Chapter Text
War isn't for the faint of heart. Everyone knows that, but somehow, people always forget until it slams into the side of their heads like a boulder dropping over the edge of a cliff.
They'd thought it would be exciting. How many of those older and wiser than themselves had laughed at them or shaken their heads in dismay, pleading silently for them to see the truth in their follies before it was too late?
Too late.
Sorry, so sad. It was too late the day they were born, burst forth, screaming with new life and adventure that had dried up and died in their throats the second they were confronted with the horrifying reality of what war really means.
Because war is terror, lodged into heart muscle, something that will never disappear or fade. War is loss and grief. It's drinking the memories of the pain away, only for a little while; drowning in toxicity that never really wipes a slate clean no matter how much it feels like it might. War, in all its touted grandeur and heavy, overbearing reverence it doesn't deserve, is dirty. It turns veins black and charrs bones to fragile, splintered objects. It weakens and warps minds like silk fluttering in the wind, twisting and flowing, tangling, a maze with no escape.
War takes those at its epicenter and cracks their ribcages open to the harshness of the bleeding sun, draining away what once was like water evaporating from a pool, the beams too hot, leading to boiling points no one ever wants but come all the same.
War rips the world apart, but not just the entire world. It takes those smaller planes, the inconsequential worlds, tiny eternities, and shreds them apart until they're tatters of what they once were. It steals family that's no longer family, killing brothers that can't be voiced as brothers any longer. It strips away parents that were more parents in a handful of years than the parents given at birth. War takes friendships, found family, and stows them away in secret, hidden in plain sight, unseen and just as lost as they would be in death. It drags once sturdy, unbending relationships through the mud and the stench of rotting, wet leaves, collecting under fingernails as they continue to cling to something already gone before anyone truly realizes it's disbanded and disintegrated.
War leads a strong man to reach for a waiting bottle as soon as he arrives home, eyes downcast and face a storm of resentment. It turns footsteps under heavy boots hollow and echoing in the silence of a flat that had once been filled with sound, the flutter of heartbeats and laughter and softly spoken words only ever able to be said in the darkest hours of night. Promises made and promises broken, a home left empty and no longer a home at all, nothing more than a shell of decay and the ruin breathing at the backs of necks, rancid, tooth-rotting filth invading the air and clinging just as fingers had once clung to skin and love to hearts too broken to repair themselves now.
When the door opens, the bottle is still present and already half-empty at his side, and Sirius smiles, a cruel tilt to his mouth, eyes vacant as he tracks the figure that steps inside.
"The valiant hero returns," says Sirius by way of greeting, his voice crisp and clear in the invading silence, barbed wire sinking into flesh and removing pieces with every spoken syllable. "Marvel at how dashing he is."
Remus frowns, the expression mostly hidden as he turns to close the door, but Sirius knows his face and every single millimeter of his body that he can see it through the very shift of his shoulders. He's slow to round again, peeling his jacket away from his arms with cautious, deliberate movements, like a man trapped in a lion's den, doing his best not to draw attention to himself and the meal he offers.
"Surprised you're home," he eventually comments as he drapes the patched and thinning fabric over a waiting hook. It's his own stubbornness that has kept it in disintegrating shambles. He'd never allowed Sirius to buy him a new one. His loss now, or so Sirius thinks, because Sirius couldn't care less about keeping him warm wherever it is that he goes so often.
"I'm always home," remarks Sirius coolly, eyes sliding to the bottle resting close to his elbow, debating another large pull, but he dismisses the notion for now, the words rattling behind his teeth far more drawing. "But what is home, really? Isn't that the question? Philosophical, pandering shit that it is. Home is where the hearth always warms, where the heart is, where you rest your head, where you take your morning slashes. If any of that's true, it seems only one of us can really call this home at all, don't you agree?"
Remus doesn't respond or rise to the bait, not meeting Sirius' eyes as he moves further into the room. His gaze slides over the empty fireplace, his wand emerging a second later, flames flaring to life in an instant, the silence suddenly obliterated by the crackling that should be comforting but never is anymore. Sirius stares at the orange glow, watching the red dance around the edges, his throat drying up where he sits as memories spill into his head he'd rather forget, starbursts behind his eyelids when they close of exploding spells sending friends to their deaths, more flames licking around a small house, the McKinnons inside, Dorcas' screams and wails echoing through his ears, not that it had mattered since they'd found her mutilated three days later.
