the_debt_of_time

In the beginning, he tried not to think about them too often. Dementors sensed his
brief happiness and would flock to his cell to rid him of it. Terrified that they would steal
away his memories—the last vestiges of humanity he retained—he focused instead on his
innocence. Focused on Peter. Focused on his hate.
But hate has a way of breaking a man.
And Sirius Black refused to break.
He waited for short-lived relief when dementors were not in sight. He waited for
times when Aurors changed shifts, carrying their Patronuses with them through the halls
to protect themselves, or when escorting visitors, official or otherwise. Sometimes, there
were even days, like today, when the highest of the Ministry came for inspections.
Surrounded by silvery Patronuses that drove away the dementors, Sirius breathed a
sigh of relief at the absence of the horrid creatures, and leant his head back against the
cement wall of his cell, wishing it was a giant pillow and that, instead of a cold, damp floor,
he was in the warmth of a four-poster bed. Instead of the mouldy prison uniform, he
wished for Muggle jeans and his leather jacket. Instead of devastating loneliness, he wished
for a witch in his lap—his witch—running her fingers through his hair and kissing that spot
just above his collarbone before descending down the rest of his body.
"Still alive, Black?" a voice called from outside his cell, pulling him out of his dreams.
Sirius Black was not actually a murderer, but he could kill for such an offence. His
eyes turned upward to look into the smug, round face of Cornelius Fudge. Minister Fudge as
the Aurors called him. He stood there in what had to be an outdated by now pinstriped
cloak with the ugliest green bowler hat on top of his balding head, a rolled up Daily
Prophet tucked under his arm.
"Here for the inspections," Fudge informed him as though they were acquaintances
meeting for lunch instead of a convicted—as far as one could be considered convicted
without having an actual trial—murderer, and one of the men who had put him in that
very cell and literally branded him a danger to society.
Sirius silently scratched at the raised scar on his chest that identified him as an
Azkaban prisoner. Just one of the few scars he had received upon being dumped on the
wasted island in the North Sea. Another was a tattoo on his wrist, the only tattoo he had
not chosen for himself: a prison number. Because that was all he was now: a number; one
number in an ocean of screaming lunatics.