July 29th, 1993

It was cold.

Even the layer of fur that insulated Sirius Black's body in his Animagus form couldn't quell the shivering that trailed through his bones.

His ears pricked upwards, hearing voices. Cocking his head to the side, Sirius - Padfoot, in this form - focused on the sound.

Bugger.

Now he had to shift out of his dog form. And be tortured by Dementors.

'What fun...' Sirius thought sarcastically to himself as he shifted into his human form, pressed up as far away from the bars of his cell in Azkaban as he could possibly get.

His nostrils flared out angrily as he made out the visage of the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge.

"How he became Minister, I'll never know," Sirius mumbled under his breath, resting his chin on his knees.

Oooh! Crossword!

His grey eyes glimmered mischievously. Sirius scooted closer to the bars.

"Good morning, Minister," he said innocently, wiggling his hand in what could have passed for a decent wave. "Or afternoon. Or night. I'm not exactly sure what time it is."

Cornelius Fudge turned sharply on his heel, his eyes wide.

"Are you done with that paper?" Sirius asked, tapping his fingers on his knee casually. "I miss doing the crossword. Done them since Hogwarts."

The Minister's jaw was practically on the floor.

'You have got to be kidding.' Sirius rolled his eyes. 'This is the bloody Minister now?'

He extended his hand out, palm facing upwards.

The heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black was a part of him, as much as he despised even the words of the family motto. Sirius Black raised a singular eyebrow, an aristocratic look glossing over his face as easily as breathing.

Lessons with Father Dearest hadn't exactly faded with time.

'The wizarding world is going to the dogs,' Sirius mused to himself, cocking his head to the side. 'Heh... dogs...'

He bit down gently on the inside of his cheek to not laugh at the unintentional pun on his Animagus form. It wouldn't do to look like you were insane, laughing at nothing.

But then again, he was housemates with his dear cousin Bellatrix Lestrange, and she was practically the definition of insanity.

"Sooo?" He drawled out the word, voice rough with the tone of a man who hadn't used his voice in years. Which, he was. "About that crossword?"

Sirius was definitely not expecting the Minis- Fudge - to actually chuck the newspaper through the bars of the cell, face drawn in revulsion.

Sucked for him; Sirius was well aware of what revulsion and utter contempt looked like on a person. Dark hair and grey eyes like his own-

He flinched at the memories that flooded into his head.

Drawing in a deep lungful of air, he let out a breath calmly, measured. "And something to write with?"

Fudge left without another word.

"Fucking hell," Sirius grumbled. "Something to do for the first time in twelve years that's not Exploding Snap with Bella for pudding cups and I can't even bloody do it."

He studied the crossword, eyebrows furrowing as he thought. He flipped through the newspaper absentmindedly. "Don't have anything to write with, could use blood if I found something to prick my-"

Sirius Black stilled.

His blood sang with a righteous anger, one that threatened destruction to anyone who crossed him or those he called his own.

Five out of the eight were dead. One a traitor. One who thought he was the traitor. One who had disappeared.

He wanted to throw up. That little shit he used to call a friend.

Sirius snarled, an animalistic growl that bore his teeth. He stood up, pacing the floor.

Eight steps and then he was at the other end of his cell.

Sirius Black swore violently. He swore again. He swore a third time, raking his fingernails through his matted hair. And then, purely for good measure of course, Sirius swore once more, slamming his hand against the bars of his cell with a cold fury.

The bars rattled, thick iron wrought cylinders that trapped him inside the hell that was Azkaban.

"THAT MOTHERFUCKING RAT!"

"SHUT YOUR BLOOD TRAITOR MOUTH!" came the answering screech, one that he distinctly recognized as Bellatrix.

He rolled his eyes, pressing his face against the bars and yelling back, "FAT CHANCE BELLS! AND I WANT MY BLOODY PUDDING CUP - WE HAD A BET!"

And now to figure out how to break out of Azkaban so that he could go rat hunting... again.

"I'm going to kill him," he hissed to himself, hands shaking as he continued ranting. "I'm going to kill him for James and Lily. And I don't give a SHIT if I die in the process." He inhaled sharply, his diatribe gaining volume even as he snarled animalistically. "PETER PETTIGREW WILL PAY FOR WHAT HE'S DONE AND-"

He froze, eyes drawn to the moving picture that was just barely visible above the fold of the newspaper from where he was pacing again.

There was no way.

     No bloody way.

"Coley."

Was he seeing things? It would be just his shit luck; seeing the ghost of his girlfriend as if she hadn't aged at all in the sixteen years, five months, four weeks, and one day since he had seen her last.

He lasted twelve years clinging to the shred of sanity that being innocent had given him.

Sirius' stomach turned. Was he going insane?

He couldn't focus on her. He had to break out to find Peter. And rip him to shreds.

Just doing the crime he had been sent to Azkaban for, anyway.

