Darkness. And he thinks, where the heck is all the golden light and fluffy clouds? Where is the infinite joy and happiness and carefreeness one is supposed to feel here? He sure as hell doesn't

feel happy. Scared. Anxious. Terrified.

He can hardly see anything. Just vague figures, which are little more than shadows, and muffled sounds, as if he has cotton-wool stuffed into his ears. And it's cold. Goose-pimples on his bare hands, and the very air chills his lungs.

He knows he has little time. The thread that holds him, that is his only life-jacket, cannot support him that long. But he's so cold... If he could only lie down, curl up on the ground, block the figures and sounds and everything out.

He shakes his head. He cannot do that.

'Sirius...' he whispers, and somehow, inexplicably, the person he is looking for hears him.

A moment, a fraction of a second passes and his godfather is standing there, before him. Dark eyes that are full of love and care and sadness. He looks exactly like he did when he feel through that goddamn arch. His hair is exactly the same length. There is still that scratch on his hand.

Harry cannot believe he remembers all these details, not after seven years. Seven long, dark years. The War Years, as they will be later known.

His heart bleeds and his very soul aches as he looks upon Sirius. So long... So many years

spent searching for him, so much uncertainty and pain and despair. And now he's standing inches from him, and it hurts so much, and every wound that was caused by that unfair loss, wounds that Harry carefully tried to patch up with bright dreams and hopes, opens.

'Sirius,' he says again, and he can already feel himself fading, can see Sirius fading, leaving him again. His time is running out. 'Come back!'

'Why?' that voice sounds, emotionless, and Harry wants to howl with agony.

'Because -'

Harry opened his eyes, gasping for air as he did. He started to cough, a painful fit that refused to cease for some minutes. Tears welled in his eyes.

'Harry,' Hermione jumped to her feet, her voice thick with anxiety, 'oh, Merlin, I'm sorry, it's a side effect. It'll pass soon.'

Harry waited till he could breathe again, and sat up. Looked around the room. The circle fo candles around his, candles that had been pale yellow and were now black. The table on which he sat, his shaking hands, white-faced Ron, Hermione and Remus. All looking at him.

Then he remembered the knife. The silver dagger Hermione had put through his heart. The initial pain, and then that place... Sirius.

He lifted a hand, almost absent-mindedly, to his bare chest. A trickle of blood was there still, but no wound. They must have healed him.

'Why did you pull me out?' he asked, quite suddenly feeling betrayed.

'Harry,' Remus' gentle hand was a comforting weight on his shoulder, 'you were -'

'Dying. I know. And now it didn't work and it's all your fault and I'll never be able to bring him back! Did you think of that? Did you?' Harry shouted, no longer able to control himself. After so long... After all the failed attempts, after his dabbling in Dark Magic...

'Harry -' Hermione began.

'Don't,' Harry cut across her. The young woman flushed.

'But -'

'No, Hermi. No excuses.'

She sighed, grabbed his arms and spun him around.

Harry could not believe his eyes.

There, lying on the sofa, under a thick woolen blanket, was Sirius.

Harry leapt off the table and ran to the sofa, to him, his mind short-circuiting. He was hallucinating. Imagining. Dreaming. His tired, sick mind was just making him see what he so longed to see. It was – could not – be real.

But then his fingers were upon coarse, black hair and running down a painfully familiar face, and Merlin, it was, he was, real. Warm and breathing, and very much alive.

Sirius opened his eyes, and smiled serenely, warm and so very comfortable. Silent tears ran down Harry's cheeks, tears that had been suppressed for so long. For too long. The reservoirs of pain he had build up, everything negative and hurtful and horrible, everything broke out, and for the first time in years Harry just cried, completely and utterly undone.

Sirius smiled and said something soothingly, but Harry was inconsolable. So Sirius just wound his arms around Harry's waist and held him to his chest, held him close and protectively. The dear boy – man, really – whom he missed so much, so very much. He felt tears on his neck, felt the slim body shaking in his embrace, understood exactly how broken and mutilated and hurt Harry was, how lonely and afraid.

And Sirius felt guilty. Guilty for leaving Harry for so long, guilty for everything, for those twelve years he had been absent from Harry's life, guilty for not being there when Harry needed a family, a confidant, a friend. He knew it was ridiculous, for none of that was his fault, but he felt guilty nonetheless.

His heart ached as Harry calmed a little, and soon enough the younger man looked up. For a moment, Sirius thought James was looking at him – a James in his early twenties, James as he was when he... Same longish, ebony black hair, same huge eyes, same lovely, beautiful face and pale skin. Harry's eyes were red-rimmed and it seemed that more than a few arteries had broken, so that the whites were criss-crossed with red, as if some child had drawn those lines with a crimson crayon.

