Grim Spectre

The dog winced slightly from the sharp cobbles which jabbed its feet as it skittered desperately down the harsh-hewn stone path which led up to the dreaded gates of Azkaban. Twelve years ago this same path had been deemed the one-way path for the unbelievably unfortunate, innocent man who lay disguised under the forlorn, scraggly, moth-eaten coat. But in a matter of seconds the prison alarms were bound to declare out otherwise. The dog knew from years of observation that the guard did his round on the maximum security cellblock approximately half an hour after the evening supper. Of course the prisoners had no time piece to tell them it was half an hour, but those who were still coherent enough could always come with something that worked as a rough translation to time the various guards‘ movements to precision.

The dog had been rather preoccupied with dodging Dementors and squeezing through barred grilles to consider using its usual rough translation to work out the timing of the evening patrol guard. But the dog knew it could not be long now. In a matter of minutes, maybe seconds, or even the next second - the guard would discover that the most infamous prisoner in Azkaban was not in his cell, and he would raise those dreaded alarms.

The awful thought that the alarms could go off any second kept shooting knots of dread coiling through its insides as it crept even more frantically towards the water’s edge. The full moon showed up its poor, woebegone coat even more sharply as the dog finally reached the waves that lapped the rocky shore.

The dog dipped its paws into the waves. It yelped back for a moment as its paws were bit sharply by the icy cold. It cowered by the water’s edge, feeling too overwhelmed by the daunting, long chill that lay before it to continue any further.

But now the alarms were finally set off. They trilled and clanged into the moon-filled night, scaring the living daylights out of the poor dog on the shoreline. Lights sprang to life within the normally dark, dank fortress, and the dog thought it seemed to hear faint cries of alarm floating down from the ramparts.

The dog was hit by a panic-stricken jolt, as if it had been hit by a bolt of lightning. Now, without a second thought about any freezing, icy waters, the dog leapt into the waters. It mindlessly and desperately, pedalled and pawed its way away from that awful noise as hastily as it could, before any search parties or penetrating lights might sweep the rocky beach outside, or even catch sight of that black head nosing its way through the water…

The alarms might have been growing a little fainter now. Perhaps they were not. Whatever the case, they still boomed within the poor dog’s head as if it were a clapper within a bell. The dog continued to pedal most desperately, but now seemed to flounder against the ghastly, icy, watery blackness that pitched and turned, tossing the hapless dog to and fro.

The dog hardly seemed to notice that the iciness was now seizing up its already weakened, atrophied muscles, or how numb it seemed to be growing under its enfeebled coat…

The dog hardly seemed to notice that it had now stopped dead in the water. It was now floating limply, like a great lump of flotsam.

It lapsed into the unconsciousness that all adventurers dread when they are lost in the cold and their bodies can no longer withstand the cruel elements…

Within the hour, the poor dog lay completely dead where it had merely stopped dead before. The new-made carcass was now pitching obliviously on the waves, and drifting aimlessly to wherever the tide would discard it.

Above the floating carcass was its soul. The soul, too, was floating. Floating towards the Light where all souls must go towards once they relinquish their mortal shells.

With some exceptions, that is. The exceptions who start to float away - but then pause - and come back down to the mortal plane. These were the ones who chose to stay behind as a “feeble imitation” of their former selves, as Nearly-Headless Nick was to so eloquently put it. The ones who chose to stay because they could not face death, as in the case of Nearly-Headless Nick - or there was something on the mortal plane that kept them from going to the Light.

In the case of this soul, there was something very definitely holding it back, and would not allow the soul to move on. The very thing that had driven it out of that unspeakable, dank fortress in the first place.

The Rat.

His Oath. His solemn, passionate, obsessive avowed promise to the Rat. And to Harry Potter.

The image of that smug little rat, in just the right position to strike at Harry, blazed gallingly inside the dead dog’s mind. Just as it had done for this past week when Fudge had passed in that fateful Daily Prophet through the bars and set the prisoner pacing ceaselessly in that dismal pit he had been rotting in for the past twelve yars. From the moment the prisoner had seen that photograph, he knew he was the only one who knew that the Rat was at Hog warts - in the perfect position to strike at Harry the moment he received the sign from Voldemort. That single photograph and its article had given the long-languishing prisoner the strength he needed to break out of Azkaban.