How much grief can really happen in three days?
Probably the universe's worth.
"It's freezing in here," mutters Remus, snapping Sirius back to the present. His breathing is shallow.
"Is it? Funny," says Sirius neutrally. "It was fine until you showed up."
And now, Remus does look at him, his gaze sharp and accusing as it lands on Sirius and then cuts to the bottle beside him.
"You're drunk," he states flatly. "Again."
Sirius produces an open-mouthed smirk, huffing out a breath of ironic laughter, his tongue tucking into the sides of his teeth for a second before he clicks it. He swings up from his chair quickly, snagging the bottle as he goes, downing a large, chugging gulp of it, his throat bobbing obscenely, eyes never leaving Remus' face. The other man stares at him, unimpressed but otherwise expressionless, like a slate wiped clean and polished. Sirius wants to claw his blunt nails across Remus' skin, just to garner a reaction, something inside him turning feral in an instant.
He gives a low, regal bow when he pulls the glass lip away from his mouth, the move theatrical, legs crossed, back straight, adding a small twirl to one wrist as his arms spread wide, bottle dangling from tightly gripping fingers. Sirius' sharp eyes never leave Remus' face.
"I'm just having some fun, Moony." The nickname drips from his tongue like soured milk. "Tell me, where's the problem in that?"
"The problem," says Remus stoically even as something dark and tinged with warning flashes through his brown eyes as he follows Sirius' movements with cold focus, "is that we have jobs to do."
Straightening his stance, Sirius crosses his arms over his chest, bottle still hanging from one hand, his posture relaxed by all appearances even as he remains perched on the balls of his feet, gnawing and gnashing against steel bars, salivating for the fight that's brewing, sparking like negative energy in the air between them, flaring like dark purple, jagged beams Sirius thinks he can almost reach out and touch.
"I'm well aware," says Sirius fluidly, his voice prim, chin angling higher into the air, something he knows Remus hates. Sure enough, the muscle in the other man's jaw twinges as he grits his teeth. "Some of us have been taking that to heart."
"What's that intended to mean?"
Sirius shrugs one shoulder, one foot sliding forward, the heel of his boot leaving a scuff mark across the floor, something he knows Remus hates, but the other man doesn't even seem to notice.
"Nothing," he says flippantly, waving his free hand through the air as though he's swatting at a troublesome fly. "I'm just curious how Dumbledore's arse tastes."
Remus' mouth twitches in displeasure, but he doesn't take the bait. "You're going to get yourself killed," he mutters, brown eyes dropping to the bottle swinging from Sirius' fingers.
"Because you'd care so much?" says Sirius sweetly, the smile that stretches across his face all teeth, sharp and venomous. Remus' passive mask fractures for only a second.
"Do you really think I wouldn't?" he asks, his voice a heavy whisper between them, sounding stunned and appalled, something tragic swirling around each syllable.
"Can't say I haven't wondered," tosses out Sirius superciliously, his gaze flickering over Remus with a show of little interest as the other man's mouth parts in astonishment. "Why would you? Would you even notice, Remus?" And his name is tragedy as it slides off his tongue, broken and impossible to hold onto. "You're never here, so how would you even know, really? And it's not like you've shown any remorse for our other friends that are gone, not even James and Lily and Harry. You've barely even mentioned them when I've seen you."
"Because I know what the reminder of not being able to be with them does to you," reasons Remus. And isn't that fitting? Remus Lupin, always the voice of reason in the worst of times. Sirius turns colder at the thought, something inside him frosting and freezing to ice. "Because I'm not cruel enough to throw them in your – "
"Oh, he's not cruel," mocks Sirius in a deprecating tone, his mouth and nose twisting atrociously. "Did you hear that, everyone? Moony, always the soft one, always so fucking considerate of everyone else's feelings. Wouldn't hurt a fly, Remus Lupin, but don't you dare turn your back on him or you'll be sorry. How many unsuspecting, deceived people have you killed, Remus, or have you stopped keeping track?"
"Sirius – " begins Remus in warning.