Hand trembling, he reached out for the newspaper, squinting as he tried to connect the dots.

It was her. He would never forget those eyes, her face.

Somehow, his girlfriend who had disappeared in the middle of his sixth year at Hogwarts had re-emerged, looking exactly the same as she had nearly two decades prior. With a different last name.

The sound of feet clomping down the hallway startled Sirius out of his trance, the man rapidly folding the newspaper and stuffing it into the pocket of his prison uniform.

Yard time.

The one socialization Azkaban prisoners were allowed. Sirius would rather rot in his cell than have a conversation with his cousin, but a commonality between the Blacks was their addiction to chocolate.

And there were Exploding Snap cards in yard time.

'It only made sense,' Sirius thought idly to himself as he shuffled to the small, dingy room that qualified as yard time in Azkaban. 'I'd rather wash Snivelly's hair than have a civil conversation with Bellatrix.'

So they bet their pudding cups on the outcome of the game. The other inmates learned to leave the Exploding Snap deck alone; nobody wanted to get in between the Black cousins.

Lost in his thoughts, the newspaper practically burning a metaphorical hole through his grey, dirty shirt pocket, he barely noticed that he was already sitting across from Bellatrix.

His hands moved without his brain processing the actions, lifting a card from his stack and resting it against another card to make a neat triangle.

It reminded him of James, really, and the Exploding Snap Incident of 1977. James' eyebrows and eyelashes had been burned off of his face from the fire that had erupted from their card tower. Nikki had laughed so hard she fell off of the bed she was sprawled out on, half reading a Muggle book that Lily had lent her.

His lips quirked into a tiny smile, smoothing themselves out soon afterwards. Never show emotion in Azkaban.

You die otherwise.

The parallels between Azkaban and 12 Grimmauld Place were uncanny, and the mere thought of it caused alarm bells to go off in his head.

"You're acting strange," Bellatrix said loftily as she placed a card on top of his. "Memories of dear wittle Potter?"

"You mean deer," Sirius replied absently, too used to the joke that James had used incessantly. "And I never realized you cared. Aren't I still disowned?"

He placed another card, finally looking up and raising an eyebrow at her. "You still haven't paid me your pudding from last game yet, you know?"

Bellatrix bared her teeth in a feral grin, eyes honing in on the newspaper in his pocket like an animal on the hunt.

She lunged for it.

His hand snapped up to catch her wrist before it could reach the paper, instinct cultivated from years of maniacal women lunging at him.

"Don't."

It was a warning. His voice didn't quaver, didn't yield.

He was dangerous. Sirius Orion Black the Third was brought up since birth to be the Lord of House Black.

     He exuded power with a mere whisper, a single breath.

Bellatrix snickered. "Have they finally reported your girlfriend's death? The redhead?"

Fuck it. She wasn't escaping anyway; he would have known if she had somehow become an Animagus.

"Nope, the exact opposite actually," he smirked. "Your turn, Bells."

"She's dead," Bellatrix scoffed, twirling a curl of kinky black hair around her finger. She placed a card down.

BANG.

Sirius' nose twitched, the loud noise dragging him into years that he had long since tried to forget. The war, the constant glances over your shoulder, the paranoia.

He recoiled at the acrid scent of burnt hair.

It was worth it, though, the smell that permeated the air and dug its way into Sirius' nostrils.

He burst into laughter, falling backwards and rolling onto his back as he gasped out through raucous guffaws, "Y-your eyebrows!"

Bellatrix Lestrange had burnt off her own eyebrows.

Sirius continued to cackle, tears leaking out from the corners of his eyes. "Maybe Voldemort would actually want to shag you, now that you're losing hair."

She let out an unholy scream, but Sirius pressed on.

"I could always figure out a way to make you bald like him, if you want!" He chirped innocently, craning his neck to find his cousin-in-law. "OI, RODDY!"

His summoning of Rodolphus Lestrange was a bellow, at a volume that drew the attention of all the inmates of Azkaban.

"RATE THE LOOK ONE TO TEN!" Sirius goaded cheerfully, wiping a tear from off of his grimy cheek. "Definitely could be a portrait in a Muggle art museum, Bells."

He pursed his lips, tapping his chin with his index finger as he thought innocently. "Would need a parental guidance warning though."

His eyes widened with an idea on how he would be able to escape without getting caught.

"YOU DISGRACE TO THE-"

Bellatrix Lestrange née Black's insult was cut off from Sirius Orion Black the Third's fist connecting straight with her mouth.

"Still got it," Sirius whispered to himself, smirking as the guards startled into action, dragging them apart.

'And now I lost yard time for six months... lucky that I'm going to be out by the end of the hour.'

The guards of Azkaban didn't notice or didn't care to acknowledge the mischievous look that crossed Sirius Black's face. They really should have.

