Sirius Black felt the flash of toxic light flood his chest in an instant.
“Ah,” he thought, “this is it.” He let go of a weak laugh. He had tried so hard.
He didn’t bother to look at who cast it, he wouldn’t deign her with the satisfaction of being one of the last things he ever saw. Instead his world narrowed down to the only two people who mattered anymore.
Sirius chose Harry first, surprisingly. In a twisted way he thought that might hurt less. The boy seemed frozen, rooted in place. There was only a short distance between the two and Sirius wished with his soul that he could step and reach forward and say “it’s okay, it will be okay,” because that boy deserved it. Harry James Potter deserved the world and Sirius could no longer give it to him.
He didn’t want to think about the after as he watched Harry’s face morph. It was minute, at first. The mask of focus the boy had been wearing had fallen to a slight open mouth gape as he watched Sirius. Then the boy was moving, rushing towards him with a frenzy as he ignored all those around him. Merlin did Sirius feel terrible. It wasn’t fair to this boy, to his godson, to Lily and James’s son that he had to watch this again.
Sirius longed for more time to make it right. He longed for that promise he made to Harry, the one he made to James and Lily to keep that boy safe if anything ever happened to them. Sirius wanted to prove he could do it, thought he finally had just earlier this afternoon when he stormed in after Harry. Little Harry who had gone to protect him. Maybe that was why he slipped up just a few minutes prior.
“Nice one, James,” the words had burned in his mouth. It was selfish, and yet, Harry seemed pleased at the comparison. It was a twisted thing to think about, one Sirius thought about talking out later.
Harry was no James Potter in the best of ways, Sirius had finally realized. Sirius wanted to tell him that, tell him how extraordinary Harry Potter was for being Harry. Then again, Sirius never was good at sticking to plans.
In the next moment Sirius finally moved his eyes to the strong, scared arms that wrapped around Harry before he could get too close.
“Good,” Sirius thought. “If he still has you he can make it.”
Sirius’s grey eyes trailed up to Remus Lupin’s face for the last time. He wanted to smile as he watched this man. He wanted to laugh and reach out and caress his stubbled cheek to reassure that he was there and alive and breathing. Merlin did Sirius want that. But he couldn’t.
He watched Remus as he held Harry. The brown of Remus’s eyes were dark and misted in a way he had never seen, and utter brokenness stared back at him.
“Is that how he looked for you, James?” Sirius realised he didn’t even know that.
If his heart was still beating Sirius was sure it would have stopped from that look. He had messed up so much. He had done every possible thing to hurt Remus Lupin and all he wanted to do was say “I’m sorry, I love you,” until it made the other’s hurt go away.
If it was any of them, though, it should be Remus that stayed. Sirius didn’t think he could make it in a world without both his Moony and Prongs. The loss of the latter had already almost killed him once and that was Prongs. Prongs who was his brother in everything but blood and name. The boy who had pulled Sirius from hell and never let him look back even when it threatened to swallow him whole.
Prongs had gone and he wasn’t there to pull him back when he needed him. Sirius wished it killed him then.
But Moony. His Moony. Sirius Black couldn't fathom a world where Remus Lupin didn’t exist. If James had been Sirius’s brother, his moral compass, Remus had been everything else. Remus had been everything.
“You should tell him,” James had said in their dorm room one evening in their seventh year. Remus and Peter had been off somewhere, studying maybe. James had been laying in his bed looking at the canopy for almost an hour before he spoke. He liked getting stuck in his head sometimes.
“Tell who what?” Sirius asked with a lack of interest. He had been messing with the record player attempting to get the thing to work with a new record he had gotten from some fourth year Ravenclaw. “Heroes” by David Bowie. Sirius thought it was a rather shit title.
“Remus,” James had spoken the name with such ease it made Sirius’s insides turn.
“And what would I be telling our dear old Moony?” Sirius asked without looking at the other.
“That you’re in love with him.” Sirius was thankful that he had gotten the record in place or else he would have dropped the thing.
“Of course I love Moony,” Sirius replied with a nervous swallow as he turned back to face James.
“Not what I said, Pads,” James said with a sigh.
“I, I will be king,” the song began softly.
“He wouldn’t want me.” Sirius couldn’t remember the last time his voice ever sounded so weak.
James didn’t bother to sit up or even angle his head to be able to look at him. Instead, he just laid there with his glasses slightly askew on his face and hands propped behind his head. Sirius sometimes hated the pure peace that James was able to possess.
“He loves you,” James stated with such certainty.
“And you, you will be queen.”
Sirius stood in the center of their room unmoving. He didn’t even think to question how James knew because of course James knew what his friends were thinking, were feeling.
“Though nothing will drive them away
We can beat them, just for one day,
We can be heroes, just for one day,”
“I hurt him.” It has been almost a year since the incident where he almost destroyed Remus and they were still attempting to fix things between them. Sirius tried everything, and wanted to give Remus anything to make it better.
“And you, you can be mean,”
“He’s forgiven you, Pads.” That was what Sirius didn’t want to believe because he was Sirius Black and everything he did was wrong. How could Remus forgive him for that? James had to be lying or believed one of Moony’s half truths he liked to offer people.
“And I, I’ll drink all the time,”
Sirius let out a sudden laugh. He wasn’t sure what was funny about it.
“I think he’s pulled one over on you, mate,” Sirius iterated as he sat on his bed.
“He forgives you, Sirius. He loves you and you love him. You have to forgive yourself to see that.” It felt like a slap to the face.
