It’s true, what they say; though James was much too young and free before this moment to have ever thought on it. There is a suspension between one’s final breath, one’s final feel of their own beating heart, and eternal nothingness.
A brief moment that can stretch as long as one’s life or as short as one’s huff of breath, depending on how one uses it. And James, being the fighter that he is, uses it for all it’s worth.
He’s reminded of his mother. The powerful beauty with steel in her wand core (at least that’s what his father always said. It took him ages to realize that wasn’t true). Her fingers were always so soft as they swept through the roots of his hair. It has been his favorite form of comfort.
Even as a teen who should have grown past such things, he’d often run his own fingers through his hair in a sad attempt to do it as she did. He was never close enough. But even that made him smile. Somethings…some people could never be replaced.
His father was a jovial man. Always drinking one glass too many with a sheepish smile on his face. He was the one who’d taught James how to truly laugh. Early on, he’d understood something that would carry him through life. Laughter, that boundless expression of joy, would support him when the hurt was shaking at his core like a great windstorm. Even through tears, laughter still felt like a quiet, unexpected bout of first snow. Surprising, beautiful and terribly mundane. There was beauty in that.
His mates are different. Each holding a space in his life and soul that fostered the roots of his spirit, so that he could grow into a proud warrior with antlers that were steady branches.
He feels no fear that he was anything less but the same for the three of them. The seeds he planted within his friends’ hearts will continue to propagate.
Remus’s teeth will sharpen and he will tear away at the self-loathing to become a mighty thing. James amends the thought immediately. Remus has always been mighty, a thing of legends and lore. He knows one day his friend will finally look into the fabled Mirror of Erised and see only himself, his own reflection; and know that he is already what he might have been.
Peter may yet learn that only something very small can fit in tight, unimaginable places. James hopes the boy wields that unbelievable ability well; there are secrets, dark and beguiling, in those small cracks and one who has always felt too insignificant can be swayed by their songs.
And Sirius, who needs no introduction, will continue to travel through the space between bright white and the deepest black. And one day he will understand that there is comfort in the dark; that he is made of shadows. It is his legacy, his origin.
Only then, upon true acceptance, will he know how to move about in the light becoming the first Black to bathe in sunshine. The first Black to understand that darkness and light are ill-fated lovers who need a conduit such as himself to reunite.
James realizes now that he keeps seeing and experiencing his life in all tenses (save the future since he’s unsure if there will be one, wherever it is that he goes from here). He imagines its what being in a Pensieve is like. Being both past and present at once. In a milky world where time and space run as the universe intends. In parallels, in multiples, in shifts and bends, in a nonsensical fashion that is the most truthful thing in the galaxy.
James wonders what happens after one visits a Pensieve. Does that time spent traipsing through one’s own memories imprint as a new memory or does it negate itself because the paradox is too great? If a person goes into a Pensieve later in life, will they be able to view that time they visited a Pensieve in the past, viewing their older selves who are in turn viewing their older selves? In such a scenario, would all three versions meet or would that cause the entire world to split apart?
He shook his head. His thoughts are getting away from him. He’s starting to question things rather than focus on this singular moment. It feels like he’s cut his final moment in half worrying about unnecessary things. (Though he is saddened that he’ll never have an answer to the Pensieve Debacle.)
Red blankets his vision and he knows that his moment is drawing near. His eyes are closing (though some how his lids are still very much open. He knows he’s hallucinating now) and though green illuminates the physical hallway of his broken home, all he can see is red.
He finds it fitting. And it is a comfort, because fire engine red is his favorite color. It is the permanent tint to all his dreams and has been for so many years. In his sleeping world, everything is always in shades and tints of the color.
The disembodied laughter he hears as he runs through the grassy plains trying to catch up to the owner of that melodious sound is a cherry red.
The fingernails that explore up and down his body, setting it alight are painted dusky red.
The lips that chase away the nightmares are a pale red (he knows that there is a better name for that color, but his memories are swirling too fast now and such concerns are becoming irrelevant).
The screams he hears upstairs as that twisted thing leaves him behind are blood red.
Is this a part of his dream? His dreams are never so terrifying and coated in shrieks of rage-red terror. Is he awake?
Something tells him that he is done with red, lest he break his own heart. Instead, he thinks of green.
Green, the most beautiful thing his eyes have ever seen. He remembers that her eyes… no their eyes are a stunning green. James remembers that for so many years, he wishes that he could do away with glasses so that he might stare upon those eyes unencumbered.
Those eyes that are the same color as all living forests and trees. Those eyes that are the only things he needs to breathe. Those eyes that gave his son vision with which to see and be greater than James, better even. Those eyes that stare up at him with the cloudy confusion of a child-looking and needing him for all its earthly needs.
He, who is having trouble recalling his own name, knows that he will not miss green. Because it is him. It is all of him, because everything else that he once was has already been swept away, leaving only green, leaving only his core.
Green came to him, filled him with love. And then, years later, green came from him, a symbol of their undying love.
Finally, he acknowledges the sickly green light beaming at his chest, a ghostly trail. His life truly began the moment he saw those twin pairs of green eyes. It feels right that it should end with it, too.
It was a good life.