"No, go on, I'd like to hear it. Let's compare, Moons, come on," entices Sirius, grinning like a jackal circling its prey. "I mean, we've all done it, haven't we? It's war. That's what happens. It's a necessity for staying alive, or so we've been told. We all reason it away because how can we not? But here's the thing, Remus." Sirius leans forward, balancing on his toes, eyes pinned on the other man and not releasing.
"At least it's mostly done in self-defense. At least when people look at me, they expect what comes for them. But you – oh, you. You've always been so clever, haven't you? Meek, amenable Remus. So eager to jump on orders and follow them through. So accomplished at hiding the worst of things beneath your surface. People call me a stain and a monster because of my name and where I come from, but they don't know the half of it. They don't bother to look deeper for me because what's the point? I show them exactly who I am, or so they think, but you layer it all away under armor made of secrecy. It's who you are. If anyone's the monster of the two of us, it's – "
"Don't," cuts in Remus sharply.
"Don't what?" hisses Sirius, eyes narrowed and body coiled like a viper preparing to strike for the throat.
Remus' expression is still mostly blank except for the small cracks forming near his mouth and around his eyes, something almost pleading beginning to shine through. "Don't do something you're going to regret," he whispers, the fight suddenly evaporating from his voice.
Sirius blinks at him, the action filling the abrupt silence that falls between them until his head rips backwards on his neck, a harsh, bitter burst of laughter exploding from his chest, shredding his ribcage and heart in the process, the very statement and idea so absurd he can barely stand it. It's cruel, the sound of it, causing Remus to flinch and rock back only slightly, but it's enough for Sirius to claim triumph.
"I already regret you."
His mouth twists up into a sneer as the laugh dies in his throat, turning acidic where it catches before it goes, burning him from the inside out. Just like Marlene, he thinks in a desperate, clawing way, a punch to the center of his gut that leaves him reeling and more than a little hysterical. Sirius pushes forward, fighting pain with more pain, levelling fields in his path, contaminating the ground, salting it, leaving it worthless and barren for centuries to come.
Remus takes a full step backwards now, stumbling with it, and Sirius wants to crow in feral delight.
"I regret ever saying hi to you. I regret every smile I've ever given you like you deserved any of it. Allowing you to touch me, letting you in my bed and my home and any part of my life at all, every ounce of trust I ever gave you. I regret that it's them and not you."
Remus' face twitches the smallest amount, the only obvious display of anything changing being the crease that forms between his eyebrows. His voice is tight and refined when he speaks again.
"Them?"
"Them," snarls Sirius, rocking forward on the front of his feet. "Gideon and Fabian, Benjy, Caradoc, Dorcas, M-Marlene."
The other man's face smooths back out, his chest falling still, breathing ceasing with the words and the bite of accusation; with the withering disgust and despair flowing over Sirius' tongue like wishes unfulfilled. Remus swallows roughly, his throat bobbing with it, chest expanding irregularly only once.
"Thanks for that," he mutters, tone flat and lifeless. His fingers curl up into his palm as Sirius watches, Remus' eyes flickering away before landing on his face again. "You're drunk," he repeats, "and I know you're hurting. It's been…things haven't been even close to easy. I miss them, too, Sirius, and don't think for a second I don't regret and hate every loss we've had, but you're taking your anger out on me. You've been slipping and doing exactly this since Regulus disapp – "
Sirius snarls at the words, the bottle flying free from his hands as he slings it across the room where it hits the wall and shatters exactly like everything else has shattered. Remus doesn't react.
"Don't talk about him!" he shouts, his face twisting monstrously. Sirius steps forward quickly, invading Remus' space as the other man stares at him blankly. "You're a fool, Lupin, and you've made me into one as well. You've spent years prodding and molding, shaping our visions into seeing exactly what you want seen. You've done it from the first day I met you, all your secrets cleverly tucked away, only found when you want them to be and not a second sooner. You blinded us all and you blinded me the most, but no more. I'm done with your lies and manipulation. I'm done with you."
Remus' features remain stoic, but his eyes flicker with emotions he can't hide as he processes Sirius' accusing words. He doesn't deny any of it, never even tries, cementing Sirius' stance as he draws in a long breath before speaking.
"You can't be done with someone you love – "
"I don't love you!" shouts Sirius breathlessly, his anger burning his oxygen away like flames sucking the air from the world, his voice nearly dying away as he speaks next. "I don't think I ever have."
