A Sirius Night for Azkaban

A Sirius Night for Azkaban

By Briony M. Coote

*~*~*

Stan Stonewall, quietly known as Stan the Sadistic, or just plain "Stony", was pacing the Azkaban corridors, prowling for the most suitable prisoner to receive this most impatient bucket of slops over the head. He stopped at one cell and sloshed the bucket with hopeful menace.

The deranged, babbling prisoner within couldn't even notice, much less flinch. Damn. Stan pouted in exasperation. That was the trouble with so many of them going gaga so quick. They became such drooling, babbling idiots that they couldn't even comprehend what you were doing to them. What was the point in dumping a bucket of slops over their heads if they were too mad to even notice?

Stan pouted even more ruefully. He had thought that getting a job in Azkaban would be the perfect career for a respectable sadist like him. That was why he had responded to the question "Why do you want a job in Azkaban?" with the answer "I'm a nasty piece of work, but didn't quite cut it as a Deatheater" on the application form. That was good enough for the Ministry; they were so desperate to find Azkaban guards that they would take on any wizard. You could say, "I'm desperate for a job", "I'm out of my skull", "You-Know-Who turned me down" - and they'd still take you on regardless...but it turned out that the job was not so perfect for a respectable sadist. How can you get any real buzz of sadism when your victims are too damn gaga to even notice?

Stan then realised that he needed to pick on a prisoner who wasn't so gaga in order to make it worthwhile. So he scoured his memory for such prisoners...

His face lit in glee as the very person sprang to mind - Sirius Black. Yes, he would go and dump the slops on Sirius Black's head! That would teach Black. That upstart was a sheer embarrassment, a disgrace to the name of Azkaban because he had stayed so...sane. Yes, he had stayed s*** in Azkaban, the place which prided itself on rapidly pushing its prisoners over the brink of insanity. To stay s***here was an utter affront, a shameful reflection on the Establishment. It was totally unforgivable, an insult that could not be passed over - and he wasn't going to, either.

He banged open Black's cell door and flourished his slop bucket sadistically at that pathetic heap of filthy rags lying in the corner. He paused for a moment at it, thinking for a moment that it seemed such a shame to waste of perfectly good slops on something that couldn't get much filthier. Oh, well...

Stan the Sadistic stepped forward. His foot connected with the bowlful of mush that was meant to be for Black's supper that night. The mush slipped right under his foot. Stan the Sadistic went flying upwards as Black's mush landed against the wall and splattered some etching that looked like a rat with a murderously etched "X" scoured through it. Stan the Sadistic crashed right on his bottom and his posterior squealed in protest.

Then the bucketful of slops sailed over and landed neatly on Stan the Sadistic's head.

*~*~*

Dan the Depraved was heading towards the front door of Azkaban. He had just knocked off duty. As always with Dan the Depraved, this had included selecting at least a dozen prisoners to use as impromptu hookers. He was fresh out of the last one - boy, did he love that Bellatrix Lestrange! She really turned him with her frenzied drivel about what a filthy half-blood he was, who was not worthy to even view her pure-blood unmentionables with his even more unmentionable half-blood unmentionables. It was no wonder that he had made a regular stop at her cell for over twelve years. How come she never caught on? All the other Deatheaters in that cellblock had long since figured it out - but then, why complain?

Suddenly, his ears prickled as he heard a strange sound. It was faint, but clear enough to hear like something clicking against the stone paving. He turned back to see a silhouette barely discernible against the darkness of Azkaban (and growing darker every minute).

"Lumos," he breathed, and the tip of his wand contrasted brightly against the darkness. He swung his wand around towards the blackness of the corridor.

It was then that Dan the Depraved leapt about ten feet in the air and started shrieking with such violence it would put any Azkaban prisoner to shame.

"GRIM! GRIM! GRIM!" He yelled at full volume as he started blasting an extremely bony Grim with all the makings of Coyote trying to blast Roadrunner with an over-sized blunderbuss.

It was with all the efficiency of Coyote trying to blast Roadrunner with an over-sized blunderbuss, as well - just look at all those holes that Dan was making in the corridor. By the time the smoke had cleared, all that was left was the most air-conditioned section in the whole of Azkaban (check that - the only air-conditioned section in the whole of Azkaban) and Dan the Depraved gibbering on the floor looking like Bugs Bunny discovering carrots had become extinct, moaning: "I saw the Grim...I saw the Grim..."

And there was a big gaping hole in the front door of Azkaban. It was shaped like a Grim smashing through with all the speed of Roadrunner.

