Bottle's Best Friend

I see a red door and I want it painted black
No colors anymore, I want them to turn black
I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes

-- The Rolling Stones, "Paint It Black"

Sometimes, he thinks it'd be better if they'd just locked him up. They all thought he was guilty anyway, even though it was the right man who got the ax.

Sirius doesn't know what Hell feels like, but he thinks it must be something like this, like the way he feels whenever he sees someone he knew, someone who believes he was the traitor, even though Peter's in prison and it was him all along.

Remus hasn't been in touch since Halloween. They saw one another briefly at the funeral. He just nodded curtly and turned away, but not before Sirius could see the look on his face, that betrayed look that told him that in the werewolf's eyes, he would forever be the guilty one.

He knelt by the grave, ran a finger over the sharply carved letters of the name Potter, half wishing the stone's sharp edges would cut him, just so he would feel something to wake him up or at least to confirm this isn't just a bizarre dream, because he's not fully sure where he is now.

He wonders if he dares ask for his Godson, but he knows he doesn't dare, because no one heard that last conversation he had with James, telling him he couldn't take the risk and that they'd be safer with a switch, because he himself might not hold out against whatever weapons and tortures the Dark Lord may have. No one knew they really did make a switch, and even though it's Peter and not him in that cell, no one believes him, he's sure. Dumbledore will have taken care of the boy, sent him to someone who isn't a traitor.

The bottle's his best friend now, the one he sees every day, and he likes how it's dependable and never late. He remembers days when the point of alcohol wasn't to get as pissed as humanly possible without collapsing, but that was when the sun still shone and people smiled at him, and those days are dead.

Once he met with Remus, somehow talked him into meeting him at the Leaky Cauldron, or maybe they just saw each other by chance. Sirius isn't sure, but he knows that the conversation he can't remember didn't go well. Remus was cold and distant and very unlike Remus, and it reminded Sirius of the few weeks after the prank he'd pulled on Snape, but then he at least had James to talk to and it passed. This won't pass, because death is final, even in the wizarding world.

He wishes he could just go back and fix it, do something over and make it better, but time turners aren't that strong and he doesn't know what he could do to fix it anyway, because he doesn't know just where things went wrong.

Sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night and there's cold and someone's screaming but he doesn't know how close or far because he's in some sort of trance and he has been since it happened. There's a constant buzzing in his head, like the din of silence, and he can only make out half of what goes on underneath it.

He stares out the window for hours on end and watches the world go by, watches the Muggles drive by or cross the street, dropping quarters and sitting on café patios with books or crosswords. The women fix their hair and the men talk about the weekend football match or rugby game.

He wakes up occasionally with the bottle broken on the floor and empty, and he fixes it and gets a cold glass of water to help with the headache and he goes back to the window.

Sometimes, in the clearest moments when the screaming is at its loudest and he can almost see past the glass, he realizes briefly that the bottle was smashed months ago and that Azkaban hasn't got windows.