As he banged his fists bloodily against his cell, he had sworn, over and over, that he would get out of here…he would get the Rat - and nothing was going to stop him. He would get the Rat, even if it killed him, even if he died trying…

Now that same photograph was keeping the prisoner’s soul latched onto the mortal plane. No, he could not go. Not while he had to get the Rat, even if it killed him…get to Harry…

The dog’s body had now disappeared entirely, long since swallowed up by the oblivious horizon that was still pitch black, except for the full moon. It was now the dog’s soul that pressed on towards the shoreline, heedless that it was now dead and beyond the reach of Dementors’ Kisses or the clutches of Azkaban, and complete its race against those clanging alarms. They were now, at last, right out of the dog’s earshot, but there could be no doubt they still clamoured on while the guards, Aurors, and whoever else had been dispatched to Azkaban, were now crawling through every nook and cranny of the fortress - and no doubt growing ever more desperate in their turn as every nook and cranny turned up absolutely nothing.

*~*~*

The spectral dog now alighted on the shoreline. A Grim, most wizards and witches would take him for if they clapped eyes on him. The most dreaded omen in the wizard world - the spectral dog that portended death for any that encountered it. Well, he was now a spectral dog, all right. A pearly-white luminescent form of a black dog ghost which was now wagging its withered, straggly tail as if it was about to fall off.

The ghostly dog shifted, almost experimentally, back to its human form. A ghostly man now stood on the beach. A pearly-white shadow of the man who was so emaciated and atrophied that he looked more like a ghostly skeleton. He wouldn’t have looked out of place in that troupe of skeletons that Dumbledore had hired at the Halloween Feast the year before.

Hmm. Perhaps he would be better described as a pearly-grey shadow. There were so many things to make him so grey. For one thing, twelve years of rotting in that filthy pit had now made him almost as black as his name. Ragged, threadbare prison robes that were even greyer than they should be from years of accumulated squalor; deeply encrusted dreadlocks that hung to his elbows. Twelve years of no baths, showers or simple washes that had left him stinking so fearfully that Fudge had kept a firm distance from the bars when handing in the newspaper and scurrying away so hastily that he had allowed little time to think what he might be doing when he handed Black that newspaper. Perhaps Fudge was thinking about it now - only now it was rather like closing the stable door after the Thestrals had gone…

All of a sudden the spectral grey man burst into loud, uproarious maniacal laughter. Loud, raucous, cackling for no apparent reason…he hadn’t laughed like this since that horrendous day in that Muggle street…except that his laughter now carried an eerie, ghostly hue - and a true sense of triumph. In other words, his cackles carried a sense of purpose, not mindless, idiotic cacophony.

After a while, Sirius calmed down sufficiently to look down at his newly-acquired, ghostly form, still laughing crazily. Well, he had vowed he would get the Rat, even if it killed him, after all. And here he was, now proving his point!

The laughter faded to sniggers of relish as his face still broke into the most devilish grin indeed. Now that he was a ghost, the possibilities were infinite. So much easier, and quicker, to get to Hogwarts, and the Rat, and Harry. The Ministry didn’t know what had happened. They would be looking for a living fugitive. Nobody would know to look for a ghost. The chances of them finding his body were so remote. Even if they did, they would just assume that their problem was over. They would smugly announce to the wizard world that the infamous Sirius Black was dead and gone, and that would be the end of the man-hunt.

There was just one problem…

Somewhere in the dim recesses of his much-ravaged and long-battered mind, Sirius faintly remembered something about the Ministry being called in to deal with troublesome ghosts. Long ago, his own mother had spitefully called in the Ministry when she decided that “Old Horny”, the resident ghost of 12 Grimmauld Place was getting to troublesome for her liking. Too friendly with Sirius, she meant! Next thing Sirius knew that his mother stood before him, saying that she was going to call in the Ministry to get rid of Old Horny. Sirius was most relieved when the Ministry officials turned up at Grimmauld Place only to find there was no more Old Horny. He could barely keep his face straight at his mother’s expression that Old Horny had blown the coop. Sirius had never heard from Old Horny again.

