Chapter One
November 2nd, 1981

"Those who entered to investigate refused afterwards to talk of what they had found inside, but the least frightening part of it was that the place was infested with dementors."

—J.K. Rowling

He had expected it to be more intimidating. In fact as he looked at it he realized that it was just a building. True, the building was isolated on a small island that was little more than a rock in the ocean and was surrounded by dementors. But somehow Sirius Black couldn't find it in himself to get worked up about that.

He sat in the middle of a small boat, surrounded by four Aurors all with their wands trained on him. He found this to be a bit comical. It wasn't like he couldn't escape if he wanted to. All he would have to do was get himself over the side of the boat and into the frigid water. Once under he could change into a dog and the shackles around his wrists and ankles would simply fall off. Upon not seeing his human self resurface it was likely they would all assume that he had drowned. Easy.

But what would be the point? What would he have to go back to? His life had been completely shattered in the past forty-eight hours. James and Lily were dead. Remus would blame him. And Peter, the coward that he was, had disappeared into the sewers after betraying his friends. They had been all that he had after he left his biological family behind at sixteen years old. Now he was left with nothing.

Sirius could feel the moment that the boat came in range of the dementors. It wasn't like he had any pleasant thoughts for them to feed off of at the moment, but all the same the icy cold of their presence hit him hard and he wasn't dressed as warmly as the Aurors were. A shiver shot through his spine and then shuttered through his appendages.

One of the Aurors smirked at him. "Best get used to that, Black," he sneered, clearly mistaking his reaction to the temperature as fear. "You'll be surrounded by dementors for the rest of your natural life."

The other Aurors laughed, seeming to find this terribly funny. Sirius remained silent, his features blanked of all emotions as he stared vacantly at the Auror who had spoken. The laughter awkwardly died off after a minute. Clearly they were used to getting more of a reaction out of the prisoners they brought here.

As they got closer Sirius gazed up at the dark creatures that floated overhead. He found it vaguely interesting that even after several had actively joined Voldemort during the war, the creatures were still trusted to guard the prison that would soon hold most of Voldemort's loyal supporters. But the Minister seemed willing to do anything if it meant making people feel safe again. Whether it meant allowing dangerous and unpredictable creatures guard criminals or it meant sentencing a twenty-two year old man to life in prison without a trial.

He didn't realize they had reached the island until the boat bumped into the rocks, jarring him out of his trance. The boat rocked violently as two of the Aurors stood and transferred to the adjacent land. Sirius waited until they motioned him forward before he gingerly stood. His balance was off due to the shackles around his wrists and ankles. He struggled to step out of the boat and onto the slick rocks on the island. No one offered him help, they simply watched as he stumbled onto the island. He really hadn't expected any different though.

As the other two Aurors climbed out of the boat, Sirius stood there and looked up at the building in front of him. The cold wind whipped through him, but he hardly seemed to notice. He just kept staring at what was to become his new home.

Azkaban Prison.

Up this close he realized that it was larger than he had thought it would be. And suddenly it hit him. This very well may be the last time he was ever outside, the last time he ever felt the fresh air against his skin. He took in a deep breath. The air was cool and smelled thickly of saltwater.

"Let's go, Black," one of the Aurors behind him said, giving him an impatient shove.

Just this was enough to cause Sirius to slip on the rocks under his feet and send him toppling painfully to the ground, only barely able to catch himself with his bound hands to prevent his face from bouncing off of the rocks. Apparently this proved to be even funnier than the Auror's joke about him being surrounded by dementors for the rest of his life as the men around him roared with laughter. Sirius clenched his jaw angrily. Was it really necessary for them to make this worse than it already was?

"On your feet," another Auror spat once the laughter had died off, nudging him with his foot. "We haven't got all day."

"This is where they all break down," one of the other Aurors commented, chuckling at the thought.

Sirius closed his eyes and summoned what little energy he could. He was determined not to go into this kicking and screaming. He would not complicate the process. If the general public felt better with him behind bars, so be it. He couldn't bring himself to care much, not after everything that had happened. While the Wizarding world celebrated the defeat of a truly evil man, to Sirius it felt like the battle had been lost. The war was over, and everything had been taken from him. This was now where he belonged. He pulled his feet up underneath him and carefully stood. His palms were bleeding from where they had scraped against the rocks. As he glanced down he could see there were holes in the knees of his pants as well.

Without being given much time to regain his balance, Sirius was roughly pushed along toward the prison. As they walked the rock gave way to hard earth under their feet. Sirius' eyes strayed to either side of the path they traveled. There were peculiar bumps in the ground every couple feet. They seemed to be too deliberate and too consistent to be a natural part of the island. That was when he noticed small stones at the head of each of the mounds. Grave markers. It was a cemetery. He glimpsed one of the stones that was close by the path. Engraved into the stone was not a name or even any dates but simply a number. Buried here were all those who had died while imprisoned in Azkaban. The graves went on for as far as the eye could see. These were the bodies of people who had been abandoned and forgotten by the outside world.