And there it is, the reaction Sirius has been waiting for, trying to draw this entire time, Remus' face spasming, turning stricken, hurt flaring through his brown eyes as he stares at Sirius. It lasts only a second, maybe two, but it's enough even as they shutter and lock it all away, glorious triumph rushing through Sirius, lifting his feet from the ground as he floats on the wings of it, a golden chariot made of fire, a god born of war razing everything in his path to rubble and ruin.
Sirius steps forward again until they're nearly chest to chest, his own eyes hard, crystalized, mouth set in a firm, unyielding line. His lungs expand and sink steadily inside the cage of his ribs, the blood pumping from his heart and into his veins flowing cleanly without resistance or hesitation.
"I don't love you," he whispers, voice so low it can only be heard this close, breath hitting Remus' face and ricocheting back to him. "I don't trust you. I never should have given you a first glance or a second of pause. I want you gone. Take your shit and get out of my home." Staring at him as if in a trance, Remus doesn't move, never so much as twitches, and Sirius feels the rage festering inside him spike. "Now!" he roars. "Get out!"
He pants harshly, Remus still not moving, but he blinks slowly, eyelids remaining closed for a second longer than usual. When they open, every part of him is blank again, gone lifeless. He nods once, curtly, says nothing, and rounds on his heels, disappearing from the room.
Sirius stands rooted to the spot on the floor that feels like it should be cracking open beneath him, but it doesn't.
His breathing shouldn't be so erratic, but it is.
His heart shouldn't be bleeding misery into the cavern of his chest, but it is.
It feels like years and only two minutes when Sirius hears the front door closing quietly. He doesn't see it, blinders warping around his vision, blocking out what he doesn't want seen.
The fire still burns, warming the room around him as though nothing has changed at all.
Firewhisky drips from the wall. Sirius stares at it, trapped in a sort of void, a place where time doesn't exist, where none of this has happened, the bottle still on the table behind him, still clutched in his hand, still in a cupboard in the kitchen where it belongs. Where there isn't glass broken across the floor Sirius had never cared about and Remus had always kept pristine when able.
He thinks about James, wants desperately to go to him, but he can't. His friends are gone, lost to him now, hidden away where Sirius can never find them. He tells himself it's better this way, but Sirius isn't sure that's true, because how can anything be better when everything is gone?
How can anything be better when he's alone?
He takes one last disparaging glance at the sodden mess streaming down the wall and to the floor before twisting his mouth into an almost snarl and striding across the room, his jacket yanked free from its hook and door slammed behind him.
Sirius had told Remus to leave his home, but Sirius' home is gone, nonexistent now, lost just like everything that had once seemed so good and bright. He doesn't go back, can't find any reason for it, nothing waiting there for him except a mess created from a larger mess he doesn't know if he ever can or wants to set right again.
He thinks about his friends instead, all those gone from him now, never to be found again. He stares into the bottom of an amber liquid-filled bottle that he forces himself to finish because it looks too much like something else, like brown eyes in firelight, and Sirius swallows it down like broken glass against a wall. He thinks about his family, the bad one and the good, both evaporating in the air in front of him like smoke in different ways, one from flames of his own creation and the other through a forest fire set forth by the universe, set on destruction.
Sirius thinks about James and how much he'd give to see his face again. He pulls the ever-present mirror from his pocket, standing in a dark alley, calling his name, loudly at first, voice drunk and boisterous until the sound fades, softens to a whisper and then a whimper, begging and pleading. He wonders, hours later, why he'd tried at all, why he keeps trying, always remembering after he's fallen apart and put himself back together that James doesn't have his mirror.
Sirius laughs to himself, a bitter sound clawing out of his throat that chokes itself into oblivion.
And yet, he keeps forgetting, going so far as to look over his shoulder in search of his friend in a half-empty pub or sloppily remind himself that tomorrow – tomorrow, when it comes – he'll be sure to make Harry laugh with that thought he just had. He'll dance around Lily in her kitchen as she tries to swat at him with a spoon for nicking food even as she laughs and James cheers Sirius on in his boisterous, fist-pumping way and Harry giggles as he toddles across the floor around them all.
He forgets and he forgets and he forgets until three days later he'll never forget again.