*~*~*

The chisel-faced Governor Gore stood scowling and wrinkling his nose at the wizard with a slop bucket jammed firmly on his head. Overhead, the portraits of the Founder of Azkaban and former Governors scowled equally disapprovingly.

"Stonewall, why have you come to me with what looks and smells like a slop bucket over your head? This really is the limit! It's the prisoners' job to stink like hell, not ours."

Stan the Sadistic's voice boomed from within the depths of the slop bucket. Its acoustics amplified the quavers of nervousness in his voice. "Sir, I went to Black's cell to dump this bucket on his head."

"So why is the bucket on your head and not Black's?"

"I got my foot in his mush, sir."

"That does not explain why you did not dump the bucket on his head. Now why was that?"

Because he...uh...wasn't in..."

"So you had to dump it on your head instead. I see. Dismissed." He waved a withering hand at the door. Moaning from the depths of the bucket, Stan the Sadistic minced towards the door, rubbing his posterior which was still squealing furiously.

Moments later, Governor Gore came charging out of the door. His voice hollered frantically down the corridor, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN, HE WASN'T IN?!?"

*~*~*

"You're going to have to speak louder, Gore!" Fudge's voice yowled irritably from the other end of the Floo fireplace. "I can't hear you above all that screaming in the background! And what IS all that screaming in the background, anyway?"

"IT'S THE PORTRAITS OF MY PREDECESSORS!" Gore's voice screamed to its highest pitch. "THEY'RE ALL SCREAMING BECAUSE WE'VE HAD A BREAKOUT!"

And indeed they were. All four walls of Gore's office had become a kaleidoscopic contortion of screaming, clawing, shrieking and cursing that Mrs Black would envy. The walls pounded on Gore's ear-drums like a heavy metal concert amplified by the acoustics of Stan's slop bucket.

"YOU HAVE SHAMED THE NAME OF GREGORY GRIDIRON, GREAT FOUNDER OF AZKABAN!" Gregory Gridiron was just about in tears as he tore out his hair and dropped them into Governor Gore's Fire Whiskey.

"YOU ARE A DISGRACE TO THE NAME OF AZKABAN!" shrieked a second portrait.

"Just a minute! A disgrace to the name of Azkaban? That's not saying much, is it?" A third interjected.

"YES, BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT!" shrieked the first portrait. A violent flash shot out from its wand and burned the third portrait to a bright red crisp.

"I WAS SO PROUD OF MY MOTTO, NOBODY ESCAPES FROM AZKABAN! NOW I'LL HAVE TO THINK OF ANOTHER ONE! AAGGHH!" So shrieked poor old Gregory Gridiron.

With all this racket going on, it was a pure miracle that Fudge's voice somehow cut through to say:

"CAN'T HEAR YOU!!! YOU HAD A WHAT?!?"

Gore completely lost his cool and hauled the rest of his body into the Floo fireplace and out the other end into Fudge's office. The cacophony mercifully shut off like a TV set. Panting and heaving, Gore at last managed to deliver his message to Fudge.

Moments later Gore ducked back through the fireplace to escape the deafening cacophony of shrieking Fudge, shrieking portraits of Fudge's predecessors and the shrieking throng of Magical Law Enforcement squads. Only he forgot the shrieking portraits of his predecessors back at his own end...

*~*~*

The guards looked on glumly as the gibbering, maddened, and now stone deaf wreck of their former Governor was hustled away in a straitjacket to his new home in the Insane Ward of St Mungo's.

"Merlin, that's the second one this evening. Dan's already gone mad because he thinks he saw some Grim in the corridor," muttered Bruno the Brute sulkily. "And we had to make some fast repairs to the front door or we'd have had more prisoners running wild!"

"And it's supposed to be the prisoners who go mad, not us! It's most embarrassing!" Carlos the Cruel croaked in shame.

"Pity we had to lose our new air-conditioned corridor, though," said Hank the Horrible. "It was so nice to breathe fresh air in Azkaban for a change."

*~*~*

Hank the Horrible stood so thoroughly fed up in a pile of mounting muck coming from somewhere in the depths of the prison. "Is this all so bloody necessary?" He fumed sniffily.

"You heard what Fudge said!" snapped Carlos the Cruel. "Leave no stone or speck of dirt unturned!"

"Yeah, but I really wish you'd find somewhere else to put it! I'm up to my waist in this muck and the rats are positively loving it!" Hank cursed and shot his wand at the latest rat that was finding him positively attractive. (Finally - something that finds Hank the Horrible attractive!)

