[4 Years Ago]
The North Sea.
It lies in a broad, windswept basin between the British Isles and mainland Europe - a stretch of water that has shaped the cultures, industries, and legends of every coast it touches.
Its surface can appear metallic and cold even on the gentlest days - a shifting skin of greys and greens mirroring the sky's changing moods. Sometimes glass-still and silver. Sometimes whipped into jagged, white-tipped waves by gales rolling off the Atlantic.
There was nothing gentle about this day.
The near-perpetual storm roared above, perfectly mirroring the one brewing in Orion's mind. Winds slammed against the sea in violent, uneven patterns. Waves rose steep and fast, stacking atop one another like collapsing towers. They crested in white fury before smashing down with a hollow, thunderous sound that seemed to come from all directions at once.
The horizon vanished into the chaos. Spray lifted straight into the air, blurring sea and sky into a single churning mass. Curtains of rain swept sideways across the surface, flattening wave-crests for an instant before the next furious gust tore them apart again.
Orion watched all of it through the small round window of his cabin aboard the Fata Morgana, the enchanted Ministry vessel that served as the only safe passage between the mainland and his destination. When the ship lurched into another sharp ascent - soaring over a towering wave that threatened to swallow it whole - he caught a glimpse at last.
Azkaban.
A shard of jagged black stone rising like a wound from the sea.
Once the home of Ekrizdis - a dark wizard predating the 15th century - Azkaban had been a place of horrors long before the Ministry claimed it. In life, Ekrizdis lured passing sailors with twisted magic, dragging them into his fortress to become prisoners and then experimental subjects.
Unlike many of his ilk, the bastard died of old age rather than by righteous wandfire - likely because no one knew enough about him to hunt him down. But still, no one could deny his power or knowledge. His enchantments were so potent that even after his death - centuries before such magics became commonplace - the concealments he had woven around the island took decades to weaken enough for the British Ministry to even locate it.
When they did, panic followed.
Officially, every scrap of Ekrizdis' surviving research was burned, and then the ashes were vanished utterly. Orion doubted that. More likely, at least one pristine copy had been delivered into the hungry hands of the Department of Mysteries - but that was the Ministry's problem, not his. And it wasn't truly the greatest worry.
It was what else they found that truly terrified them.
Because the place had been drenched, saturated, marinated in Darkness by centuries of atrocities - and that Darkness drew to it, by the thousands, what may well be the foulest creatures ever spawned on Earth:
Dementors.
Unkillable empathic parasites born from the concept of decay. Feeders on human joy and hope at best, on human souls at worst. Creatures whose mere presence drained color from the world. Their numbers alone posed a catastrophic threat - if they escaped containment, they would sweep across Europe in a black wave of death, despair, and broken minds, threatening even the then still young International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy.
The Ministry, desperate, horrified, and practical to a fault, found their solution under Minister Dugald McPhail:
They made a deal.
Prisoners - sacrifices in truth - would be provided for the Dementors to feed upon, under controlled conditions. In exchange, the monsters would remain on the island and act as its wardens. Thus Azkaban became the Wizarding World's highest-security prison…
…and one of its darkest sins.
And that hell on Earth was exactly where Orion was about to walk into.
The siren of the ship rang out, and only then did Orion realize - somewhat startled - that while he'd been lost in his thoughts, they had drawn close enough for him to clearly see the structure ahead.
It was tall.
That was his first thought.
The second was that it was cold - and for a moment he couldn't understand why he associated the monolith-like fortress of black stone with the sensation, until he noticed the frosting spreading across his window and the mist curling from his breath. He stepped back just in time for a shifting shadow to glide across the glass, visible only for a heartbeat before vanishing into the storm.
He didn't need to see it to know what it was - one of the demons of Azkaban.
A shout from outside snapped him from his trance. He secured the heavy leather-and-fur layers wrapped around his body, reached into the hidden sleeve pocket for his wand, and stepped out of his cabin.
He had barely crossed the threshold when a dark shape swept in front of him - his wand snapped upward on pure instinct, only for the creature to be blasted away a moment later by a glowing silvery projection of a turtle.
For a heartbeat, the sheer absurdity of the sight stunned him - so much so that he forgot to be afraid. The world corrected that immediately.