This was his fate.

He turned his head, unable to stomach the sight any longer. It was with a look of grim resolution on his face that Sirius allowed himself to be led up the path toward Azkaban. With each step he felt a weight fall on his soul. How had it come to this?

One week and two days before…

"It's brilliant, Prongs!" Sirius insisted.

But James shook his head. "I dunno…" he murmured, clearly deep in thought. His eyes were troubled and had dark circles under them. He hadn't been sleeping well lately.

The two of them were sitting at the kitchen table in Godric's Hollow. A mug of coffee sat in front of James, untouched. Sirius had drained his mug in several large gulps and was now feeling jittery, his leg bouncing restlessly under the table as he watched his friend.

"Think about it," Sirius went on determinedly. "With all the information Voldemort has about us, I'll bet my motorbike he'll know about the Fidelius Charm. He'll know that in order to get to you he'll have to find the Secret-Keeper. Everyone is going to assume that will be me. I'm the obvious choice. We'll let everyone think that. For once we'll have the upper hand; we'll be one step ahead."

James sighed heavily as he rubbed his eyes under his glasses. "But Peter?"

"No one would ever suspect," Sirius said eagerly. He had been obsessed with this idea ever since it first occurred to him. "Peter will go in to hiding and Voldemort will send his Death Eaters after me, which will be a dead end."

James finally looked up at him and met his eyes. He looked so much older all of a sudden. "I don't like offering you up as bait."

Sirius shrugged as he leaned back in his chair. "I can look after myself, mate."

But James shook his head, frowning. "You've had too many close calls already. Half of those Death Eaters have a personal vendetta against you in particular. It's too dangerous."

"You've got enough to worry about, James," Sirius said, the smile gone from his face. "Keeping your family safe, that's what's most important right now."

James looked at him in confusion. Then a small smile graced his lips, just a glimpse of the boy that Sirius had met his first year at Hogwarts. "Sirius… you are family. Surprised I have to remind you of that."

"Well then, this is what family does then, isn't it?" Sirius pointed out lightly. "They protect each other."

James chuckled as he leaned back in his chair. "How would you know, your first family was as loony as they come."

Sirius couldn't help but grin. Little did he know that would be the last grin that would be caused by James Potter. And it was the last grin that would grace his lips for a very long time. He reached over and gave his best friend a playful shove.

They lapsed into silence for a minute as the weight of the situation fell back onto them. They didn't have many light moments anymore and even when they did come about they never lasted long.

"Do you really think it'll work?" James asked seriously.

Sirius met his gaze as he nodded. "Yeah, I do."

"Alright," James relented. "I'll talk to Lily about it."

That had been the last real conversation Sirius had with James. After that everything had moved so quickly. Once they had agreed to make Peter the Secret-Keeper they couldn't waste any time putting the charm into place. James had wanted to tell Remus about the switch, but Sirius had insisted that the fewer people who knew the better. Remus had been so distant lately anyway…

Sirius regretted every single decision he had made over the last week. He should have let James tell Remus. He should have just stuck with the original plan and been the Secret-Keeper himself. This whole thing could have turned out so differently if he had just kept his mouth shut and gone along with James' original plan.

But he hadn't. And that had led him here. They had just approached a door made up of metal bars, the only outside door in the entire prison. The lead Auror banged his fist on a plate of metal that sat just about where a doorknob should have been. For a moment everything was absolutely still. Then out of the darkness on the other side of the door glided a dark, hooded figure. A moment later the heavy door creaked open seemingly of its own accord. He couldn't help but gasp lightly as he looked up into the hooded figure of the dementor. He had never seen one in person before and the description from his old Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook did them no justice.

"Prisoner X-Y-3-9-0," the Auror recited as one of the other Aurors pushed Sirius in front of the rest of them, offering him up like a human sacrifice. "High security cell."

There was a rattling noise from under the black hood. The four Aurors all took deliberate steps back. Sirius felt something pulling at him deep inside. If he had any happy thoughts left they might have been pulled away from him. But as it stood he just felt empty.

Without any further instruction, the creature reached out a long fingered hand covered by scabby grey skin. The sight was revolting. The hand grabbed Sirius' shoulder and it was so cold that it felt like it burned his skin under his grey prison uniform. He was pulled forward into the darkness of the prison and he heard the door close firmly behind him, echoing lightly.

And with that he was officially a prisoner of Azkaban.

The dementor had a surprisingly tight grasp as it pushed him through the darkness. At first Sirius could barely see anything and was stumbling along blindly. It took several minutes for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. He was led down a long, narrow hallway, the walls made of the same thick metal that the exterior was made of.

