I should be asking you precisely the same question - though I suppose my question is - oughtn't you to be dead by now?

Sirius stood, staring, as the orange cat slinked through the shadows and into sight. His bottlebrush tail stood to attention and his yellow eyes glowed even in the dark. The cat moved closer, though not close enough to be within range of Sirius's powerful jaw, and sat on the very end of the first step that led away into the passage, so that the toes of his front paws were just off the edge.

No more dead than you ought to be, the cat answered.

Fair enough, Sirius said.

The cat lifted one leg and licked the fur on his foot primly, extending his claws out to show how they were freshly sharpened, and then withdrew them into his paw once more. He studied the dog for a long moment as he lowered his foot back to the stair.

You're here for the rat, I suppose?

So the rat is here. Sirius knew he was, he'd seen the photograph, of course, but there was something delicious and comforting about knowing that he was right, that it really was the right rat, and he hadn't hallucinated the entire thing as some side effect to his descent into madness in that cell.

Indeed. Roger's eyes flashed brightly.

I'm here to kill him. Sirius said.

I've been trying to kill him myself. But the humans keep getting in the way of it. Maybe you'll be able to talk some sense into them.

I don't plan to give them the opportunity to stop me, Sirius replied, and I certainly don't plan on doing any talking before I kill him. Talking is what always messed up old Voldemort's plans.

Roger hissed at the name.

Oh, come around, have we?

He killed my humans. I've spent twelve years trying to find my Harry again. Finally found him and what do I find, that old rat. Close as ever to Harry... I'll happily tear him to bits if I get him, but the other boy keeps getting in my way, carrying him about everywhere...

Well, Roger, said Sirius --

It's Crookshanks now, my Hermione renamed me.

Crookshanks? Thats a perfectly horrid name.

I rather like it. It makes much more sense than Roger ever did. Whatever is a Roger anyways? Awful, human name.

James always liked it.

Yes, well. My James was a special sort wasn't he?

He really was, Sirius replied.

They stood in silence a long moment together, neither entirely sure what to say.

Then Sirius said, Well, Roger Crookshanks, it seems we've spent the last twelve years in precisely the same predictament.

It seems.

So you're not going to stop me, then? From killing the rat?

I'd rather help you.

Excellent.

The pair of them silently turned and climbed the stairs, up - up - up through the passageway. They reached the top of the stairs and the cat pushed his way out from behind the portrait in the trophy room. Sirius hesitated, only his head poking through, his eyes not as sharp as the cat's in the darkness.

He paused at the display case, and saw - there in in what little bit of light came through the window, glowing a bit blue - the placard from the Tourney years ago. There was James Potter's name, etched into metal, and a thousand memories poured through him, nearly taking his breath away. It seemed so long ago, but yet could've ben yesterday all at once. Derek and Alex and Andy and Bilius and all the others seemed like ghosts hanging about the room suddenly and Sirius marvelled at how the hauntings were so vivid at times like these, and yet so faint at times when he wanted to remember them... How voices and images fade away, become tough to conjure up, and then burst in great color before your eyes in a moment when you least expect it, like bombshells in the dead of night.

There was a pause as the cat rubbed himself against the frame of the barely-open door and looked around in the corridor, purring loudly as his eyes flashed about.

It's all clear.

Rousing himself, Sirius followed after the cat.

They're all at Halloween in the Great Hall, Roger Crookshanks explained.

Yes, I know. Sirius replied. Perfect night for the murder of the rat, isn't it? On the anniversary?

It needn't be as poetic as all that, Roger Crookshanks answered. The sooner, the more perfect it will be. But the boy, Ron, may have the rat with him. He's been very protective of it since I've been 'round.

I'll lie in wait as long as I need to. Sirius shivered with the thought of the freedom that finally, finally disposing of the rubbish would bring. He may not be behind the physical bars of the jail cell in Azkaban any longer, but he was no less in prison now than he'd been then.

Together, their padded feet carried them up the stair well and Sirius instinctively skipped trick steps. Several of the portraits noticed the pair of them and a couple protested there being a mangy dog allowed in the halls of Hogwarts - "Cats, toads, and owls only! Who let this mutt in?" on pompous old man with a monocle asked as they slunk by - but most were too busy celebrating Halloween themselves to take too much care for two animals passing through.

Sirius's resolve was weakening every step he took, every familiar thing he saw ate away at his bravery and melted away small bits of the anger and tolerance he'd built up over the past twelve years, like dirt being washed off a mud-caked traveller.

These steps - these were the steps he once rode down on a stolen mattress. They were also the steps he'd danced and bellowed out the lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody before Minerva McGonagall's dazzled eyes. This trick step - he'd once nearly fallen right through it before he'd known it was there. Got his leg caught. Right there the bannister was scratched after Peter had gotten his head caught between the rungs when Sirius and James had turned him suddenly back into a boy without warning during one of their late-night marauding adventures... There was the painting of Ivan the Idiotic, who had accidentally turned his head into the head of a bullfrog and never been able to turn it back... They passed the prefect's toilet and the staircase up into the top of the tower, where he and James had snuck up to smoke many a cigarette... and then they turned a corner and there she was.