The ship lurched violently, as though smashing into something enormous. Orion's footing slipped; he pitched forward toward the storm-tossed sea-
-only for the ship's protective enchantments to rebound him like a thrown stone. Unfortunately, this sent him crashing backward into the cabin wall, bouncing off it and collapsing onto the deck in an ungainly heap.
"Oof," he wheezed as the breath was knocked from him, a groan of pain and disorientation following.
"You alright there, kid?" came a rough voice to his right.
Still dizzy, Orion turned his head toward the sound, blinking rapidly against the blurriness before remembering - belatedly - to push his glasses back into place. Only then did the figure beside him come into proper focus.
The man wore a long coat falling almost to his boots, made of a heavy material with vertical stitching, reinforced panels along the sleeves and lower hem, and narrow lines of muted, aged gold running along the seams. Beneath it was a fitted vest, fastened with several horizontal straps clasped tightly across his chest.
A high collar wrapped close around his neck, partly obscured by a grey cravat tied in a simple knot. His broad shoulders were protected by a rounded mantle of darker leather, secured with understated metal fixtures. His gloves were thick, crafted for grip and durability, and in one of them he held his wand - a twisting, curving piece of wood that resembled a serpent in motion, or perhaps the spiraling push and pull of a wave.
His boots rose to mid-calf, built with firm soles and layered leather plating for support against the ship's unpredictable swaying.
All in all, the man was dressed like a pirate - or a mercenary from some old fantasy film - and Orion had to admit, at least privately, that he found it awesome.
What wasn't awesome was his face.
He was… young.
Or at least he should have been. It was difficult to tell at a glance.
Age was always a complicated thing with magical folk. Nearly-centenarians could look like they were in their thirties, while others aged like Muggles and then carried on for a century and a half as wizened fossils. Even so, Orion considered himself better than average at guessing. And he didn't think this man had seen more than thirty years.
The problem was that he looked as though life itself had been leaking out of him in slow, steady drips.
His red hair, dulled at the ends and threaded with premature grey, hung with a tired weight. Fine lines creased at the corners of his light-blue eyes, eyes that seemed slightly unfocused at first glance - as if merely perceiving the world required effort. Dark shadows pooled beneath them, the hollowness of his cheeks sharpening the lines of his already long face. His jaw was tight, his features drawn, giving him a somewhat animalistic sharpness.
Orion suspected the man would have been handsome otherwise. As he was, he looked like the sort of person you would not want to meet alone in a dark alley.
That didn't mean Orion forgot his manners.
"I'm fine, sir. Thank you for asking," he replied in stiff, slightly stuttered English as he pushed himself to his feet. "Why are the Dementors attacking?"
The man scowled—thin lips stretching across his gaunt face - more emotion than Orion had seen from him during the entire voyage.
"They're not attacking," he said, turning his head toward the looming fortress and the many dark shapes drifting through the storm above it. "They're provoking me."
"Provoking, sir?"
"Aye." A shadow flickered behind the man's eyes as he sneered. "Folk will tell you the vermin feed on happiness and all that shite. And that may well be true." He shrugged one shoulder, a small concession. "But trust me - just as much as they love draining joy, they love the stink of misery and fear. It's like bloody catnip to them."
He punctuated the sentiment by spitting onto the deck.
"Every time someone comes," he continued, "they'll swoop close to the ship, act like spooky little bastards, freeze everything over, flicker the lights - pretend they've gone rogue. They'll never attack, mind you," he added with a humorless snort, "but they'll savor every second as you wonder to yourself, 'What if they did?'"
"I… didn't know that. None of the books I've read suggest they're so…"
"Smart?" the man echoed with a nasty smile. "Heh. Don't worry - that's only because people don't like to think about it. Not even my bosses." He tapped his temple with one gloved finger. "It's fear, you see?"
He stepped closer, his shadow falling unevenly across Orion.
"Those things are born from nature. They don't need to eat, sleep, or rest. We can't hurt them, we can't kill them - hell, we can barely even scare them off. D'you know what that means?"
Orion shook his head.
"It means that one day, they'll have grown enough in number that we won't be able to keep them in check anymore. And they'll be free to do whatever they want. And what they want," he stressed, leaning in, "is to spread misery and decay. The same shit that births more of them."
His lip curled.
"It'll allllll snowball from there. And soon enough? Soon enough we'll all be dead, and this giant ball of mud will be covered by the bastards. Dementors are the end of us all - the end of the world - and we know it. But we don't wanna think about it, so we pretend they're just another breed of elemental. Pretend we control them." He snorted. "We don't."