It wakes him from a dead sleep, passed out across the end of a bed in the Leaky Cauldron. His head pounds through his skull as he tears upright, gasping for air, choking through pain that makes no sense, like a band pulled too tightly snapping inside him, something shredding apart in his center, his very core ripped away. It leaves him panting harshly, fingers clawing into the fabric of his shirt over his heart, drawing the material up around his waist from how much it bunches under his grip.
Sirius' clouded, half-drunk mind struggles to make sense of it, what it means and why it's happened. His body gives out beneath him, slipping off the mattress and to the cooler floor below, head falling back against the bed as he continues to cling above the pain that won't go away. It leaves his breath ragged and stuttering, chest heaving, shuddering, the room spinning sickeningly around him until he's forced to close his eyes for fear of being ill. His stomach churns and roils, waves rolling in a raging storm he can't sail his way through. His hand swipes over his face and across rough, too-thick hair growth left behind by days of avoidance, itchy now from gathered sweat.
It takes a long time, too long, before the knowledge comes crashing through his consciousness. Knowledge he shouldn't possess, that only one person should know.
Sirius goes cold where he sits.
He launches himself to his feet and immediately falls, legs swaying beneath him, his knees taking the brunt of the impact. Sirius crawls towards the door, sucking in large, terrible gasps of air, but he can't breathe, none of it reaching his lungs as they dry up in his chest because no.
No, no, no, no nonono.
He's not sure how he makes it downstairs, how he gets to the alley to Apparate, how he even manages to find himself at the right destination completely whole and unharmed, but as soon as Sirius pops back into existence, he nearly falls again.
"No," he breathes, a silent cry in the too-silent surroundings, a plea falling on deaf ears.
How can destruction be so quiet?
"James!" he shouts as he surges forward towards the decimated cottage, shattering the illusion, his voice punching it loose from the air, refusing to let it stay. "Harry! Lily!"
His wand is drawn as he bursts through the open front door, but somehow, he already knows it's unnecessary. He'd felt it, that connection snapping; knows inherently exactly what it had meant, some ingrained part of him ceasing to exist.
Sirius stumbles and falls again, his knees taking the blow once more, but it's not felt this time, everything inside him drying up, a city burned to ash and blowing away with the wind, all signs of its existence gone. Everything is gone and it's silent again.
James' glasses have slipped sideways from his face. He's never this quiet. None of this is right.
Sirius fixes them, settles the curves around his ears, pushes the frames back up his nose just as he always has whenever he's looked up and found them disturbed. James needs his glasses, can't see anything without them, blind and useless if they're not in place. Even Prongs has the things, markings wrapping around his eyes, so very distinct that Sirius has always laughed about it, just how pivotal they are to James' existence; how necessary the things have always been to his survival.
Sirius chokes.
The silence settles around him, thick and heavy, stifling the air from his lungs, making it impossible to keep breathing. It shouldn't be this way. None of this is right. There should be cries or whimpers, Sirius understanding that makes sense though it takes a while before he remembers why.
Harry.
"Harry!" he gasps, struggling to his feet, his steps unsteady as he backs away from James, refusing to remove his eyes from his prone form until the last second. He takes the steps three at a time, throwing on an extra burst of speed once he reaches the landing, barreling through the last door and –
"Fuck, Lily," he exhales, her name strangled. Sirius' hands grip around the door frame, knuckles white, the wood nearly warping under the strength of his hold. His head falls back on his neck, eyes lifting to the ceiling, his breathing still not cooperating. His knees bending slowly under his weight, Sirius crouches at her side, forcing himself to look down, fingers skimming over her eyelids, coaxing them closed as something else inside him rips open, leaving a jagged, gaping wound in its place. "I'm sorry, Lils," he whispers grievously.
It's still silent, and Sirius looks up towards the cot nearby, standing empty and vacant.
"H-Harry?" he stutters, staggering to his feet again and pushing forward. His head whips around over his shoulders, searching the small space, eyes finally landing on the blown-out hole in the wall, the cold night air rushing across his face. "Harry!"
Sirius stumbles backwards because Harry isn't here. Logically, he knows that no body doesn't translate to death, but Sirius isn't sure what to do with that knowledge just yet. Harry could be alive, somewhere, somehow, or he could be –
"No," hisses Sirius in firm denial, eyes darting around again, only stopping when they land on Lily once more, and he forces himself back through the door, away from the sight, unable to bear looking at her, knowing it's his fault.
