It lulls me to sleep.
Padfoot!
Who?
You!
Me?
Padfoot! PADFOOT! MANGY DOG!
Who are you?
Shut your bloody mouth and let me sleep.
How do you measure the moments that make up your existence? How do you know they are good or bad? Is it the food, the company, the solitude? Is it the heat between a woman’s legs or the way her neck arches? Is it the sound of Galleons in your pocket, a noble deed done, a revenge exacted? You have a lot of options, don’t you? You have a lot of standards, too. That’s because you’re a lucky bastard.
I weigh the invisible, inaudible, palpable ticking of seconds in the way it is affected by sounds. The wailing of the sea in high tide; the lone, desperate mosquito that has got itself tangled within my matted hair; the rattling of the Dementor’s breath; the manic laughter, futile supplications and maddening weeping of the inmates; the screeching that occurs whenever the metal plate morosely supporting my meals skids across the uneven floor; the inane noise that glows inside my head. Some of these give me peace; the rest do not. I don’t think I need to elaborate. I don’t have a lot of words to spare, when thought itself comes in brief spurts.
I was once called Sirius Black, among other names. I am now Inmate Number Twenty-Seven. I haven’t seen my reflection in a long time, the kind of long time where you give up counting how many days and nights have died. They haven’t yet been able to take away the ability of human skin to feel, though, so I know my lips, hidden underneath the bush of my beard, are overrun with cracks, my cheeks are hollow, my eyes droop with the burden of hunger, and my body is nothing but bones. I used to stink, but I don’t any longer. My olfactory senses have learnt to separate the ordinary from the unusual.
It pleases me that I can tell you about myself this much without being distracted, which is going to happen soon. Now. Ha ha ha. Fucking scum. Fucking, fucking scum. I will kill that rat.
I haven’t seen true brightness in a long time, the kind of long time where you give up counting the number of days and nights that have died. No flame burns in this place. The window - the hole just below the ceiling - gives me glimpses of the sky when it cares to. But it’s all grey. I don’t remember how many seasons there used to be. There was one that was hot and bright, and another that was white and cold. This greyness seems fairly new, a weather plaguing this sea and this fort. Still, it is something. It is light.
During the night, there is no light. Nothing is bright.
Oh. I’m rhyming.
Prongs. Prongs. Prongs.
Sings stinky songs.
Grows some big schl-
Shut up, Padfoot!
What? It rhymes!
Yes, I really want you to walk about school singing that just because it rhymes.
Hey! At least Evans would appreciate it.
SHUT UP.
Sometimes, if I dig my nails very deep into my skin, I can see clearer, even though it’s not really sight. It’s more like a vision. Hazel brown eyes that only smile. Better than a blanket when it’s chilly. Between the pain spreading from my wrist where the nails are cutting, and the inaccessibility of the image, there lies a certainty that I must hold on to those eyes and their smile.
And I try, and I can almost feel human during these moments. I can hear the waves louder and smell my reeking clothes and taste the pungent dust in the air. I can almost form my name on my lips and shake Inmate Number Twenty-Seven off. I can cough in protest against the arid sting of my throat. I can grasp the presence of this –I†- this shell of a man - and accept that I don’t have to like it. But the moments don’t last long and I hastily release my wrist and cry in agony and then it’s black.
It is dark outside as usual. But in my head, I can see a lake, its water sparkling in the summer sun. There is a tree. Four boys are sitting under it. One of them wears glasses; he has messy black hair which he likes to mess up all the more.
He says to me, –Why don’t you come home with me this summer?â€
Isn’t that what he really said?
I remember staring into an ape inside an enclosure in a large place where they kept animals and some people were throwing peanuts from a paper bag at it even though they weren’t allowed to and I hated it and I yelled at them and now there is a man standing outside my enclosure staring at me and though he has a roll of paper in his hand he doesn’t throw anything at me but he’s looking at me with a sense of wonder and I wish somebody would tell him to fuck off and maybe I can if I dig my nails secretly into my skin and it hurts and hurts and hurts and I cannot yet understand why but I am speaking in a calm and not at all hoarse voice and asking him, –Minister, would it be terribly rude of me if I requested you to leave your Prophet? I miss doing the crossword puzzle.â€
And I look at the words carefully and slowly and it’s wonderful but I can recognise them and I love the sound produced when I flip a page, and I do it again and again till I am back to the cover, and that is when I see the rat on the shoulder of a boy.
I yelp in surprise and then a dam explodes inside my head and it goes black.
Forever.
That word…
When I was with him, there was something glorious about ‘forever’. ‘Forever’ had possibilities.
Woooo…Hooooo! Good Merlin, Padfoot. Hahahahaha! This is amaaaaaaazing!
Told you it was better than a broomstick.
I should get one of these.
No, you bloody should not.
You greedy git! What will I do when you’re not around then?
‘Forever’ is merely a Boggart now, with the waves still crashing against the lower walls. But I still have James inside me, and that is something.
It was the rat that killed the stag. The year is 1993. I’m Sirius Black, once known as Padfoot, and it has been a long time since I was a dog, the kind of long time where you forget to count the number of nights and days that have died. There are waves licking at the bottom of this hell right now, waiting for me. It’s the only sound that I will be listening to soon the hour I finally break away, and when I’m ashore on grounds I wouldn't hate to touch, I know I’ll miss it.