"…Right," Orion drawled, taking an awkward half-step back. "How long have you been working here?"
The man huffed. "Two months, twenty-five days, and fourteen hours. Just my fucking luck that the one time I apply, I end up with the last shift of the year. At least I've got less than a week left in this shithole before I'm free - with a fat paycheck and all the time in the world to try forgetting about it."
As he finished, the ghostly turtle Patronus drifted back toward them, completing its circuit around the vessel. It floated near him, circling, and the man's expression softened for the first time since Orion had met him. He reached out, running his fingers along the spectral shell. For a heartbeat, he looked a decade younger - enough that Orion had to reassess his guess about the man's age.
Then the Patronus faded a little, and the man turned back to Orion with a warning - firm, but not unkind.
"Do you want some advice, kid? I don't know why you're here or who you're here for, but give up on them." He jerked a thumb toward the looming fortress. "The people in there are only slightly better than the Dementors."
He paused, reconsidering, then snorted.
"Actually, now that I think about it, they're worse. At least the monsters are just following their nature. The people? They've chosen to be the scourge they are."
He glanced Orion up and down, expression shifting into something almost concerned.
"No one's forcing you to go inside, right?"
Orion shook his head.
"Fucking great," the man said, clapping his hands once. "Then turn around, get back into your cabin where it's warm, and I'll bring you some hot chocolate. I'll even give you a sip of Dreamless Sleep so you snooze through the whole trip. Best choice you could make - because whatever you're looking for, you sure as hell won't find it in there."
Looking into the man's pale, tired eyes, Orion seriously considered the offer.
For half a second.
Then he remembered all the times he'd stared at his own reflection, searching for answers that never came. All the sleepless nights spent poring over brittle diary pages. All the days wasted trying to piece together scattered half-truths from news clippings. All the political favors Helena - his sister in all but blood - had burned to clear the path that led him here.
No.
As tempting as the warmth and dreamless oblivion sounded, he had come to hell of his own free will.
And he wasn't turning back at the gate.
Once he said as much, the red-haired man shook his head and clicked his tongue.
"You're one stubborn bastard, you know that? Ah, whatever - not my problem." He reached into the breast pocket of his coat and pulled out a thick bar of chocolate. He slapped it into Orion's hands. "Here. That'll help some, at least."
"Thank you," Orion said, genuinely grateful. He took a nibbling bite, and warmth pulsed through his chest, spreading through muscle and bone, chasing away a cold he hadn't even realized had settled inside him.
They stood there for several long, uncomfortable seconds - Orion fidgeting, the man absolutely motionless, like something carved from weather-beaten stone.
"Uh…" Orion ventured, "how do I… you know… get there?" He pointed to the looming fortress.
"Why, swimming, of course," the man said, deadpan, smiling wide.
Orion paled, staring over the railing into the churning black water below.
"Bahahahaha! I'm fucking with ya!" the man burst out, laughing so hard he had to wipe a tear from his eye. "Come on. This way."
He turned on his heel and walked off. Orion, muttering under his breath in Portuguese, followed.
They reached the prow of the ship, where a ramp extended downward. At its base lay a small stone islet - flat, round, and deliberately unnatural. Its surface had clearly been transfigured smooth: a plane of pale rock amid the violent sea, shining wet under the downpour.
As they descended the ramp, Orion felt the moment he passed beyond the ship's protective enchantments. The wet and biting cold hit him instantly. Rain hammered against his hood the moment he pulled it up, stinging his cheeks and soaking the fur lining of his collar.
The red-haired sailor, seemingly unbothered, dug into the inside of his coat and pulled out a leather cord. Hanging from it was a strange key.
It looked ancient.
The metal was dark and pitted, patches of rust clinging stubbornly to its surface. Its bow was a wide, solid ring - thick, circular, worn by countless hands - engraved with a stylized A. Extending from it were two long, parallel shafts of metal connected near their base by a short crosspiece. And at the end, the bit was a clustered arrangement of squared, stepped teeth - compact, jagged, almost brutal in design.
The man knelt and brushed away the film of rainwater pooling over a small circular hole in the stone - one Orion hadn't noticed at all. He pressed the key into it.
A turn to the left.
A turn to the right.
Click.
The sound was swallowed by the storm, but Orion felt it more than heard it—an unlocking, a shift, as if something massive and old had stirred beneath their feet.
