A/N: For CrAzY flamINGO 's "The inspiration of a Title"-challenge. My title was 'Dancing with the Dead' as you may have guessed. This is a Sirius/Ariana pairing, and credit goes to watermelyn who is the writer of the first Sirius/Ariana fic on this site. It's called 'Somewhere Else' and you can find it in my favorites list.
Dancing with the Dead
Sirius is dancing with death, but it'll never be more than that. He can see the dead, and he knows he is no longer alive… But dead? No. He isn't there, and he sometimes wonders if he'll ever be. If it was not for the fact that he has survived Azkaban, he would surely have lost his mind. Because this place is nearly as bad as Azkaban was.
Time doesn't exist here. He isn't in any time or place, and certainly not in the time he died, not in the time he is supposed to be. Something has been cracked, and no one is coming to fix it.
As he walks towards the ever blinding light, which he knows by now can't be reached, as the invisible wall, another veil, a window to the dead world and all of his dead friends, surrounds him in an ever ending circle, nothing ever comes. Nothing ever goes. He doesn't know anything, and it's bloody frustrating.
He can see the dead, but it's only their shadows, their silhouettes, their echoes. They cannot see him at all, but they are the only piece of life (ironic really, as they are dead) he sees at all. They are all dancing around him, full of life, while he– the only undead – is lost in a dull lifeless world.
This continues, life passes, death passes, it continues, continues, continues – and even when it stops, it doesn't stop for him. He isn't there, is he?
It makes him mad.
One Day, Another Day
He sees her sitting down. She is… alive. Real. Because as time has passed, he has come to see the prison that is his life as the real world, and the rest, the things outside of it, as only echoes of what could have been. He knows they are happening, have happened, will happen one day – he sees Harry and his kids, a son named James Sirius, a day back from when they were still the Marauders, Lily and James in their next great adventure as Dumbledore always called it, Remus dying – but it's all just stories. He can see it, he can hear it, but he'll never feel it. Will he ever feel again?
But now she is here. Beautiful, innocent; she is lost in the body of a girl, but he can see the wisdom behind her eyes. She doesn't say anything; she can't. He doesn't know why, but he doesn't care either. It is nothing more than another story after all.
But she is. Their stories, their feelings – they're broken and dead, in contrast to their bodies and their minds, but at least they have each other now. They can share this eternity of a lifeless dance. Maybe one day they'll bring each other to life again. Or dead. For them, there is no longer a difrence.