Chapter 13: Prison Life

original by munsterfanatic

A drip of dew fell upon his face.

And then another.

And another.

He wondered where the suddenly condensed drips had come from; from whose piss and sweat the water of the dew drop had previously evaporated.

There was a soft giggle.

A voice, laced with a touch of madness, echoed out from the dark in a sickening childish sing-song. “Here they come. Drip drop. Drip drop. Drip drop.” Bellatrix’s pale hands clasped the bars lining the left side of his cell. “An itty bitty Sirius caught in a spider’s web. Down came Bella to chop off Siri’s head! HA HA!”

Sirius leaned back against the wall, folding his newspaper and closing his eyes. He refused to look through the bars at his cousin, who was only able to maintain what little that was left of her sanity by taunting him day and night.

“Sirius. SIRIUS. SIRIUS. Sirius.”

He didn’t fault her. He hated the mad Death Eater bitch with every fiber of his being… but he didn’t fault her. She was doing what she had to do to keep herself alive in this God forsaken place… exactly like he was.

“Did you know that Rosemerta used to suckle Lucius’ cock every night during seventh year?” Bellatrix giggled happily. “Did you know that, Siri? Did you know that he fucked her in the arse for a whole year? Did you know that she loved every minute of it? You could hear her screams through the silencing charms. Nasty little tart she was; passed around from House to House. ‘Rosie the Shrieking-Shack’ they used to call her.”

It wasn’t true. He had heard a different magnificent story of what a slag his old girlfriend was every day for the past nine years. The stories changed and contradicted and became wild and ridiculous. They were the ravings of a mad woman.

To Sirius… it was just white noise; white noise in this hell hole of silence that was only broken by the occasional screams of terror from inside Rabastan’s cell.

The cells in Azkaban were separated from each other by only a set of bars. Rabastan was to his right, Bellatrix to his left, and Rudolphus was around the corner. A single solitary wall blocked them from the Dementors that roamed the corridors. He had heard a rumor from some rather talkative Aurors that bars would soon replace the lone wall in the high security cells so as to ‘better keep an eye the prisoners.’ Getting too expensive to feed us I expect; Fudge must be hoping we’ll get kissed. I wonder how far apart they’ll be. I might be able to slip out as a dog.

A guilty voice in his head cried out, ‘It’s your fault they’re dead. You wanted Peter as the Secret Keeper. You belong here.’

Sirius quieted the voice with blank numbness. Any anguish he felt would be intensified tenfold by the Dementors. He focused on his innocence; his one thought that kept him sane.

Rabastan screamed rather inopportunely.

His concentration was shot.

Sirius sorely wished there were walls all around. He wouldn’t have to listen to the mad man’s shrieks. He wouldn’t have to endure his cousin’s torment. He wouldn’t have to watch Bellatrix and Rudolphus shagging. During his days as an Auror, he had been told that the purpose for the cell arrangement was to prevent the prisoners from being kissed through the bars, while still allowing air to circulate. But he had come up with a new theory that was based on the nightly ‘through-the-bars,’ coitus of his cousin and her husband.

It was to reduce the need for conjugal visits.

Sirius chuckled dryly to himself.

“Are you laughing at me, Doggy?” whispered Bellatrix in a deadly whisper.

Sirius stood, stretched, and, speaking for the first time in months, rasped sarcastically, “Oh no. I’m just laughing at your amusing story about Rosie… Of course I’m laughing at you, you mad cunt.”

Bellatrix moaned in pleasure and Sirius heard her shuffle closer to his cell, pressing her face up to the bars. In a trembling feverish voice, Bellatrix muttered, “Good. Laugh while you can. The Dark Lord will come for me, cousin… and when he does, I will rip you in such delicious ways. First… I’ll dig out your eyes with a sharpened spoon. Then, I’ll cut out your tongue with-”

Sirius whirled and shoved his foot through the bars, right into her overly pointed face. He reveled in the satisfying crunch as her nose broke beneath his heel. The black haired witch shrieked, rolling across the floor in pain.

“Ah… I’ve wanted to do that for years. Thank you, Bella. That was for Alice and Frank.”