“Cause we’re lovers, and that’s a fact
Yes we’re lovers, and that is that,”
“How?” Sirius asked quietly. “Everything I do is a misstep and mess up.” It was exhausting.
“Though nothing will keep us together
We could steal time just for one day,”
“You’ll get it, eventually, Sirius.” James spoke his name with a loving sigh the way Euphemia did whenever he and James would make a mess of things. “One day, one day you’ll realize that you’ve done enough. That Sirius Black did okay and made the right choices.”
“We can be heroes for ever and ever
What d’you say?”
And as Sirius watched Remus, this boy turned man, he knew. He tried his damnedest to be that Sirius that James saw. Be the one that his best friend believed in even when Sirius made a choice that got James and Lily killed.
Sirius knew he never quite made it even when he had finally said “I love you” in a cluttered little broom closet. He had still been the other Sirius that suspected the love of his life and left him alone for twelve long years.
Merlin did Sirius want to be anyone but him as he felt the soft grasp of the veil begin to take his arms.
The cry Harry let out made Sirius want to scream and shout and blame anyone else for causing that reached sound of pure agony. Sirius thinks that was close to how he sounded when he had found James that night.
“It’s not fair,” Sirius thought again when his body seemed to become weightless.
He wanted to say thank you to his Moony as he watched those arms that he wanted to be held tight in hold the last truly good thing Sirius could say he was proud of. His lips turned up at the knowledge into the smallest of smiles as he watched them.
That would be enough.
Oh. The look he saw in Remus’s eyes was what did it. That look of pain, agony was wiped from his face as he watched back at Sirius because Moony realised, he knew. Just like James, Moony always knew.
“I’m tired,” Sirius had admitted in a weak whisper one evening as he and Remus lay in bed in an empty Grimmauld. The Order was finally making a move and he and Remus finally seemed to be back in a place he could only dream of.
But this place he had to be to have him made his skin crawl. He hated the place, that this was where he had to sequester himself to be free. It was just another sick and twisted joke that seemed to be his life.
“Get some sleep, love,” Remus answered just as quietly.
“Not…not that tired.” The stillness of Remus by his side let him know that the other understood.
“We’ll get through it,” Remus tried as he threaded a hand through Sirius’s hair. “We’ll make it.” Remus sounded desperate for it to be true.
“I don’t know how anymore, Moons.” A thumb wiped at a tear that had spilled. “It’s for him, I want to save him, I want us, I want,” it all to just stop. I wanted those twelve years with you. I want James. I want Lily, Marls, Dorcas, Mary, Regulus.
Peter, he thought pathetically. Merlin did he hate the little part of him that still wanted his other best friend back. It was terrible and he loathed himself for it.
“I know,” Remus responded as he pulled Sirius close. It was desperate and crushing as Sirius held himself as close to Remus as physically possible. It was safe that way. At least then he knew he was still there, still breathing. That could be his forever.
It will be okay. We’ll get through it, was what Remus’s look said. Sirius wanted to weep. He had been so tired and tried so much. It was selfish as he watched the last two blindingly good, pure things in his life. He was leaving, finally getting to rest after decades as the deep bone chilling ache in his body, soul, finally released and settled.
Sirius Black had never known peace in his life. It wasn’t the war that broke him, or the death of his made family. It had started long before in a ward at St. Mungo’s when he had been given the name of Black. It had been so crushing to stay alive and he barely managed when it took so many people to keep him righted and solid. Maybe that was why he made such terrible choices. It was selfish that for one of the last moments he was happy he didn’t have to stay any longer. He watched the two even as the silver wisps cradled his head and held his hands and hugged him with such warmth he had never realised how cold and worn down he had truly been.
Being Sirius Black was an exhausting existence.
It will be okay. We’ll get through it is the last thing he saw of Remus Lupin who wore the weakest of smiles, tears trapped in his eyes as Harry wept in his arms.
“Ah, Merlin Pads, always one to make an entrance.”
In a second Sirius was no longer in the Department of Mysteries but in a meadow under a cloudless sky on the brightest of days.
He glanced to his left where the voice had sounded. He missed that voice so much and tried so hard to ingrain it in his memory to make sure it stayed real.
James Potter watched down at him with a crooked, goofy grin that left Sirius breathless.
And then he was on him in a bone crushing hug. Sirius didn’t know what would be there, if anything. But this, this couldn’t be real because James Potter was too go to end up where Sirius Black belonged.
“Please, please, please,” Sirius repeated as he buried his face in James’s shoulder. He didn’t know what he was asking for, but it seemed right.
“I’m here, Pads, I’m right here.” James soothed with a gentle run of his hand up and down the other’s back.
“Jamie, Merlin,” Sirius breathed as he slowly pulled away. For the first time in a long time it felt like Sirius could finally breathe.
“I didn’t expect you so soon,” James admitted as he flopped back against the grass, hands tucked behind his head.
“I’m sorry,” Sirius said, laying next to him.
“None of that now, I’m happy to see you, despite the reason,” James admitted.
“Remus, Harry,” Sirius began in a panic.
“Will be okay, you made sure of it,” James answered easily for him. Sirius didn’t point out the twinge of sadness the words were laced with. “You’ve done good, Sirius. You’ve done so well. Rest.” James didn’t spare him a glance as we watched the wide open sky.
And Sirius didn’t refute. For the first time in Sirius Black’s life he felt at peace. He had done well.