'Thank you,' Sirius whispered.

Harry managed a watery sort of smile.

'For what?'

'For bringing me back.'

'I didn't even have to time to -'

But Sirius's eyes were full of tenderness, and gratitude and a hope Harry had never seen in him before.

'You didn't need to.'

They were alone that night, alone in the cosy little house Harry shared with Ron and Remus. His two friends thought it would be better to leave them alone, to talk, to sort everything out, and left with Hermione. Harry had not asked where.

It was late, but Harry knew it was futile to even try to fall asleep. They were sitting by the fire, on the floor, leaning against the sofa, their hands clutching cups of steaming hot chocolate. Silence. An uncomfortable one, at that. Neither knew what to say.

'How long?' Sirius asked, quietly.

'Seven years, six months, three weeks and two days,' Harry said, almost mechanically.

Sirius turned his head, but Harry did not look at him.

'I had no idea. Time...there...sort of stands still.'

Harry finally looked up from his cup, a strange emotion on his face.

'I've noticed,' he almost smiled. 'I missed you.'

'I knew you'd come for me. Always. That was what kept me from fading over there, from becoming just a shadow. I always knew you would find a way and come for me. Just did.'

Another minute of silence.

'I killed Voldemort.' Harry said that just to say something.

'I know,' Sirius grinned, and when Harry looked at him quizzically, clarified – 'you were out for four hours. Hermione and Ron filled me in.'

'Oh.' More silence.

'Are you married? Is there a girl?'

Harry shook his head.

'No. I – I couldn't come to love anyone during the war. Too afraid of losing anyone else, I guess... After you...' Harry could not say it, 'I just couldn't make - let – myself love anyone.'

'You working?'

'Yeah. Auror, like I've always wanted to be.'

'Oh, this is ridiculous!' Sirius stood up.

'What is? My job?' Harry looked up at him, bewildered.

'No! You talking to me like I'm a bloody stranger. I'm the same Sirius, Harry. I may never have been a godfather, but I damn hope that I was your friend. I'm not dead anymore. Still don't know why, but whatever. So please stop talking to me like that.'

Harry smiled - for real this time.

'Sorry. It still kinda feels surreal.'

But really, the old fears were coming back. If he let himself get attached to Sirius once again, there might be wounds once more. He could not let himself go through all that again. He simply had no idea if he would survive it.

And Sirius understood this perfectly.

Sirius sat down, close to Harry, and took the younger man's, forcing Harry to look at him.

'Don't be afraid. Harry, don't. I'll always be here, until the end, always with you. I'll never leave you again. Never. There will be no more loneliness for you, no more sadness. I'll make sure of that.' He grasped Harry's hand, squeezing it. 'Feel this? It's real. Like I am.'

And Harry believed him. In that moment, something happened, something so strange and... Right. This man before him was everything to him. His death had broken him, shattered his soul into tiny pieces. But Harry also knew that his return could make him whole again. Cure him. Stick the little shards of his being together.

He knew it, subconsciously, even before he lay down on that table. Knew it, knew it without realizing he did.

And then it became perfectly clear. All the years of warm, and pain, experimenting with Dark rituals, anguish, arguments – all that lead up to this very moment. The moment when their lips touched.

It was a butterfly, a feather of a kiss, full of hesitancy and uncertainty. Both were shocked. Both, soon enough, understood that the bond between them was too strong. This felt too right, to good, too perfect to think about. After all the obstacles, all the odds, they were together. They had defeated time, and death and war, and pain and every other evil of this accursed world. And that ghost of a kiss was a confession, a wordless confession of everything.

Every moment of longing for a companion, every tear, every millisecond of missing each other was in that kiss, every sunrise and sunset they did not see together, all those years of being apart. Every dream of sharing a house, a life. Every story they did not share, every confession they did not make. Every party they did not attend together, every book they did not talk about. Everything.

And then that kiss deepened, and Harry's head began to spin as those knowing hands started to roam his back, pulling him closer and closer, until every inch of their bodied was touching, until there was nothing bu Sirius, his hands, his mouth, the scent of some herb and the strange, giddy happiness that was permeating Harry's very blood.

And they toppled to the floor, all entwined limbs and fused mouths and needy gasps, and it felt right, and wrong, and just perfect, all at the same time.

For a moment Harry pulled away, looked into the deep eyes of the man stretched out on top of him, and asked -

'Did you really hear what I told you, there.'

Sirius nodded, and claimed Harry's mouth once more.

It had been three words. Three words that had changed everything.