The Dementors, of course, had long since sucked out all warm memories of Old Horny, and it was far too soon for Sirius to recover this and other happy memories. On the matter of Old Horny right now, there was only a vague muddle of something you wanted to remember but your mind was too battered, too befuddled and demented to oblige. The only thing that Sirius could remember clearly, the only memory that he had been allowed to keep about Old Horny was his acute shock, anger and anguish upon hearing that his horrible mother was about to deprive him of his dear friend.

Sirius remembered Moaning Myrtle who haunted a disused bathroom at Hogwarts, in far better detail. Sirius had known her well, and his experiences with Old Horny had given him a special affinity with her. So many times had he and his fellow Marauders sought refuge in her toilet from their many capers. Nobody ever went into Moaning Myrtle’s so it was a safe refuge - if not a comfortable one. Sirius had always found Moaning Myrtle’s so depressing, having that inconsolable wailing floating up from the cisterns, and the acoustics made it all the more unsettling and depressing still. Yet since such memories were not very pleasant, Sirius had been able to retain them. He could remember Moaning Myrtle far better than Old Horny right now.

And, as Sirius’ memories of Moaning Myrtle began to circulate, he remembered something else. Something that brought him up short and sent another set of alarms ringing in his head.

Moaning Myrtle was stuck in that toilet, Sirius knew. While in one of her less gloomy moods, she had told the Marauders that the Ministry had kept her confined to her toilet at the behest of Olive Hornby. Good for you, Myrtle, he grinned, to hear she had pursued Olive Hornby for teasing her about her glasses. Bet Olive wished she hadn’t been such a rotten bully. Sirius just despised bullies like Snivelly Snape. Pity Myrtle couldn’t pursue Snivelly as well. His heart had gone out to her when she hadn’t been as lucky as Old Horny, and the Ministry kept her locked up in her toilet. That must be almost as bad as Azkaban…

Sirius’ pearly form suddenly began to quake, and pale towards the pearly-white hue instead of pearly-grey. If the Ministry could do that to Myrtle, what would they do to him? His pearly form paled even more. Would they, could they, keep him confined to Azkaban? Would he be stuck there forever, trapped, unable to leave even in death?

Sirius had never seen ghosts in Azkaban, but he had heard stories. There was one of “Mad Stan,” who, after he had died a most lingering death, had haunted Azkaban as a totally insane, lingering spectre who gave prisoners and guards alike a terrible time. The Warden had dealt with this nuisance by having the Ministry confined Mad Stan perpetually to his old cell. So that was one Azkaban prisoner doomed never to leave the fortress. Not even death turned out to be a release. The stories of Mad Stan growing even madder and desperate as he remained trapped in his cell forever provided quite lively, sardonic discussion among the guards, which Sirius had constantly overheard over the years.

There were other stories about ghosts in Azkaban too. But it was the story of Mad Stan that gave Sirius the most dreadful cause for alarm. If they had indeed done that to the Madman…they could easily do the same to him, should they discover what he had become…

The ghost blanched pure white now and started to shake so violently now, it looked like he was having convulsions.

No…no…no…

He’d only just broken out of that unspeakable pit from hell…there was no way he was going to go back; there was so much he had to do, he had to stop the Rat from getting Harry, he had to make the Rat pay, he had to kill the Rat…his thoughts just kept rattling on and on, mindless, incoherent, maddened.

“NOOO!!!!” The new-made ghost put a stop to his mental rattling with a loud, shrill, maddened bellow. He kept on shrieking, just as anguished and demented as when he had been alive and rotting in Azkaban. Yet his shrieks felt somehow strange, different. This was because his shrieks were being swallowed up by a starry, moonlit night on a lonely beach instead of becoming blurred and blunted amid all the other shrieks, cries and moans that never ceased in that fortress of nightmares.

NO! Nobody was going to drag him back to that place, and keep him locked up in his old cell, as they had kept Mad Stan locked up in his old cell, or Moaning Myrtle in that cell that passed for a toilet.

NOOO!

NOOOOOO!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

NO WAAAYYY!

Sirius’ convulsive, shaking form suddenly broke out into the steel of ferocious, grim determination. His still-teary, frightened face hardened into fierce, obsessive grit. His lips broke into his widest, most fiendish grin yet.

He knew just how he was going to stop them from doing that.

Sirius melted back into his Animagus form. He now looked even more like a Grim than ever.

That was precisely the idea.

TO BE CONTINUED