Then the sea began to rise.
Plates of dark stone surged up from beneath the water - rectangular slabs emerging in eerie silence despite their size. One after another, they rose and slid into place, aligning themselves with precise, mechanical smoothness. Each floated forward to connect with the next, forming a path.
A bridge of stone stretching from the islet out toward the howling distance - toward the island of Azkaban itself.
The man shouted over the rain that Orion only needed to head straight up the bridge.
Orion yelled back, "You're not coming with me?"
The man shook his head. "Protocol. I don't get far from the boat."
"Then how will I know where to go?"
"One of the Dementors will be waiting. They know what to do, and they won't attack you- probably."
He added, "Just tell it which prisoner you're here for."
Orion went quiet, swallowing hard.
"It's not too late to turn back," the man called, but Orion only shook his head and started walking.
"Good luck!" drifted faintly after him.
The climb up the bridge felt endless. Dementors drifted around him - some overhead, some gliding beside him in the rain, others sliding like shadows under the bridge's spine. None came close enough to pose real danger, yet the muffled rasp of their breathing and the low, distant moans that leaked from them were enough to soak straight into his bones. Every time one passed, the cold deepened - not the cold of weather, but something hollowing.
The faint light he had seemed to dim with every step. At one point, the world simply blinked out. He couldn't see. He couldn't quite hear, either - as if he were sealed inside his own skull.
What dragged him back was rage - hot and sharp enough to slice through the numbness. He scowled, snapped a piece of soggy chocolate between his teeth, and let the anger burn the fog out of his head.
That, unexpectedly, made him wonder if this was why the sailor - whose name he made a mental note to ask later - always seemed so perpetually irritated.
At the top of the climb, the fortress rose before him like a titan. From this close, he felt like an ant. The tower seemed to stab straight into the clouds, its dark stone impossibly dry despite the rain lashing against it.
And just as the sailor had promised, a Dementor waited by the door.
This was the first time Orion had ever seen one from this close and from stillness long enough to truly take in its shape.
It was tall. Much taller than he had imagined. People talked about Dementors in whispers, in warnings - but no one ever mentioned their size. He had expected something the height of a grown man. Instead, this one reached something near two meters, perhaps more, its narrow frame tapering downward into a shifting mass of darkness rather than legs. The cloth-like material that shrouded its body hung in ragged, flowing layers, yet none of them moved in rhythm with the wind.
Through the translucent folds, faint hints of a ribcage showed - thin, brittle-looking, and disturbingly hollow.
Its arms extended from the mass of its torso, impossibly long, ending in bony hands with narrow, pointed fingers.
The head was the worst of all: smooth and pale, skull-like beneath a thin covering of fabric, with empty sockets and a long, narrow jaw hanging slightly open. There was no face, no expression - yet Orion felt unmistakably watched.
He hated everything about it.
He especially hated that a small, traitorous part of him thought it looked… cool instead of disgusting.
He took one hesitant step forward - then forced his shoulders straight, scowling as he marched ahead. He stared directly into the Dementor's empty eye sockets, opened his mouth to speak -
-and froze.
"Who?"
The voice rasped out of the creature like air being pulled through a corpse's throat rather than expelled.
Orion's body went cold.
He hadn't known Dementors could talk.
He swallowed, breathed, and forced steadiness into his voice.
"Sirius Black."
The creature inclined its head. Then, without another word - if "word" was even the right term - it turned and drifted inside the nightmarish tower. Orion followed.
The interior of Azkaban felt like stepping into a giant tomb.
The corridor was narrow, slick with damp, the stone sweating with cold. The only light came from pale white flames hovering in metal bowls mounted sporadically along the walls.
With every step and breath he took inside the place, he felt as if something precious was being stolen out of him.
After the initial corridor, the prison opened into a wider chamber. From there onward, every wall was lined with cells.
Most were empty.
But some-
The prisoners inside weren't anything like the loud, defiant inmates in Muggle films. They didn't shout. They didn't rattle bars. They didn't lunge at the door when he passed.
Most of them cowered.
Human shapes curled into corners, knees pulled to their chests, arms wrapped over their heads as if trying to shut out the entire world. Many whispered to themselves - broken, looping murmurs, like they were praying to memories already half-gone.
Some didn't move at all.