He's not so lucky with James.
Sirius can't leave him. He's got nothing left to cling to, everything else gone, James with it, but he's still here and Sirius falls over him, arms wrapping around his chest, his shoulders, pulling the weight of his brother into his hold. He feels numb, every part of him except the place where James has always existed, that place a canyon of a bottomless pit now, empty and void, left aching on a level Sirius doesn't think he'll ever be able to reach and rip away.
He can't navigate through the guilt of it, apologies and pleas filling his head, some slipping over his tongue, half-formed and mostly unintelligible. His fault, his blame, resting heavily over his shoulders and in his heart, blackness gathering at its edges, encasing it and holding it all inside.
"Sorry, I'm sorry, so sorry, please. James. Prongs. Please, I – sorry, sorry, sorry. You can't – I should have – don't do this to me, please." Sirius presses his face into that mess of hair as he rocks them both over the floor, the void stretching and swallowing all else, leaving him alone with leaden arms weighed down by something already gone. "Please. My fault, I'm sorry. This shouldn't have – "
Sirius' words choke away, his mind going blank save for one thing. His head lifts slowly, sightless eyes staring ahead.
"Peter," he growls, his voice barely a voice any longer, turning animalistic.
That's when the hands close around him, pulling him away, James' body slipping from his hold as he's forcibly restrained and bound. Sirius doesn't even fight, still staring through static, something hysterical bubbling inside his throat that crests and spills over in a burst of manic laughter as the Aurors heave him through the open door of the cottage, muttering about how he's mad.
He doesn't stop laughing for hours and days and years. Maybe he is mad.
He laughs because Peter had ruined them all.
He laughs because he'd been wrong about Remus.
He laughs because he hadn't found Harry's body, and he clings to the hope within that knowledge.
Sirius laughs at the absurdity of it all, about how his family is gone and he's gone with it. He laughs because he's trapped inside three stone walls and wedged behind bars. He laughs because it keeps the tears away, except that isn't true. Sirius laughs through them.
He laughs until the dementors take his last shred of hope and turn it sour; until he's convinced that everything he loves has died. James and Lily. Remus. Harry.
It's all gone. Dead.
His laughter dies with it.
Azkaban is cold but after a while, Sirius no longer feels it. His body remains numb, his mind with it, all the good ripped away from him leaving behind nothing but rot and decay.
Time becomes a meaningless thing, something that no longer makes sense, some days impossibly long while others are short and fleeting. He tries to track the moon through the hole in the wall of his cell, but there are times it's there for too long, leading to confusion and memories that don't make sense.
The first person he sees feels like a nightmare, and Sirius retreats from him, the face not making sense either, distorting time further, because that face can't exist if everything is gone, if Sirius has nothing left.
It's been a little more than a year, or so the man tells him – Moody. Alastor. Mad-Eye. That's his name. It takes Sirius a while to find it in the black hole of his mind.
A year doesn't make sense. An eternity can't pass within a year, no more than a day can last that long.
Sirius only blinks slowly at Mad-Eye as he talks, explaining the bare minimum, how someone had figured out the truth through a slip on Peter's part months earlier. A trial that hadn't involved Sirius, more words that don't make sense and he ignores, none of it mattering. Freedom, so Mad-Eye says. It means nothing when there's nothing left to live for.
Mad-Eye never says he didn't believe it, never lies or falsifies his stance in the whole thing and Sirius' imprisonment. Sirius would be grateful if he could feel anything at all, but the cold has seeped into his bones and frozen over every emotion, leaving him a shell.
Another blink and he's standing inside his old flat, the air stale and musty from being closed up for so long. It settles something in him that nothing else has, that scent surrounding him, like mildew without salt.
Sirius wants the salt.
His furniture is the same as it ever was, dusty now and also stale. There are a few boxes lining the side of the room, some half-open as though the job had been started and then abandoned in a rush. He can't figure out who would have done that.
The wall beside the fireplace is clean now, the shattered glass on the floor gone. He frowns, a faint memory flickering and then fading. Nothing makes sense.
The light is wrong. It stays wrong, jumbling Sirius' lingering sensibilities. Late afternoon and it should be dark. The light shouldn't exist, but it's there, streaming softly through the windows, and it doesn't leave for far too long. It takes a day and a half before Sirius blacks out the glass panes, only ripping it all away when night comes.