His cell was empty by the end of yard time.

July 31st, 1993

"Oi, scoot over, will you?" Nicole Weasley rolled her eyes, nudging George with her foot as she wiggled out from the open window of Bill Weasley's flat in Egypt.

The Weasley siblings - seven out of the eight - gathered under the shrouds of darkness, sitting on the roof of the flat and looking up at the stars twinkling above them.

Nikki held her mug of hot chocolate close to her, letting the warmth from the cup heat up her hands.

"Hey, post's arrived!" Bill noted, reaching into his pocket and handing the owl bearing the Egyptian version of the Daily Prophet in its beak a shiny gold galleon.

The next words that came out of William Arthur Weasley's mouth were not ones that Nikki would have been able to guess even in a multiple choice of one.

"Huh... did any of you guys know that Sirius Black escaped Azkaban?" Bill's eyebrows furrowed as he read over the article.

Nikki choked on her hot chocolate, the sweet burn of the firewhiskey added sticking to the insides of her throat. Her stomach curdled.

"...I'm sorry Billy Boy, what was that?" Fred asked slowly, eyeing his older sister.

"Yeah, it's right here in the paper," Bill responded easily as he raised the copy in the air. "And don't call me that."

Nikki spluttered. "I'm sorry, it made the Egyptian Daily Prophet?"

Her voice rose with each word, sounding slightly hysterical.

Internally, she knew that Sirius would have been as smug as he had ever had been at the fact that he made international news.

Bill shrugged, setting the paper down on the roof beside him. "Considering that no one's ever escaped from Azkaban before this, I'm not that surprised."

Ron blinked owlishly. "How?!"

"Does it theorize how he escaped?" Percy asked, pushing the bridge of his horn-rimmed glasses up his nose.

"Woah, Ron!" Ginny exclaimed, eyeing the rat in her youngest brother's pocket as it wiggled. "Is Scabbers afraid of heights or something?"

Nikki tilted her face up towards the night sky, letting the cool air of an Egyptian night fall across her skin as she listened to Bill's answer. She took another sip of hot chocolate, letting the cocoa and the alcohol warm her up.

"He could be a Metamorphmagus - apparently that runs in the Black family," Bill began to list, ticking off possible theories on his fingers, "some kind of wandless magic prodigy, an Animagus - Dementors don't recognize animal emotions - or blackmail on one of the guards? There's a whole list of options, honestly."

Nikki spit out her hot chocolate.

Fred and George hid their snickers in the sleeves of their jumpers. Her facial expression was comical.

"There's no way he's an Animagus," Nikki said quietly, "He turned twenty-two like three days after getting sent to Azkaban. Nobody's an Animagus at twenty-two."

Her eyes landed on a star, the brightest star in the bleeding night sky.

'Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me,' she thought dryly to herself, 'he's everywhere now.'

Bill's eyebrows rose nearly into his hairline. "How do you know that? You and Perce were like four when he got sent to Azkaban...?"

Nikki scrambled for an excuse. "...Nature's Nobility! The pureblood genealogy book - it's self updating."

She flashed an angel smile even as her foot lashed out and connected with Fred's shin, unseen by the rest of the Weasley brood except for George.

Percy yawned, rubbing his eyes under his glasses. "I'm knackered... anyone else coming to bed with me?"

Bill, Ron, and Ginny followed after their brother, leaving Fred, George, and Nikki outside looking at the stars.

"Not too late, you three," Bill joked quietly, "or Mum will have my head."

He ducked back into the flat, balancing on the windowsill as if he had done this thousands of times before.

"...I really need some more fucking firewhiskey in this hot chocolate," Nikki groaned, running her hand down her face in exasperation.

George and Fred burst into laughter, clutching their stomachs as they wheezed and tried not to fall off of the roof.

"It's not funny!"

She paused, snorting. "...Maybe it is, a little. Bloody hell, I can't believe Bill bought that - I'm a shit lier."

George shrugged. "You probably could have told him the full truth and he would have laughed, not believing you at all."

"Yeah, Bill," Fred adopted a high, mocking falsetto as he mimicked Nikki, "so last year I time traveled back to 1976 and began shagging Sirius Black-"

He ducked under Nikki's attempted smack on the head.

"How violent!" He tutted dramatically.

"Are you guys still dating, anyway?" George snickered, "I don't think you broke up. What, sixteen years and no ring?"

George wasn't able to duck under Nikki's punch to his shoulder that time.

"Shut up, stop laughing, and help keep me from freaking the fuck out!" Nikki sighed, exasperated. Setting her mug on the roof next to her, she buried her head in her hands, fingertips rubbing circles into her temples.

"This is gonna be shit."

It was a simple sentence, but it was one hundred percent the truth.

Sirius Black had escaped Azkaban. Nicole Muriel Weasley was completely and utterly fucked.

Word Count: 2,721