They lay on thin beds or directly on the stone floor in twisted, uncomfortable positions, unmoving except for the slow rise of breathing. Others sat upright, staring at Orion as he walked by. They didn't speak. They didn't blink. Their eyes just tracked him - empty and resigned.
A few were violent, but not toward him.
One man clawed at his own arms until fresh blood dripped onto the stone.
Another slammed his head rhythmically against the wall.
Some of them screamed - not at Orion, at nothing, at thoughts he couldn't see.
One woman sang, loudly and horribly off-key, as if she could drown out the whispers in her own mind.
But the worst ones - the ones that made Orion's stomach twist - were the prisoners who looked… normal.
"Hey. Hey, hey, hey!"
The shout came from one of the cells.
A pale, portly man pressed himself against the bars - a greasy curtain of thinning black hair clinging to his scalp, a crooked nose between two frantic green eyes.
"Boy! You!" he cried. "Yes, you! Look at me - please!"
Orion stopped. He didn't know what he was supposed to do, only that not stopping felt somehow worse.
"Oh- oh, thank Merlin," the man babbled. "You're not an hallucination. You're not, are you?"
"N-No. I'm- I'm real." Orion glanced at the Dementor. It had halted, turning its faceless attention on him.
"Real. Real! Finally! I thought- I thought I'd be forgotten here!" Tears spilled freely down the man's cheeks. "My name is Reginald Pritchard- Reg Pritchard- they locked me up in this- this nightmare! But I'm innocent! Innocent, see!? I'm just a smuggler, I'm not a murderer! I didn't kill anybody, I swear! I told them! I told everyone!''
"I- what… what do you want me to do?"
"Here- look, right here, beside the cell- there's a hole, can you see it?"
Orion leaned in slightly. "Ah. Yeah. I see it."
"GREAT! Great, yes!" Reg gasped. "Now all you need to do- just take your wand- you've got a wand, right? Of course you do, who'd come here without a wand, ha- haha- hahahahaha-"
The laugh collapsed into a whimper.
"Just- put your wand inside the hole. That'll open the cell. And- and then we can go find the good Ministry folk, yeah? Tell them they made a mistake! They'll sort it all out in a jiffy!"
Orion opened his mouth. Nothing came out. His throat was too tight. He drew a shaking breath and looked sideways.
The Dementor hadn't moved. It only stared, silent, waiting, patient as the grave.
"C-come on, kid," Reg whispered desperately. "Quick. Please."
"I… I can't."
"You can't?" His voice cracked. "You can't. You can't? What do you mean you can't!? WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN'T!?"
The Dementor resumed drifting forward then - away, not toward them - continuing down the passage as if the outburst meant nothing.
Orion looked at the creature, then at the man behind the bars - red-faced, trembling, choking on terror.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. Then he turned and walked.
"Sorry!? What- NO! No, no, no, please! Come back! PLEASE! You don't need to do anything, just- just come back! Don't leave me alone! Don't let me forget myself! Please! I don't want to disappear!"
"I'm sorry," Orion choked, tears blurring his vision. "I'm so sorry. Please forgive me."
He didn't look into another cell after that. He couldn't. He kept his eyes fixed on the ground and followed the Dementor in silence, letting the sobs echo behind him until they were swallowed by the stone.
Coupled with the constant sensory battering - the cold, the whispers, the stench of damp stone - the labyrinthine layout made it impossible for Orion to know which direction they were travelling. Every corridor looked the same. Every archway blurred into the next. Even his sense of up and down warped; he no longer knew if they had descended into the earth or climbed above it.
Still, they stopped eventually.
Or rather, the Dementor did.
Orion barely halted in time, stopping just short of brushing its drifting cloak. He didn't know what would have happened if he'd made contact - beyond the very real possibility of a cold burn - but he was grateful he hadn't found out.
"Here."
The Dementor's rasping voice echoed like breath sucked through a grave. It pointed toward the next cell, then drifted away, gliding toward the entrance of the corridor to stand guard.
Orion found it absurd that it seemed to be backing off to give him… privacy? No. More likely following instructions from Ministry staff. Dementors didn't care about privacy.
He stepped forward - hesitant, unsteady - and the sight inside the cell forced a sharp, painful hitch from his lungs.
A man sat slumped against the cold stone wall, posture loose and boneless, as though just sitting upright had become more effort than his body could afford.
