Title: Late Night Conversation Series: May end up being a series. Depends on the feedback. Author: Sandra D. Rating: PG13 Pairing: Harry/Sirius Warning: Spoilers for OotP!!! Do not read if you have not finished the book. Disclaimer: All characters and locations belong to JKR. Cause if they were mine, there'd be no reason to right this particular fic!!! Feedback: Yes, please! Email: yourbitchgoddess@earthlink.net URL:

Harry quietly shut the door behind him. He wasn't sure how long he'd have this time, but he knew that any time was better than none. Too many times, he had come so close to being caught in the place he knew he should not be. He continued to risk it, however. He felt it was well worth any trouble he might face.

He placed his invisibility cloak over the uppermost row and slowly made his way down the steps toward the center of the room. Finally reaching the bottom, he hesitated like he always did. He thought of all the times before this night that he had made the same journey.

The first time had been after an extremely realistic dream. That was what had given Harry the idea. He had no idea where the knowledge had come from but from that night on, he knew exactly how to achieve his goal. So he had gone.

A trip on the Knight Bus. A bogus, but reusable, excuse for a visitors pass. A walk down the deserted halls after midnight. The loud clanking of the lift taking him to level nine. Ducking under the cloak before the lift stops. The long hallway with which he had already become well acquainted. The circular room. And always knowing, instinctively, which was the right door.

That was the one the he could never figure out. It didn't seem to matter which way, or how many times, the walls had spun that day. He always knew which door it was.

Harry pulled himself from his thoughts and moved forward again. Within seconds, he reached the top of the dais and sat down on the floor in front of the veil. He pulled out his wand and ran its tip over the thin fabric that separated life from death. First up the cloth, then around counterclockwise back to the starting point followed by and abrupt slash to the top left. He murmured an incantation that really amounted to nothing more than a plea to the gods. And then silence.

Harry set his wand on the floor beside him and watched as the veil separated. Once the movement stopped, the green eyes that were said to be so much like his mother's closed as he spoke again.

"Sirius Black."

When his eyes opened again they rested on the man himself. He smiled.

"Hey, kiddo."

"Hi, Sirius. I've missed you."

"I've missed you, too, Harry. Are you alright?"

"Yeah. . . I guess so." The young man ducked his head and tried to hold back his tears. He knew what was coming next.

"Harry, you have to stop this. It isn't healthy for you to keep coming here. You have to allow yourself to let go and live."

"Don't you want to see me, Sirius?" The question was the same every time.

"Of course I do! But that's not the point and you know it." The man reached out as if to touch his godson, only to stop right at the barrier that separated them. The look on his face was enough to know how much it hurt to not be able to touch the boy before him. "You have so much to live for, Harry. Coming here only holds you back from that life. You deserve so much more than the vision of a dead man who can never hold you."

"You're wrong," Harry answered with conviction. "I have nothing left to live for. You were. . . are the only person that I could call my own. There is no one else. I don't want anyone else. Do you know what stood out in my mind the most while I was in Snape's pensieve? Even more than my dad and what he did?"

Sirius smiled indulgently, "What was it?"

"You. I saw you young and vibrant. So full of life. So happy. So. . . beautiful. I wished I were really there so I could talk to you and hug you. I wanted, with all of my heart, to tell you that I was yours. To say to you what I didn't realize until that moment."

"What, Harry?" Sirius' eyes were bright with unshed tears. "What did you want to say to me?"

Silver tracks formed as tears fell from the boy's green, green eyes. "That I love you. That I wanted nothing more than to be with you forever. That while everyone thought my feelings for you were that of a brother or a son, they were wrong. My love for you is so much deeper than that."

"You. . . you love me like," Sirius swallowed heavily. "You love my like a. . . lover?"

"Yes! I know you must think I am disgusting. You're probably glad you never learned the truth while you were still here."

"No, Harry. Now you're wrong. I wish I had known it. I wish I had wrapped my arms around you and held you before you went back to school after Christmas. More than anything, I wish I had not distanced myself from you so much while you were there. I was afraid you'd think I was horrid if you knew the truth."

"Y-you mean, you felt-feel the same?"

Sirius nodded, "Long before you did, really. I saw you and could only think of how . . . well, pretty you were."

Harry ducked his head and felt his face heat up. "Were? Do you still . . .?" Unable to finish that question, he asked another. "When? When did you first see me like that, Sirius?"

"The first time I saw you. And, yes, I still see you as that fragile, pretty, scared but determined boy from that night."

"But. . . that night? That was right after you escaped from Azkaban. Right before my third year. That was three years ago!"

"You see why I couldn't let my real feelings show, now? How would you have felt to know that your godfather had been feeling that way toward you since you were barely thirteen?"

"You wanted . . .when I was thirteen?" It was Harry's turn to swallow heavily at the realization.

"No! God, Harry, I'm not that much of a dirty old man!" Sirius laughed at Harry's blush. "I just wanted to be with you. To hold you. To call you mine. But . . . never as a father would hold his son. It was after Christmas, when I knew you'd be leaving again, that it finally became . . .a need to truly have you."

Harry opened his mouth to speak again but was cut off by the distinct sound of voices beyond the outside door.

"Harry, you have to go now. If they catch you in here . . ."

There was no need for him to finish. The boy knew that there would be hell to pay if he were caught sneaking around the Department of Mysteries. He stood and prepared to end the spell that allowed the veil to lift.

"I'll come back soon, Sirius."

"You really shouldn't. You know how dangerous this is!"

"No! I will be back! I'm going to find a way to get you back. If I'm really as powerful as they say I am, then I will find a way to make you really live again. Now that I know. . . there's no way I will let us be apart! I want you here and I will make it so!"

Sirius smiled at his godson. "I know you will, Harry. Just be careful, please?"

The Boy Who Lived returned the smile. "I will. Promise. I love you, Sirius. With all my heart."

"I love you too, Harry. See ya soon."

The boy closed his eyes as he had earlier that night and when he had opened them again, the veil had, once again, fallen into place. All that could be heard were the whispering voices of the dead beyond and the conversations of those coming in for a new day of work.

Harry quickly made his way back to the door and slipped beneath his invisibility cloak once more. He waited until the voices outside were cut off by the closing of their respective doors and quietly opened the door and walked out the way he had come.

As he opened the old phone booth door and breathed in the morning air, Harry smiled. He was no closer to retrieving his godfather from the death which had swallowed him but he, at least, knew that when he finally did succeed, the love and desire he felt would be returned.

Harry hummed quietly to himself as he lifted his wand and the Knight Bus appeared to take him home.

END