tossed it behind him, it ultimately landing into he roaring fire, spitting and sizzling as the flames gobbled it up. 

Sirius covered the girls mouth with his hand, a bark-like laughter escaping his lips as he watched the flames engulf the book. The girl was visibly upset by the fact her book ended up in the fire but even more so the fact that Sirius had his hand over her mouth and his other around her waist, lifting her up over the back of the sofa. She kicked and tried to scream but nobody else was around to hear her muffled cries for help.

"Get her legs James!" Sirius laughed as he struggled slightly with the girl kicking erratically in his arms. This was long before their nicknames came about. 

James snickered a took a few attempts but soon managed to grasped her legs as the two boys carried her up into their dormitory and into the bathroom. 

Sirius hit the taps to a shower on with his elbow and they dropped her into it before pulling the curtain shut and holding it so she could escape as the water poured down on her. 

"Please!" Cried a twelve-year-old Madison, "Let me out! Please!" Her shouts were quiet but you could still hear the tears in her voice. 

"Wait here." Sirius told James, and ran out of the bathroom quickly returning with a book in his hand. Now it would seem rather hypocritical of Sirius after James tossed Madison's copy of Wuthering Heights into the fire but this was a spell book, specifically one he had stolen from the restricted section using James' invisibility cloak a few weeks prior. 

"What are you doing?" James whispered still holding the shower curtain tight even though Madison had seized trying to fight back and simply sunk to the floor. 

"Eye of carpi, half feather phoenix, tongues of fire, water desire." He pointed his wand over the top of the shower curtain, aiming straight at Madison. A long thread of orange, streamed from the tip of his wand, wrapping around Madison and shortly after she screamed like a banshee. Sirius repeated the spell three more times before flipping over a few pages and saying: "birds of a feather, quill of writing, sprout me a snout and spark me with lightning.

 A loud bang was heard from in the shower, the water still splashing down on the girl whose sobs were so loud that even James was sure someone would be able to hear them. He grasped hold of Sirius and ran from the bathroom just slow enough to hear the water shut off but too quick to see the poor girl, crawl out on her knees, soaked like a drowned rat, with a pig snout for a nose and hair sticking out everywhere as though she was electrocuted. 

Sirius' heart sunk as he wallowed in his cell. No wonder she was afraid of him and not so much James. Sirius had used a spell on her that made it feel as though she was burning and then made it feel as though she was hit by lightning all whilst being stuck in the shower. As a kid he thought it was funny, that he was just messing around he didn't quite realise the extremity of his actions. 

Now he did.

He was an arse to her and didn't even remember what he had done until it was too late. He probably would never see her again and even if he did, she would probably be married to someone new, a better person, possibly a mother too. He was just rotting away in prison for a crime he didn't even do.