Disclaimer: If owned Harry Potter, the world would be a much scarier place.

A/N: So these are compatible with 'Where Dwell the Brave at Heart', 'Where Dwell the Brave at Heart - the Outtakes', and 'Daring, Nerve and Chivalry'. You don't need to have read all of them. I might suggest (if you've stumbled on this) you read a few chapters (literally a few because it's a long story) of 'Where Dwell the Brave at Heart - The Outtakes' because it's structured in the same way and the O.C.s I introduce there are developed here. It's also the better of the three in my personal opinion.

These are a series of oneshots set in a story-arc I like to call 'Marauder-Verse'. They're not in chronological order, but there's always a date and a time at the start of each one so it's easier to keep track. If I reference a chapter of one of the other three stories, I will properly reference it with a quote. You shouldn't, therefore, need to read or re-read that chapter in order to understand the latest one.

I hope this works.

We'll begin at the end because 'Let's start at the very beginning' is too mainstream. This one's a bit mad, but that's the intention.

"And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor, Shall be lifted - nevermore." - "The Raven" - Edgar Allan Poe.

November 18th 1981. Azkaban. Murderer's Row. 06:30.

As soon as he was sentenced to a lifetime on Murderer's Row, he knew it would mean the bowels of a maximum-security prison, the occupants of which screamed, shrieked, and cried even in their sleep. The walls were of black stone. Along them, several torches had been lit. It was a winter morning and still dark, but they would burn all day. Natural light was not permitted to grace the halls of Murderer's Row. With no access to daylight and no clocks, finding a prisoner who believed half past ten in the morning was a quarter-past-midnight was not uncommon.

In a cruel twist of fate, Sirius Black found himself in a cell opposite Bellatrix. She spat at him through the bars. She cackled and clapped when a gobbet landed inside his cell. Sirius quickly learned to stay silent and sit in the gloom, leaning against the far wall and listening to the sounds of waves crashing against the rocks.

He existed in a world of eternal darkness. He heard the screams of others, but he did not speak a word. He sat in stoic silence for every waking moment. Some days, he would not sit up and chose to spend the day lying on the stone slab which had become his bed. He was starting to forget the sound of his own voice.

When he closed his eyes, he slipped in and out of consciousness - falling asleep when he had not meant to and wondering what time it was when he woke. He had time to think. Sometimes, he lay staring at the ceiling, counting the seconds until they made a minute, the minutes until they made an hour, just to remind himself that five hours in a world without James was not five years.

He counted every waking hour. It became as much a reflex as taking a breath. It allowed his mind to wander. He wondered if Peter could be found. He wondered if Lupin would even think to look for him.

No. He'd been at a Halloween party in Hope Cove only weeks ago. They'd all laughed. What had they laughed at?

Fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty. Seventy four minutes. Two, three, four, five.

The wolf in sheep's clothing. He had sat bolt upright, lifting his head from the bowl of apples in icy water. He was there to make up with Remus who had made a speech. Peter. Peter hadn't come that night, but he'd been too quick to speak at another party only days before. Peter had said…

What had Peter said?

Forty-one, forty-two, forty-three.

"We're all hiding something somewhere." That was it. The miserable little bastard had given him a hint two days before he'd sold his friends to Voldemort. He had forty-eight hours to solve the riddle and had only done so when Lupin made a quip.

Eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two.

Sirius sat up with a start. "I think," he said to himself, his voice gravelly and a little deeper than he remembered it, "I'm twenty-two today." He frowned slightly. "Of course, I can't be sure because…" He clamped his hands over his mouth. "Don't talk to yourself," he hissed through his fingers.

He cursed under his breath. He'd lost count.

Taking a deep breath, he began a second count.

Something about a wolf in sheep's clothing. Sirius winced. He desperately wanted to remember it. It was their last conversation, bantering back and forth just as they had done while they were at school, before they'd become pawns in a war. He glanced past the bars of his cell. The black cloaks of the Dementors billowed down the twisting corridors behind them. They were flocking to him. If he couldn't remember it, they couldn't steal the memory from him and devour it as he screamed.

He concentrated on counting. Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty.

His mother! Not Remus - his mother! The wolf in sheep's clothing was not in sheep's clothing, but in Grandma's.

"I always knew he was going to be a sarcastic little sod. I told him the story of Little Red Riding Hood when he was four and instead of lapping it up, he asked me if I was quite well and gave me a lecture on stomach acid. 'You can't be swallowed whole and survive because you'll be digested. Don't be so silly, Mummy.'"

And they'd laughed.

"Maybe Grandma had hidden talents," said Lupin.

We're all hiding something somewhere…

Sirius collapsed onto the slab and lay shaking. He shifted his legs until he lay in the foetal position.

He would rot here. He would die in this cell because Remus Lupin loved logic and there was not a hope of applying logic to the situation and concluding with the truth.

So Sirius counted the hours until he drifted into a fitful sleep. He didn't dwell on the past. He didn't attempt to think of what might have been. He didn't dare hope. He bore his punishment for his arrogance and paid for his guilt. He thought of only one thing. He remembered his innocence and assured himself of it every day. It wasn't a pleasant thought - with it surfaced the image of his best friend's crumpled body lying at the foot of the stairs - but it reminded him who he was.

"I am Sirius Black," he whispered to himself in the darkness. "And I killed my best friend."

The Dementors could not take it from him. A world existed outside of his cell. It was a lonely and empty world devoid of James' laughter, but it existed outside of his own mind.

The battle for his sanity was won.