He tracks the moon through the sky, but it doesn't last long enough and other times it's there too long. It isn't cold, the air not brittle enough around him. He can't see his breath misting in front of his face. Smoking helps with that part, he finds, like an illusion that tricks his brain as he watches the tendrils twist and curl in the spaces surrounding him.
Sirius doesn't leave his flat for days and weeks at times, while others he can't stand to stay inside. Time flickers around him, an angry vortex swinging disjointed memories past his vision, none of them meshing together or ever lining up properly.
He drinks away the confusion, drinks himself numb again. It lessens the memories, drowns them out for a while, but sometimes it makes them worse, flares fire in his veins when all he wants is the cold, so Sirius begins searching out other means to smother himself. Trips to seedier areas of wizarding society, sometimes Knockturn Alley in a pinch, wary eyes tracking him but never hindering his actions. When it makes his skin crawl too much, he tries Muggle alternatives instead, and they work, but most leave him burning hot.
Sirius finds his preferences in unicorn tears and the fangs from the middle heads of Runespoors. The tears cool him down, and with enough, leave him shivering on the floor of his flat, his vision flickering in and out with heavy periods of peace, but the ground up fangs become his preferred option. The images crafted behind his closed eyelids last him for days at a time, memories that aren't memories pulling smiles over his face that feel foreign but leave him with a muted sense of euphoria he can't find anywhere else.
Everyone comes back to him this way. All those lost through the war line his walls and stare down at him where he lies prone and unmoving. James settles behind him, legs curled up, knees digging into Sirius' back. He laughs with Lily who sprawls over Sirius' legs, Harry clambering and climbing on top of him with small giggles. Regulus perches on the arm of Sirius' sofa, never saying anything, his face schooled with that same haughty indifference Sirius remembers so well, but his eyes shine in a way they only had when they'd been young children, in the small moments they'd managed to gain for only themselves.
Remus putters in the kitchen, Sirius hearing the clinking of dishes and cups, a kettle whistling faintly. Sirius never sees him, but he can feel him, rooted into his veins just like all the rest.
For the first few months following his release, several people had tried to check in on him, a revolving door of vaguely familiar faces Sirius had no longer recognized and hadn't bothered trying to remember. Some had lasted longer than others, returning three or four times before they'd never come back again, Sirius snarling and lashing out at them once he'd had enough.
One had lasted longer than all the rest, but Sirius could never bear to look at her face or into her eyes. It had drawn up things Sirius hadn't wanted to remember, the memories that remained the clearest, childhood recollections stabbing like harsh stings all over his body, too much resemblance there to what he'd left behind and who he used to be.
Eventually, even that person had stopped coming, giving up. Or maybe Sirius had warded his home against her. It doesn't matter which.
Years pass and only days. Time never makes sense, but Sirius is nothing more than a ghost now, and ghosts don't need time, have no use for hours or seconds ticking on a clock. Sirius no longer owns a clock; he'd smashed it on the floor and left the pieces behind.
All he needs is the light and the darkness, the give and take that never matches up to what he believes it should be. There's still no salt in the air and it itches over his skin, distorts things further, leaves him suspended in nothing and everything at once. He looks up one day and expects to see liquid dripping down his walls, stones flickering across his vision before they're replaced by neutral, cream-colored paint. There's no glass shattered over the floorboards, no flames burning and crackling in the fireplace. He's alone and it doesn't make sense, the echo of voices and shouted, terrible words still ringing in his ears. It's dark and it shouldn't be.
Sirius rips the blockages from the windows and leaves.
He walks and he walks and the light is too much, the warmth of the sun burning him through his jacket the he doesn't need but clings to as he tries to ground himself in the present, something that never works, but still he tries. There are people everywhere, too many people, and somehow, Sirius ends up somewhere else, finding less people, but it's too quiet, so he opens his eyes to a different place, voices clamoring in his ears, shoulders knocking into his own as he stumbles and keeps breathing, a difficult thing when the world is sucking in around him and there's an angry voice somewhere nearby, an argument between two people, deep laughter in the distance followed by a shrill giggle –
Sirius' head jerks up, eyes darting around, the sound so familiar that it surges some sort of life back into him, a shock rippling through his body. He gasps for breath, but it stutters when –
"Moony!" squeals a voice.