Long black hair hung in tangled, matted strands around his face, clumped with dirt and sweat. His features were thin and hollow, skin stretched tight over sharp cheekbones that cast gaunt shadows. He looked half-starved. Half-dead.
His clothes - thin, frayed, patterned in faded checks - hung off him like rags, the elbows worn through and the hems unravelled. His bare feet rested flat on the stone, nails discolored, skin rough and cracked.
His half-lidded eyes, grey and clouded with exhaustion, stared at nothing. Shadowed so deeply it looked like bruising.
Then, suddenly, they snapped toward Orion - sharp, quick, and startlingly alive.
And a line from his mother's journal surged, unbidden, into his mind:
"…and he has grey eyes - almost silver, really. I said they looked like a blade, and he told me that was because he was cutting up my clothes in his mind. He's ridiculous. And I'm even worse, because somehow I found myself falling for the scoundrel."
Those same eyes - now dulled, but still unmistakably silver - focused on him.
The haze receded slightly. Sirius's brow furrowed.
When he spoke, his voice was dry and unused, cracked from disuse, as if he had almost forgotten how speech worked.
"The hell is a kid doing here?"
Orion sucked in a shaky breath. He tried to speak - but the words tangled in his throat, caught on fear and disbelief. He swallowed. Tried again.
"Are you… Sirius Black?"
The man's eyebrow lifted. And faintly, distantly, Orion recognised that Sirius Black - gaunt, starving, half-dead - was still the sanest person he had encountered in this place.
Sirius glanced to his right. Then to his left. Then spread his arms slightly.
"Well, I don't see anyone else here today," he muttered hoarsely, "so I suppose I am."
The confirmation nearly knocked Orion off his feet. His knees wobbled, the world tilting, but he stayed upright—barely. A trembling hand plunged into his coat and pulled out a worn notebook. He flipped through its pages with frantic, unsteady fingers.
"D–do you remember what you did on Halloween of 1976?" he asked, voice quivering.
Sirius blinked, unimpressed. "What kind of question is that?" he rasped. The scoff that followed collapsed into a harsh, dry cough.
"You- you met a woman. During the trip to Hogsmeade." Orion pulled a photograph free and held it up between the bars. "She was a witch from Brazil. Brown hair, green eyes. Her name was-"
"Catarina," Sirius finished, surprising him with a faint, distant smile. "Catarina… Montegro? Something like that." He nodded slowly. "Yeah. I remember her. Older than me. Said she'd come to Britain to study dragons or something. I kept skipping class so I could sneak down to the village and see her."
His smile grew crooked. "She had the fattest arse I've ever seen on a witch."
Orion's jaw clenched so tightly it hurt.
"She's my mother."
Sirius blinked - then, absurdly, gave him a teasing grin, yellowed teeth flashing.
"Well, your mother has the fattest arse I've ever seen on a witch, kid. How is she?"
"Dead."
The word dropped like a stone.
Sirius's expression cracked. "Oh."
Orion sucked in a long, ragged breath through his nose, then fixed Sirius with a glare sharp enough to cut stone.
"Her name was Catarina Montenegro. Not Montegro," he said coldly. "She came to Britain to study the effects of dragon blood, and Dumbledore is one of the world's top experts. She stayed in Hogsmeade while she consulted with him. She met you there. You slept together. She fell in love."
Sirius's face didn't move - but something flickered in his eyes.
"She went back to Brazil when her work was finished," Orion continued, voice growing harsher with each word. "And you told her you'd write. You told her you'd stay in contact. Except you never did. Not one letter. Not one word."
His grip on the notebook tightened until it crinkled.
"A few months later, I was born. And she didn't tell you."
He swallowed.
"She didn't tell you because she thought you were too young to be a father. Because she was afraid you'd-"
His voice cracked, then hardened.
"-that you wouldn't care. Just like you didn't bother to send her a single damn letter."
Sirius's gaze dropped, unreadable.
"But she kept writing," Orion pressed, his voice breaking into anger. "She kept thinking about you. She told me stories about you - about how ridiculous you were, how much you made her laugh - and I kept asking her every night when I would get to meet you."
His breath hitched.
"And she always said 'next year.'"
A beat.
"Except next year never came."
He stared Sirius down, fury burning through the cold.
"Because when I was three, you were accused of murdering your best friend. And a few months later she died." His voice split open, raw. "Dragon Pox. She died alone. Thinking about you."
