The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part One

I: 29 July, 1993

The dog was filthy, sodden with grime and sludge and who-knows-what-else from the drainpipes of Azkaban. The sky was dark purple, like a bruise, as the clouds of an angry storm collected, alive with electrical current and wind. The storms were ever present, the rain forever falling, and the dark shadows of dementors ever looming. The high cubic shape of the prison rose up from the blackness of the water, so far from land that it could not be seen for the curve of the earth.

Black furred and mangy, the dog had the look of long wear and neglect, his ribs nearly visible through his skin, which clung to him like it had been hung over a skeleton, nearly void of muscle. He cowered along the foundation of the prison, eyes upturned to peer at the circling, apparition-like cloaks of the dementors, so great in number he could scarcely distinguish between them, a writhing mass of cloaks and rasping breath. A man would be immobilized with crippling depression to stand before so many dementors at one time.

Luckily, this man had options.

He had done a full lap about the prison, searching for the boat that the guards arrived on with their patronuses already cast. There was a small island, not far to the south east, that they used to for a portkey landing before coming in to Azkaban on the boat, for if they arrived without their patronus, through a direct floo connection or disapparation, their happy memories would flee and their patronus would fail. There were no boats currently at the prison side of the passage, but an empty dock that stretched out away from the prison toward the dark beyond pointed him the direction he would need to go in order to escape.

The dog stood, staring off from it, across the water, toward the way to freedom, and he felt the first strings of hope tug upon his heart. He had made it this far - perhaps there truly was a chance of getting the rest of the way... a chance of seeing, even if from a distance, his godson... a chance of the revenge he had dreamed of for twelve excruciatingly long years.

His heart raced as he looked down at the water. The tide crashed menacingly against the dock's masts and the rocks below. He could be killed in a tide like that, dashed against the stones or the wood beams that held the dock up. A glance back over his shoulder, however, and he knew he had no choice. He couldn't go back, and better to die there in the water, attempting his desperate bid for escape, than to return and waste away, where no merciful death would be offered to him.

He couldn't live another day in that cell. Really, he had never lived there, but had barely survived, mentally punishing himself more than the dementors ever could... even Achlys, the dementor that lived deep within his chest.

The dog ran back down the dock to the shore, carefully picking his steps over the algae covered rocks, his claws scraping the stones. The rocks outside of Azkaban were slippery, and he only just caught his footing more than once. If he was to make it, he had to be as far out as possible when he dove into the water. He would need to change to have any hope of keeping himself from going under and the further from the walls of the prison he was, the further from the dementors, who would come to devour his soul in a kiss if he was near enough for them to sense him. Though they bore little effect on the dog, he couldn't stay in the animagus form in the water. The dog was too fragile to fight the current - not that the man was in much better condition, but the dexterous limbs would prove much more helpful than those of the dog's.

The water splashing up from the rocks as the waves broke against them was icy cold, and the dog balked, knowing he would be immersed within it; sooner rather than later, too. He had gone as far as he could go, balanced precariously on the rocks, watching the tide and the swirling dementors far overhead. He stood, shivering already, from nerves and fear and cold.

Something flashed brightly in the water - far, deep down, and it caught the attention of the dog. Was there additional security in the water he didn't know about? And he leaned over the swirling darkness, trying to see into the black depths, but the flash was so faint... and then it was gone... like sparks or a flicker of fire quickly put out. But surely not beneath water. Impossible, that would be...

Then, suddenly, before he could stop and catch himself, the slipping sensation rose up his legs and he panicked. The algae was slick and the water, even in July, was so cold it was on the verge of freezing, and had created slick black ice on the rocks. His paws lost their grip and without proper preparation, the dog plunged headlong into the water with a shrieking yelp.

He flailed as the tide took control of him, grabbing hold with the strength of its current, tugging him away from the rocks with a rush, and then slamming him back into them, taking away his breath with the impact before dragging him back, further out. Again, with more force for the greater distance, he was slammed against the rocks, and his delicate rib cage cracked with a horrid sound and he tried to cry but there was no air to expel and the tide sucked him back, pulling him under the water.

How he managed to change, he could never say. Desperate times had always made him a bit more powerful at his magic than he was under normal circumstances, as though the rush of adrenaline fueled him. His snout drew back and legs enlongated. Hands and feet sprouted where there had been paws, and his hair lengthened, floating around his head in an ereatheral manner. He hung there, a man suspended by water, immobile for a moment as his skin absorbed the extreme cold of the angry sea.

And then he kicked.

He kicked and kicked, aiming himself upward, or what he hoped was at any rate, and reached with his arms until he broke the surface, gasping and sucking air in great gulps before the current pulled him down again. He fought this way for some time, his arms flailing and legs kicking, the sea pulling and tugging, trashing him about. He didn't want to be making as much noise as he was, but there was no way not to if he wanted to breathe, and he couldn't quite twist right to get his wand from the inner coat pocket where he had stowed it.

The waves has pulled him further out than the jetties reached and the water was even colder here in the open sea, Azkaban a dark looming shadow blackening the already dark sky, like a living nightmare, sharp and jagged. The current sucked him under and spit him out over and over so that he would choke on water trying to get air, his lungs filling and expelling it over and over...

And then he hit a random rock, a pillar of stone in the midst of the sea. He was slammed against it as hard as the ocean could do and his breath was taken from him, sucked back and smashed again, this time catching his head, breaking the skin and a great gash was upon his temple, momentarily knocking him out cold.

It was mere seconds, just a couple of seconds, that he was unconscious, seconds that he might have had, had he not bargained them away to the Time Thief once many years ago... but when he opened his eyes, the current had pulled him under while he was unable to kick, deep, so that the surface was but a looming ceiling. He tried at kicking, but the energy was gone from him and the current was far stronger now, his weight fighting against him, the trench coat and prison clothes adding on... He reached hopelessly, as though if his fingers could break the surface he could pull himself up, but he was so deep the little light above was fading, turning black, so that every direction looked and felt the same... The water pressure was building, pressing in harder and harder the lower he sank... crushing his chest, crushing his lungs... crushing his hope...

And Sirius Black gave up.