"Moony," echoes Sirius. "Moony, Moony, Moony," he chants in a mumble, trying to cling to it, not let it slip away. "Moony, Moons. Harry."
He's there, on the other side of the street, dark hair a mess, glasses tilted on his small face, James smaller than Sirius had ever seen him but not James. Something fractures inside Sirius at the thought, because James is gone, never coming back and Sirius can't survive without him, can't keep going and moving forward, can't even go back, keeps twisting through time and a haze of past and present, future crumbling –
But Harry…
Sirius is across the street before he realizes he's moved, has no idea how he wasn't run over by a car or worse, but none of that matters because Harry is in front of him, alive and grinning, giggling just as he always had as a baby, as a toddler, cheeks flushed pink from exertion and excitement, something sticky staining the sides of his mouth where his lips stretch wide over his gapped teeth.
He runs directly into Sirius' legs, stumbling backwards from the impact, head snapping around in surprise. Harry begins to dart away, an apology gushing free, but he stops, his expression turning wary as he takes another step back, something in Sirius' face erasing the exhilaration running through him.
"Harry," croaks Sirius, and he suddenly can't remember the last time he's used his voice, the sound foreign to him now. Harry's green eyes widen behind those round frames as he shifts with fright.
"Harry!" calls another voice, quickly approaching. Sirius slowly lifts his head, everything inside him running cold in the worst way. "Hazza, come on, you know better than that. You can't run – "
"Moony!" calls out Harry with a hint of panic, still staring wide-eyed and fearful up at Sirius. Remus is beside the boy now, large hand planted on a small shoulder, like he's steadying himself or trying to reassure himself that Harry is still there. He's speaking quickly, tone gentle but mildly irate and harried, and Sirius can't stop staring. "Moony," presses Harry more insistently, interrupting Remus' admonishments again, his finger pointing up.
The other man follows the motion and then brown eyes are pinned to Sirius' face and he's lost to time again, twisting and turning. He's in the middle of a crowded pavement with his dead godson and dead ex-lover and ex-friend but he's running through corridors that feel like home with laughter on his breath and someone else's breath on his tongue, the taste of him in his mouth and he he's standing in his flat with a dirty, wet wall and glass shattered at his feet and a closing door ending everything.
Remus exhales.
His mouth is parted, shock clear in his gaze as it travels down Sirius and then back up in a slow but sweeping way. He's not breathing and neither is Sirius.
"You're dead," whispers Sirius, unable to help the words as they tumble out, and Remus jolts with it, blinking harshly, furiously, his mouth snapping closed, head jerking in a small shake of denial.
"Moony. Moony," says Harry insistently, tugging on the side of Remus' shirt, the other man's attention slow to crawl away. "Flash him, Moony! Whoosh ka-pow!" Harry is half-frantic, half-exuberant as he mimes an explosion with his hands, gesturing wildly.
Sirius blinks down at him in astonishment. Is Harry telling Remus to blow Sirius up? He nearly cracks a smile in response, the ghostly feeling of laughter swelling in his chest. Sirius can't remember the last time he'd done that. Smiled.
Such a foreign concept to him now, pulling oddly at the skin of his face like it might crack from the strain.
Remus' mouth opens and closes, his head shaking more forcefully this time. "No, Harry, that isn't what I mea – we don't always – you know what?" Remus releases a heavy sigh, pressing his eyes closed briefly. "Never mind. We'll discuss it later." His gaze flickers back up to Sirius, something almost fearful there. "We have to go."
"W-what?" stumbles Sirius, body lurching forward. Remus reacts instantly, gripping Harry's arm in protective fingers and pulling them both backwards. Sirius feels crazed, nearly feral in the moment. "No. No, you can't – don't – "
Remus' eyes skim the area surrounding them before he looks at Sirius again and his face hardens, his hand on Harry's arm with it as he keeps tugging him away.
"We have to go," he declares, and before Sirius can say anything else, can even protest, the pair are walking away, disappearing from his sight like specters in the sea of people, lost to him again.
"No," hisses Sirius, the word emerging brokenly. "No. You were dead. You can't – you can't be dead again. Come back."
They don't come back.