Sirius shut his eyes as if struck.
"And the only reason I'm here," Orion forced out, "is because even on her deathbed she still doubted your guilt. She still believed you couldn't have done it."
He stepped closer to the bars, tears hot on his cheeks.
"So tell me, Sirius Black…"
His voice was a low, shaking snarl.
"Was she right?"
Sirius stood frozen, shock carved into every line of his face, jaw slack as he stared at Orion—who was still panting from the force of his rant.
For a heartbeat, Azkaban held its breath.
Then a sound - high, delicate - broke the silence.
A titter.
It grew into a giggle… and then into an unhinged, bubbling laugh that echoed wetly against stone.
"Well, well, Siri…" a feminine voice cooed between hiccuping giggles, "did you put a pup in the belly of a mutt whore?"
She gave a scandalized gasp, sharp and theatrical. "But even if she was a whore - Aunt Walburga certainly didn't raise her children to be like that. So... ungentlemanly!"
Her laugh fluttered again, sweet and poisonous. "Come here now, little one," she crooned, voice dripping delight. "Come closer to Auntie Bella's cell… what name did your whore-mutt of a mother give you? Come here and let Auntie give you a hug and make everything all better."
Orion didn't see her face - only pale arms shoved through the bars, caked in grime, nails cracked and long like talons.
He glared, but didn't answer her. Instead, he turned back to Sirius, who still hadn't found his voice.
"My name," Orion said coldly, "is Orion Regulus Montenegro. And I'll ask again - are you guilty or not?"
Bellatrix laughed harder - much harder. The sound rose and swelled, scraping her throat raw.
"OOOOOOORION! REE-GU-LUS!" Her laugh went shrill, uncontainable. "HAHAHAHAHAHA! DO YOU HEAR THAT, SIRI!? DO YOU HEAR THE GALL OF THE WHORE!? OHHHHH, THE DISGRACE TO THE MOST NOBLE HOUSE OF BLACK! HAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Suddenly she cut off.
Silence.
Then a soft, marveling breath.
"Oh… oh. Orion Regulus…" Her voice dropped to an eerie tenderness. "That's- that's a good name. My sweet, sweet little nephew…" She giggled, dreamy and delirious. "With a strong name like that, you belong with us. Yes, yes- you should go to our house. If only you talk to someone from my… from our family, they will take you in."
Her hands trembled with excitement against the bars.
"A Black, alone in the world? Living like an orphan - how cruel! How miserable! Listen to me now, run along to Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, darling, and they'll strip that awful, filthy mutt surname off you in no time."
Another giggle.
"What do you think, Siri? Won't your mother love to meet your son?"
A soft sound answered her - a chuckle.
A chuckle.
From Sirius.
Bellatrix fell instantly silent.
Sirius pushed himself upright, still laughing under his breath as he staggered toward Orion. He stopped close enough to loom - and Orion instinctively stepped back.
"You want the truth?" Sirius said, head lowered, laughter shaking his shoulders. "The truth is - you're a bloody idiot."
He laughed openly now.
"You and your mother - idiots. Honestly, where did she come from? Falling in love just because I fucked her?" He snorted. "I suppose that's a compliment, in a twisted way."
He paused, sniffing.
"But since you insist - fine. Yes. I killed James and Lily Potter. I'm the one who led the Dark Lord straight to them. Satisfied?"
Orion's breath hitched.
"And your mum?" Sirius rasped. "Why not? Let's say I killed her too. I'm the one who got her into the Dragon Sanctuary, you know."
He shrugged, coughing a wet, broken laugh. "Oh, the things she did to me for that."
His lip curled.
"Now fuck off before I kill you too."
Orion pressed back against the cold wall, shaking, breath sharp and unsteady. Rage flared in him - he raised his wand, a curse forming on his tongue-
-but he stopped.
Hissed in fury.
Lowered his wand.
Spat on the floor.
Then he turned and walked.
"Oh," Sirius called after him, voice heavy with warning, "and don't you dare show your face to my family. I'd die of shame."
A cough broke his words, then-
"You're not a Black. And you never will be."
Bellatrix's laughter returned in a shrieking wave behind him, but Orion didn't look back.
He just kept walking, past the cells, past the stench, past the madness - until he reached the waiting Dementor.
"I'm done here," he said coldly.
The creature turned without a word and began to glide away, and Orion followed it down the corridor without once looking back.