Diagon Alley - Harry Potter One Shots

Brother | Sirius Black

[ Azkaban]

The nights seemed to last forever tucked in the corner of the cell, light never seemed to shine through and as much as he tried to keep his sanity and wits about him, the ever fading light of hope was struggling to reach him. Over a decade had passed since Sirius Black had found himself thrown into the cell, against his will under false accusations that he couldn't fight. He couldn't fight them because he no longer had a voice among his peers. People he had once fought alongside, grown up in the company of, they had all turned their backs to him and tuned in a deaf ear. The only one willing to hear him was his wife, but he couldn't get to her in time and like himself, he envisioned her to be very much alone and miserable.

He had his whole life ahead of him at the time, he was young, good-looking, madly in love, and there were dreams that he had been looking forward to making a reality. But those dreams were dead, much like the atmosphere around Azkaban as dementors made sure to suck away all sense of happiness. There was a possibility that he was going to rot away in the very spot where he was sitting and he would never see the light of day again. He would die for someone else's crimes and he would die with everyone remembering him as nothing more than a traitorous murderer.

If someone had asked him if he had seen any of that coming years prior, he would have laughed in their faces and deemed them mental. But now who was the one laughing? Certainly not him.

His forehead rested against the cold stone that surrounded him, there was nothing pleasant about a prison designed for wizards. Muggles thought they had it bad, they had yet to see anything or experience anything like Azkaban. Everything was so cold around Sirius, he forgot what warmth felt like, even when he tried to envision one of his wife's hugs, he could hardly get the feeling. He tried to remember what her voice sounded like but even that was fading as the mind-numbing sound of the crashing ocean waves seemed to take over his mind. The only thing he could remember was what she looked like and that was more than enough for him to hold onto his sanity for a little while longer.

For as long as he could remember what she looked like, he could survive on that alone. But then came the terrible thought of not being able to see her in person ever again, that he was going to have to live on with just the memories they shared and once those started to fade, he was as good as dead. Even if his brain still functioned and his heart still beat, without precious memories to remind him why he was still living, there would be no point in staying alive. 

Did he truly wish for those memories to fade to the point where he would be nothing more than an empty vessel used at the exposal of the dementors? Or did he wish to die a man, holding onto those precious moments in time? It was in that moment that Sirius had been overcome with dark thoughts of ending it all.

"I remember a time where I looked up to you," a voice called out to him. A daily taunting from a Ministry official didn't seem to be in order that day, leaving Sirius to look over in confusion. But the man was left in bewilderment as he came to face to face with his younger brother. Sitting across from him in the cell, leaning against the bars was Regulus.

Although he didn't appear to be the Regulus that Sirius remembered, this one was water-logged, his skin practically a mixture of blue and grey, a clear sign of dead skin. His eyes were dark, similar to his hair, but then again, he had always held that appearance even when he was alive. But his hair dripped as if he had just swum there. Around his wrists and up his arms, revealed by his tattered clothing were bruises in the shape of handprints.

"R-Regulus?" Sirius stammered, truly believing that he had finally lost his mind. Regulus looked away from him.

"I remember when I looked up to you. There were two times... when we were younger and just before my own death," Regulus told him. "I wanted to be like you each time. The Great Rebel of the Black Family. Now look at you, look at what you've become. You've broken from chains and bars before and now you allow them to break you."

"I...you're dead."

"So are you," Regulus countered, "or at least close to it, brother. You are losing faith and fast and once you lose that, you might as well be dead. There was a time where you would fight until your last breath and now you're trying to steal it from yourself. The Great Sirius Black, ladies and gentlemen. You've become nothing more than a dog with his tail tucked in between his legs."

Sirius looked away from him, unable to stare at the bruising that he witnessed trail up Regulus' throat. "I will not be lectured by someone who died fighting for that monster," Sirius growled under his breath and looked down at his hands.

"You will die at the hands of the monster without him even being present, you will be no better than me," Regulus said. "He does not even have to be here and you accepted defeat. At least I died fighting."

The stubborn streak remained clear with Sirius as he refused to face his brother, even as Regulus continued to stare at him.

"You're still so focused on all the bad memories we share, but what about the good ones?" Regulus asked him. 

"What good ones?" Sirius scoffed.

It was quiet for a moment as Sirius waited for his brother to respond. "Do you remember the time that Uncle Alphard slipped a sleeping draught into Mother's drink that one Christmas because he didn't wish to hear her speak? We decorated her face for a full hour?"

Sirius' heart panged in his chest, enough that he immediately struggled to hold back his tears as he swallowed hard.

"You're so focused on the wrong and the negatives, Sirius, that you've forgotten that there is good. You were able to still see the good in me before you left. Do you remember before you left to live with the Potters, what did you say to me?"

Sirius bit the inside of his cheek for a moment. "I told you to come with me," he whispered. "Why didn't you come with me?"

"Because I had other things to do, Sirius. You had your own path to follow and I had to follow my own. It worked out the way it was supposed to."

"The way it was supposed to?!" He screeched facing him. "You were supposed to die, is that what you're telling me?"

Regulus gave a shrug of his shoulders. "That's the way it panned out, right?"

"And I was supposed to end up here?!"

Regulus chuckled and Sirius couldn't even think what possessed him to laugh in that moment. "Sirius, you don't like it here, correct?"

"Of course I don't!"

"You didn't like being at home and you left. I think you know what to do here. If you don't like it, leave."

"How?"

"You'll figure it out, wasn't it you who always claimed you were brightest in the family?"