Mad Dog
Sirius Black was not insane. He was saner than the sanest sane thing in this too fucking sane world--or was it insane? Anyway, he wasn't insane, didn't care, wasn't crazy, just consumed by hatred.
Hate. Yes. Hate was a funny little salvation, he thought, and James might be surprised to see Sirius like this now; Sirius had hated plenty of people in school, but he never put much energy into his hatred. Now it was different. Now he cultivated his hatred, bred it and nurtured it as if he was preparing to enter it into a contest.
Maybe he could. Surely he'd win. Was anyone's hate as pure, as lovely, as overall splendid as his? No, Sirius was certain he could easily win the contest of Best Hate in Azkaban Prison.
He could hear the other prisoners. Hear them during the day, hear them in his dreams, hear them as Padfoot. They hated, but they were amateur Haters. And they were insane, and insanity didn't get along very well with hate--not the pure kind of hate, anyway, not the beautiful undiluted kind that he knew best.
Pettigrew. Wormtail. He couldn't remember ever not hating the squirming slime of a man. No--he wasn't a man. Was he a man? In Sirius' mind, he was a man-sized rat, oozing germs and peering nervously about with beady eyes, clawing at Sirius with horrible little paws.
Yes, yes, he was a rat, definitely a rat, not a man, never was a man, that was only Sirius' imagination--
No! He couldn't forget, had to remember that Pettigrew was a man, had, in fact, once been his friend, because if he forgot that he would forget Lily and James and Remus, and if he forgot them he would forget his Hate.
And Sirius' hate was the most important thing in the world.
He chewed on his memories like old bones, the sore ones, the hateful ones, the ones that churned and encouraged his hate, picking at the memories like old sores, scabs, scabby sores. Oozing pus, oozing hate. Same difference.
His sister was here. No--not his sister, his cousin. He didn't have a sister, did he? No, he had only Regulus. Or did he? Was Regulus his brother? Did he have a brother? Did he even--
No, no, he had to remember Regulus too, had to remember his whole stinking family and his mother's rotting teeth and his fathers pureblood propaganda because they were part of the Hate, too. His Hate needed his memories of them to survive.
And Sirius' Hate was precious to him.
The Dementors were frustrated because they couldn't take his Hate away from him. No way in Hell would Sirius let them have his Hate; if they wanted Hate they could make it themselves, no need to steal it from him, the bullies.
They were frustrated with Bella, too. Because Bella was insane when she got here, they couldn't make her any worse; Belly Trix had walked among Dementors and worse and he suspected she valued her Insanity like he valued his Hate.
Belly Trix had always been mean to him as a child. Maybe she didn't like his nickname for her. But what wasn't to like about it? Belly Trix was a fine name.
Belly, Bella, Andromeda, Narcissa, Lucius, Lily, James, Remus, Peter. Pettigrew. Wormtail. Scum.
Hate.
Sirius wasn't insane. Nuh-uh.
In some far away corner of his mind, he was vaguely proud of himself that his Hate was stronger than his fellow prisoners. Hmph! How could they even call themselves dark creatures, when a good ole' Gryffindor like him could surpass them in Hate?
Of course, Gryffindors could go bad, too. Wormtail. Moony. No, Moony wasn't a Death Eater, was he? No... no, Sirius was confused now, Moony played on the good guys team, Sirius had only thought he... he was...
What had Sirius thought?
Doesn't matter. Ignore that. Leave it. Focus. On. The. Hate.
Fudge, incompetent buffoon, always thought so. Newspaper! News, news of the outside world, news to fuel the Hate.
Wormtail.
One finger gone. Yes, he was certain of it, and there was that charming redheaded family--he'd met their dad once, through Dumbledore.
Hogwarts. Potter.
Potter. Potter was... important....? Why-
Oh, yes. Potter was important to the Hate.
Hate made his mind clear, made the fuzzy threads on the edge of his brain knit together and become coherent once again.
Padfoot. Padfoot would know what to do.
Bars, so skinny and hard against the pelt, water so cold, so heavy.
Land. He made it. He was out. No more Belly Trix, no more Dementors. For a moment, he was at a loss for what to do; he'd been in there for a long time, so long, and then, suddenly, he was out here, standing, blinking stupidly on the pavement, and he only had one thing left.
Hate. Murder. He knew what he had to do.