Detention

Darkness enveloped everything. All that could be seen were shadows, constantly moving about - if only an inch or so - restless with hunger and anticipation. All emotion was sucked from the atmosphere, as helium from a punctured balloon - quickly, stealthily, but noiselessly.

For, it was the silence that drove most away from sanity. The swift extraction of all feeling has no theme music.

There is a line drawn in life - a line that is crossed, more often than not, without return. One would be more settled to insanity in this place. There was no escaping them - they who were the drivers of the insane - for they haunted your dreams. And in your waking moments, when you instinctively reached out for the relief of the conscious world, you were drained once more; driven under by the vacuum created by the figures in black, and drowned in a world of your own creation - a world of your own despairing thoughts.

Azkaban prison had no need for weaponry - no need for fences or barricades. The mere isolation that Poseidon provided was enough. After all, who would want to reach the Forbidden Island? Murderers, thieves, liars, and Benedicts were held there - but that was not what really kept away the young delinquents and troublemakers of the wizarding community.

It was the Dementors - those who drove men to madness with their mere presence. Screaming in the prison was only heard with the arrival of a new inmate. It only ever lasted a few days. But in those days of broken silence, the other inmates reveled. For, if the attention of the Dementors was drawn away from them for even the shortest time, it was a relief. Some of them even gained back memories - happy memories.

For one prisoner in particular, some of the happiest memories he regained were also some of the more horrible. Some were of a young woman crying. Some were of her screaming uncontrollably. And the last were her dying words. The girl that was involved, however, was what made the difference - was what made them bearable. She was his Rae of light. These were terrible memories, and because of that the Dementors should have left them with their owner. But it was Rae that made the difference.

Whenever he closed his eyes, he could imagine her silky black hair curling around her face in the wind; he could imagine her stormy gray eyes staring into his liquid black ones. He inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of the past. Tangerines. But she was only a memory, now. No matter how real she had once been - no matter how much love and passion she had once brought into his life - for, now she was gone.

Perhaps, one day, he would remember her last words. In Azkaban, they were but a blur of colors and letters, swirling about in a haze of dust. One day, if ever he were a free man, he would remember them. It was not a possibility. It was for certain.

Sirius Black opened his eyes. The moon was rising, and cast a beam of liquid silver into his cell. He stood, shakily, and peered through the barred windows into the celestial world above. There was his star - Sirius. The smaller stars about it connected seamlessly to form Canis Major. Near to the heavenly dog was his best friend, the hunter, Orion. One day, they would be together again.

The screaming had subsided now, and the presence of the Dementors was drawing near again. How he dreaded the return of the vile creatures! They would drain him once more. They would take away his Rae - his only ray of hope.

A sigh escaped his chapped lips as he felt the memories begin to fade once more. Sirius reached beneath the blankets on his cot and pulled from them a notebook - a very old and battered muggle notebook. He flipped open the cover and read the first page.

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.

It was a message. He had always known it - yet, he had never really figured it out. Of course he had tried, but always to no avail. He also knew it happened to be from a book, although he had never bothered to read it. If I ever get out of here, I should, he found himself thinking.

Sirius shut his eyes once more, closing the notebook. They were approaching his cell, now, and he knew it like the dawn. He could sense it before he could see it. Wasn't there some wise and philosophical phrase that went along with that? He struggled to recall it. Remus had always been the intellectual one of the group. Oh, yeah.

"Walk by faith, and not by sight."

---

To Rae, Hogwarts had never looked more inviting than when she was stuck outside in a greenhouse. Professor Calhoun wasn't that bad - nor was the class. But it was the fact that it was forty degrees out and slightly humid that made her wish for the bell to hurry up more than ever. Her skin was cold, but at the same time, sort of damp and sticky, making her all the more uncomfortable.

Rae sneezed as she took a rather strong whiff of fertilizer. Several people in front of her turned around - a few of them looked rather disgusted. Rae had never really understood why some people turned their noses up at her. It wasn't like she was in Gryffindor.

There was the bell. Rae stood up and, being at the back of the class, was the first one out of the greenhouse. She walked briskly up the hill towards the castle, eager to get into the warm dry air. Her pants rustled quietly, and the hem of them drug in the frostbitten grass. She tugged at her cloak, adjusting it to suit the position of her bag.

The Entrance Hall greeted her with several hundred students, all of them making their way into the Great Hall for lunch. Tossing her bag and cloak behind a large statue, she pushed her way through the crowd.

A sharp jab in the side knocked Rae over sideways, landing her on the floor.

"Watch out, damn it!" she yelled, blowing her black hair out of her face, though she doubted whether she could be heard over the noise or not. She had not even seen who had caused her sudden change of position. Rae tried to stand up, though this was difficult to do, considering that nobody was paying her the slightest bit of attention. She swore under her breath several more times before feeling someone grab her by the wrist and hoist her back up to her feet.

Rae's eyes, fast though they were, weren't fast enough to catch the face of who had helped her up. She stared around blindly, only to be caught once again in the ever-steady current of students.

In a matter of minutes, she was seated at the Slytherin table at the far end, her back to the wall. Rae had learned long ago not to present her back to the enemy - especially at meal times. Food was much more aerodynamic than it seemed.

Two tables away, Sirius Black shook his own black hair out of his face as he looked up from his conversation. His eyes traveled along each table in the Great Hall, finally coming to a rest on the dark girl sitting by herself at the far end of the Slytherin table.

He had seen her once before - in the hallway about ten minutes earlier. She was wearing the same pants as he - large, black, and baggy. Her shirt bore the AC/DC emblem on the front.

She was clearly a rocker - as was he. He looked down at his own faded Black Sabbath shirt he had bought four years ago at his first show.

"Padfoot? Hello? Earth to Padfoot! Wake up, man!" James Potter's voice echoed in his ear, making him jump in a startled sort of way.

"Wha- what?" He averted his eyes back down to his best friend, who was looking at him rather skeptically.

"Padfoot, you really need to stop spacing out like that-"

"I wasn't spacing out!" he defended, waving his arms. "I was just- well-"

"He doesn't know." Remus Lupin said knowledgably.

Sirius rolled his eyes and sighed, once again looking over towards the girl.

"Who are you looking at?" a boy called Peter Petigrew asked, sitting down on the other side of Remus.

"You mean what am I looking at?" he said jerkily, snapping his eyes back down to the Gryffindor table.

"No, who," he said almost accusingly. "It certainly wasn't a what-"

"Who, eh?" James smirked, his eyes following to where Sirius's had been. "Would it be... oh, I dunno - Miss Blackness over there at the Slytherin table?"

"N- no..." he said immediately. Sirius could feel his face coloring. This was getting frustrating. "Why are you all staring at me?"

"Any girl in this school would give her right arm to date you. And you choose one who isn't very well acquainted with the sunlight."

"Shut up...." Sirius muttered, then continued his lunch, James still smirking at him every so often.