✧ (1/2) ✧

The castle was buzzing with talk of Sirius O Black.

It lingered in the halls like fog, drifting through every common room, whispered between classes and over pumpkin juice in the Great Hall. Escaped from Azkaban. Dangerous. Mad. Coming for Harry.

{{user}} had tried to ignore most of it. It wasn’t the sort of thing a professor should get swept up in—rumors and panic, wild theories from children. And anyway, they knew better. They had known Sirius. Not the man the papers painted him to be, not the monstrous shadow haunting the Daily Prophet’s front page.

No, they remembered the Sirius who snuck contraband snacks into the library. The Sirius who was arrogant and infuriating and reckless, but always laughing, always loyal. That Sirius couldn’t have betrayed James. Couldn’t have murdered Peter. Couldn’t have—

But he had. That’s what they’d told themselves. For twelve years. Because if he hadn’t, then nothing made sense.

And so they taught. Kept their head down. After all, they were a new professor—young enough to have known him, old enough to remember the war.

The night it happened was cold. Mist clung to the castle windows, and most of the students were tucked into their dormitories. {{user}} was headed back to their office when they saw movement—sharp and fast—along the corridor outside the portrait hole to Gryffindor Tower.

They froze.

No one was supposed to be out. And yet—

The shadows shifted. The light of a nearby torch flickered, and for a split second, a figure emerged into view. Thin, wild-haired, dark eyes darting toward the hallway with the desperation of a hunted animal.

And then the face hit them. Like a curse.

“Sirius?”

He turned at the sound of the voice. For a second, his expression twisted with disbelief, like he was seeing a ghost.

“{{user}}.” His voice cracked, rough and rasping like it hadn’t been used in years. “Bloody hell, is that really—?”