The Fat Lady.

She was drinking a large goblet of wine and preening her hair, looking about from her painted feast and staring up into a small hand mirror that usually sat on the short table before her. Sirius often wondered who she had been and why she'd been painted as she had, and what had earned her portrait a place among the hallowed halls of Hogwarts.

The Fat Lady stopped, lowering her mirror and glanced about the dark corridor. "Hellllooooo?" she sing-songed out.

Sirius ducked into the shadow beside one of the suits of armor, crouched low.

Roger Crookshanks wasn't bothered by the Fat Lady's gaze, and he walked on toward the portrait hole, his tail held high, purring.

The Fat Lady scowled, "Oh it's only you, is it, ginger? Better wait 'til your little girl is here to let you in." She turned back to the mirror in her fist and continued on primping her hair, presently beginning to sing, loudly and off key, some sort of odd operatic number that might have been popular back in the days when she was young and alive, which might've been about the same time that the dinosaurs walked the earth.

The orange cat turned 'round to face Sirius Black again. He let out a meow as he turned back to the Fat Lady persistantly, standing up on his hind legs and scratching at the portrait hole.

"Shoo!" the Fat Lady cried, waving her flabby palm at the cat.

He kept on at it, but the Fat Lady wouldn't let him pass, and turned back to her mirror and her singing.

Sirius's dog form shuddered in the shadows, the fur receeding slowly up his back as he unfurled himself up from the ground, the ragged prison garments hanging from his body like saggy skin, dirty from time in a cell and all the land he'd covered since his grand escape. He staggered, tripping slightly, unused to human form, and stepped out from behind the coat of arms.

"Open up the portrait hole, Fat Lady," Sirius said, his voice a growl, low and unexercised.

The Fat Lady stopped her singing abruptly with a gutteral stop in the back of her throat and stared, her eyes widening as she saw and took in the ghastly apparition before her. "You!" she cried out, pointing. Her mirror fell from her hand and shattered on the floor behind the table in her painting. She gasped, one wobbling fatty hand covering her mouth and the other pointing frantically as she stared, "It's you! It's Sirius Black!"

"That's right, you marmy old toad, and you best open up the hole into Gryffindor Tower or else I'll open it up for you."

She trembled, staring at him in disbelief.

"Open, I say!" Sirius shouted, his voice a snarl, "I know he's in here and I'm not leaving 'til I've gotten in!"

The Fat Lady's eyes widened even further, if that were even possible, and she gasped loudly. "So it's true, then... True that you've come.. for... for him?"

Sirius growled ferociously, "I said -- OPEN."

The Fat Lady steeled. "No," she said primly. Then, "That isn't the password." She raised her chin hotly.

Sirius pulled his wand out of his ragged robes.

The Fat Lady stared defiantly at him.

Suddenly there was a noise and Sirius looked up. There was the shimmering form of Peeves the Poltergeist. He gasped, a wheezy, terrible little sound and spun so that he hung upside down. "Mine eyes has deceived-ed Peevsy!" he cried out, "Is it possible? After all these years? Is it Sneaky Snoopy Sirius?"

Sirius didn't reply. He was too concentrated on his frustration with the Fat Lady. His wand aimed directly at the portrait, arm shaking with tension as the Fat Lady stared at him.

"Oooh," Peeves squealed with delight. "Nothing says nothing like a stand offy stand off!" He spun about in the air, and swept up directly between Sirius and the Fat Lady. Sirius's eyes stayed on her, despite the semi-transparent form of Peeves. Peeves puckered his lips, "I wouldn't use that wandy-woo if I was yoooou-ouuuu," he warned.

"Peeves, kindly fuck off," Sirius snapped.

Peeves twisted his form 'round and 'round Sirius's arm the way a snake might do and rested his chin on Sirius's bicep. "It's just that Dumby-Dumble-Dumble-doo has set a special enchantment on the castle.... They'll come from you from every corner of the grounds!"

Sirius's eyes unfocused from the Fat Lady and landed on Peeves. "What?"

Peeves cackled evilly. "Got'cha attention! At last, again, I have your attention!"

"What are you on about?"

"The Mentys," Peeves sang, "They'll come and --" he reached up, grabbed onto Sirius's face and gave him a very loud noisy, ghostly kiss on the mouth. "KISSY KISSY, SUCKY SUCKY, AWAY GOES YOUR SOUL INTO THE HOLE OF THEIR BIG UGLY MOUTHS!" He sang this last bit, spinning way from Sirius and into the air again.

The Fat Lady's voice trembled. "Yes that's - that's right, the Dementors - they'll - they'll take care of you." She looked 'round at the other portraits. "HELP!" she yelled, "HELP! GET THE HEADMASTER! GET DUMBLEDORE!" The words echoed throughout the corridor and Sirius's face paled as other portraits started to turn to look and he felt his face growing hot, Peeves still singing away, spinning around and around.

"Just open the bloody portrait hole!" Sirius tried one last time, glowering at the Fat Lady.

"I won't! I don't care what you do-oooOHHH!" she screamed the last bit as Sirius tucked away his wand and his form began to change, his fingers turning into fully extended claws as he rushed forward.