Finally they came out into a large open space. For a moment he was disoriented. His mind had to adjust to the fact that as large as the building had appeared on the outside it was even larger on the inside. Not only was the room he stood in enormous, but as he looked up he saw that it stretched upwards so far that he ceiling appeared as a small square far above them. And floating in the open space were more dementors than he could even begin to count. He felt a wave a despair pushing down on him, the emotion beginning to push away the numbness he had felt up until this point.

As he was still studying the dementors, he became aware of noises echoing throughout the space around him. The sounds of shouting, moaning and crying met his ears. It was the sounds of raw despair. The sounds of the prisoners of Azkaban. The sheer mass of the sound was staggering. The number of prisoners in this building had to be monumental.

The grip on his shoulder tightened to the point where it was painful. He was pushed forward, bringing his attention back down to the present moment. He wasn't sure where the creature was leading him for a minute. Then he saw the bottom of the ramp. He followed it with his eyes as it circled upwards, spiraling out of view. All along the ramp were openings that had barred gates, which he knew led to the cells that confined the prisoners.

He was pushed to the ramp and they started their upward ascent. This was unexpected. He hadn't imagined that he would have to walk the entire way to his cell. The Auror had said he would be in a high security cell and he knew what that meant. They were going all the way to the top. He looked up at the cell doors that seemed the stretch infinitely over his head. It was going to be a long trek.

As he walked with the dementor floating close behind him – seeming to get closer the higher they went – Sirius did his best to focus on his own feet. He didn't want to look into the cells as they made their ascent. He didn't want anyone here to recognize him. All he wanted was to disappear into this new existence. Even so, as they passed door after door he could sense movement out of the corner of his eyes. As they passed many of the prisoners moved to their doors to investigate. New prisoners must be the only form of entertainment they were able to have in this place.

For the most part he was met with unintelligible shouts that he just let wash over him without much thought. It wasn't until twenty minutes into the upward trek, when Sirius was starting to feel short of breath and his muscles were starting to burn with protest that he heard a deep, hoarse voice the cut through the rest of the noise.

"Is that Sirius Black?"

It was enough to cause him to stop in his tracks as he looked around wildly, but he couldn't find the source of the voice.

"Sirius Black? Can't be." It was another hoarse voice, this time distinctly female.

His lack of movement wasn't tolerated for long. Just a moment later the dementor drifted up behind him and he felt the icy cold of the creature's hand tear into his back as it pushed him forward. Sirius stumbled, feeling completely disoriented.

"What would Sirius Black be doing here? You've lost your mind, old man."

"Well, that's beside the point." This statement was followed by manic laughter that made the speaker sound very unhinged.

Suddenly there were whispers coming from all around him. His name was echoed throughout the cells, passed along from one prisoner to the next as the news seemed to spread like wildfire. He flinched every time he heard his name hissed through the bars of the prison as if they were physical assaults. He tried to move faster, desperate to get to the isolation that his cell was sure to provide, but he was quickly tiring as they climbed higher and higher. His muscles were starting to weaken and as he looked up he couldn't see the end of this hellish journey.

Sirius did his best to try and retreat within himself, a protective instinct that he had developed very early on in his life. His legs worked mechanically as he continued to progress, but everything else slowly faded away. The noises washed over him as he stopped listening to the words being said. His eyes dulled as they only took in the necessary details to keep him on the path. He lost all track of time and focused solely on keeping himself moving.

Therefore when a boney hand reached out and grasped his shoulder tightly, digging into his skin he had no idea what was going on. He had been forcibly brought to a stop and he blinked around, confused. That's when he realized that they had stopped in front of a cell that's door was wide open. He looked up. The ceiling hung just a few feet over his head. They had come to the top of the structure. This was his cell.

As he moved toward the opening he took a quick inventory of his surroundings. It seemed quieter up here, though the noises could still be heard echoing up from below. There was no movement from any of the other nearby cells that he could glimpse. Either they were empty or their occupants were too far gone to care about anything outside of their cells.

Finally he took the last steps into his cell. As he crossed the threshold the shackles around his wrists and ankles seemed to melt away, stripped away by some sort of spell. Just a second later the door slammed shut behind him. Then there was the groan of a rusted lock being slid into place. He felt his heart twisting painfully in his chest as his stomach dropped to somewhere down by his feet. He thought he could handle this. But everything was finally hitting him in that moment.

Peter had betrayed them all.

James and Lily were dead.

Remus would blame him.

And Sirius would never see any of his friends again. That thought brought him crashing to his knees as a sob tore through his chest, though tears refused to fall. His gaze drifted to the ceiling as if he could see to a place that lay just beyond and finally he spoke for the first time since he had confronted Peter the day before, his voice rough and broken as it echoed back to him in the empty prison cell.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Azkaban Prison: Day One