"Oh, lucky you," said a very sulky voice. "What I wouldn't give to be hiding in a mountain of dirt right now!" It was Len the Lecherous (for obvious reasons). Len the Lecherous had been assigned the task of casting his Patronus (which took the form of the most gorgeous sado-machismo mistress with the largest bullwhip you ever saw) at any Dementor which got a little too angry once it learned that it had been cheated of one of its Azkaban victims for the very first time in its life (that's assuming a Dementor has a life).

"What are you talking about, Len?" Hank snapped. "You know that all this muck" - here he waved at the pile of dirt that was now up to his chest - "is no defence against Dementors! They absolutely love the stuff! Not to mention all these horrible rats!" He howled suddenly as another rat found him singularly attractive.

"I'm talking about that rampaging mob of Daily Prophet reporters that are pounding at our gate!" Len paled in horror at the thought. "Would you believe we've got Cassie the Cutting Cartoonist and that Skeeter woman! I saw Skeeter's quill myself! It's going into hyperdrive! I dread to think what muck she's dredging up against us!"

"She's more than welcome to dredge up this muck," Hank pouted sulkily, his arms folded. Or rather, folding as best they could against the mountain of muck that was accumulating around his chest.

*~*~*

"How are you getting on with the interrogation?" demanded Stan the Sadistic. He had finally liberated himself from that slop bucket though he still smelt embarrassingly like an Azkaban prisoner. Now in a true display of how desperate they all were for answers (and to show that the Ministry was not full of morons), Fudge had ordered all the Deatheaters to be dragged from their cells and dosed with Veritaserum until they produced the desired results. ("Surely at least one of them must know something?")

However, the results were proving most disappointing. Dolohov, for example, just kept saying that he was too busy throwing up his mush to notice anything else that was going on at the time, and anyway, whenever he did hear anything from Black's direction, it was Black howling and barking to show how barking mad he was. The most interesting, if unrewarding, response was Bellatrix Lestrange shrieking in her finest imitation of Mrs Black yet:

"HOW DARE HE!" HOW DARE THAT BLOOD TRAITOR COUSIN OF MINE ESCAPE BEFORE US, THE LAST TRUE PUREBLOODS OF THE NOBLE AND ANCIENT HOUSE OF BLACK! WE WERE TO BE THE FIRST TO ESCAPE FROM AZKABAN WHEN THE DARK LORD CAME TO RESCUE US! AND HOW DARE YOU" - here she shot her blackest look yet -"DARE TO BEFOUL ME WITH YOUR FILTHY HALF-BLOOD UNMENTIONABLES! FOR THAT MATTER, I AM SURPRISED YOUR UNMENTIONABLES ARE EVEN WORTH MENTIONING, YOU FILTHY HALF-BLOODS! YOU FREAKS, YOU ABOMINATIONS WHO DARE TO GUARD OVER ME! ME! ONE OF THE LAST TRUE PUREBLOODS OF THE NOBLE AND MOST ANCIENT HOUSE OF BLACK..."

Oh yes. Bellatrix Lestrange was in definitely in rare form that night.

*~*~*

Next morning the Daily Prophet told it all: ESCAPE FROM AZKABAN! The headline was plastered across the front page in World War Three-sized lettering. Below it blinked the soon-to-be notorious picture of the sunken-faced "filthy layabout" (Uncle Vernon is so poetic) which would be plastered everywhere that every witch and wizard looked. Not to mention being plastered all over the four walls of the Guard Room where the multiple copies of Sirius' face yelped like dogs because the guards kept throwing darts, curses, and anything else they could find at them.

As it turned out, Rita Skeeter's quill needn't have bothered. The Editor was quite satisfied that the news alone would be all sensationalist by itself without wandering all over creation. Rita Skeeter and her quill were rather put out at this, but then the news was so sensational that nobody would have taken any notice of any Rita Skeeter sensationalism anyway.

But that was of little comfort to the Azkaban guards. That front page was the most galling thing they had ever read in the Daily Prophet. At least, they thought it was until they turned the page. Page two was waiting to greet them with Cassie the Cutting Cartoonist's most cutting cartoon of the Azkaban guards, both Dementor and otherwise - chasing Sirius Black through the corridors of the proudly impregnable wizard prison with all the finesse and efficiency of Coyote chasing Roadrunner with an over-sized blunderbuss.

THE END OF THE GLORIOUS ERA, 'NOBODY ESCAPES FROM AZKABAN'