I'm sorry I haven't been updating much, I have been writing I just haven't got much time at the moment. I've had lots of extra work and nagging teachers and looming deadlines and I've been knackered and stressed to buggery. That said, this was my catharsis.

I just sort of started writing one night when I was insomniac, and this happened. It was only meant to be a scraped little piece, but it blossomed into a full story, so there you are.

I'm not sure about it. It's a bit different to my normal style, broken up as it is and much less sardonic, more angst. Let me know what you think and, Thanks for reading!

A Lack of Clarity

The sky is alight.

That is the wrong term for it, Sirius is sure, because alight sounds so pretty and innocent and the constant flashing of red and green is anything but. It is menacing, these random bursts of destructive colour seemingly from nowhere amid the thick, obscuring grey. It was misty when they arrived, and now it is smoky with the aftermath of magic and the two mix together in an acrid all-consuming sheet.

There is a ringing noise everywhere. No, maybe not everywhere. Maybe it is just inside Sirius' head. He tries to ignore it and focus on the other disjointed sounds in the smoke. Someone is coughing to the left, no doubt choking on the stench of sweat and blood and singed flesh. There is also the distinct aroma of death in the heavy air, and Benjy Fenwick lies in pieces scattered across the pavement.

Battle isn't meant to be like this. Back at school, when they had talked about doing something to help, it had all been much more glamorous. James and Sirius would be the heroes, and Lily and Remus would positively swoon in their wake. Phrases like Honour and Glory had been thrown about carelessly, along with things like Doing our bit and Helping the whole of Wizard-kind, Fighting the Good fight.

It isn't a good fight. There is, Sirius is starting to believe, no such thing as a good fight. All these fights are over something stupid, just an idiot trying to make himself more important than he really is. Sirius suddenly feels very guilty for allowing his Moony to watch them bully Snivellus for all those years, because this is almost the same. Just an idiot bullying people.

Remus misses school.

It isn't unusual, really. He always did like it there, with the first, and best, friends he's ever had and all the books he could ever dream of reading. What's peculiar about the statement is that he thinks his friends would agree with him this time.

It is January. It has been snowing in Manchester, and the streets are slick with ice. It should be a serene evening, with the world covered in a dusting of purest white. It isn't.

The air is thick with magical residue and filled with the cries of battle. It all sounds like a nice fight in a romantic war story, but it isn't. It really, really isn't.

Remus throws himself behind a low wall and hears the hiss as the curse ricochets off it. He spares a moment to hope it rebounds on the caster because he recognised the voice of Elliott Nott, whom he defended on more than one occasion from James and Sirius at school, and is in no mood to fight the vindictive stab of pleasure at the spiteful thought of revenge.

He waits a minute before pulling himself to a crouch and peering back around the scorched wall. He wants desperately to catch sight of his idiotically heroic friend, or his gallant hero The White Sheep of the Blacks, but he is disappointed. He can make out a lone figure crouched low in the snow and obscured by the glare of coloured sparks flying overhead.

He isn't entirely sure it's not just another body. Rather than deter him, the thought compels him to check. He approaches cautiously, wand held steady. He gets near enough to discern that the person is wearing neither a mask nor the billowing black robes of the Death Eaters before he calls out.

' Alright?' he shouts, as the wall he ducked behind collapses noisily in a burst of purple sparks.

' Remus?' the figure sobs. It's a woman. More importantly, it is a woman he recognises. ' Is that you?'

' Dorcas? Are you hurt?' he glances around pointlessly in the gloom before dropping to his haunches by her side. He knew Dorcas at school, and doesn't think he's ever heard her sound so broken. A flash of turquoise flies above them, missing by a foot. It is followed by a slightly closer stunning spell. In the glowing red light, Remus can see the dampness of Dorcas' face.

' Fuck!' Sirius shouts, ducking under a nasty hex he recognises as Dolohov's and shooting blindly back without even registering the spell.

' Head out of the clouds, Black!' calls the voice of Alastair Moody from somewhere to the right. He still doesn't trust Sirius and has probably kept an eye on him all night.

Sirius can't blame him, either. Disowned and disinherited as he is, he was still the heir to the Most Ancient and Incestuous House of Black for the best part of seventeen years. It's a hard reputation to shake, and most of the Order Members that don't know him from school watch him suspiciously, waiting for him to turn on them, no doubt.

And rightfully so, he reminds himself fiercely. Half his worthless family will be here, masked and skulking about in the shadows, hexing people from behind. Cowardly Slytherins, the lot of them.

He wonders if Regs is here. Probably. Then he wonders if Regulus is going for the kill, like the rest of them. His stomach twists unpleasantly at the thought. His baby brother might already be a murderer. His cousin most certainly is.

' Come on, Padfoot,' he chastises himself, shaking the morbid thoughts out of his head. ' Stop dicking about.'

There is still a battle being fought. His friends are out there, hidden in the mist amongst his murderous family. Moony is still out there.

When Remus tries to move her out of the line of fire, he sees why Dorcas is hysterical. She is curled over a body. Another girl he knows from school. Marlene McKinnon. Her family were killed in their home not two weeks ago, and he does not need to check her pulse to know she's back with them, but he does anyway out of habit.

He has the sudden, wholly unpleasant thought that his school reunion will have to be held in a mortuary. He looks bleakly at Dorcas, who seems to crumple into herself as she sobs again. Remus doesn't know what to say. He can't imagine finding one of his friends like that, doesn't know how he would react. And, more pressingly, as another shower of deadly spells sparkle off to the left, he doesn't know how to get her to move. She won't want to leave the body, and he can't say he likes the idea either.

' Whozzat?'

' Friend!' Remus cries, voice a bit shrill in his surprise. He doesn't really know why, but he says it again. ' Friend! Definitely a friend!'

' Lupin?' The stocky figure of Gideon Prewett emerges from the fog with an inexplicable grin on his face. ' Is that you, you nerdy little werewolf?'

' I… Yeah,' Remus replied, not seeing the point in arguing now. ' I need a hand. It's Dorcas, she's in shock.'

Gideon moves closer and spots the body. The grin vanishes like a popped light bulb and Remus remembers that both Prewetts played Quidditch with Marlene at Hogwarts. As if summoned, Fabian appears behind his twin.

' Shit,' he says, and he means it. Gideon nods and they pause for a long moment, just staring down at her lifeless body.

Remus holds Dorcas, who is weeping uncontrollably and muttering nonsense. After a minute that seems like an hour, he coughs and says, ' Little help, if you don't mind.'

' Right, yeah,' Fabian says, patting his brother on the back hard enough to push him forward slightly. ' You got this, little bro?' he turns to Remus and adds, completely unnecessarily, ' Gid'll give you a lift.' Then he sprints away, firing off stunning spells like he can actually see.

' It's half an inch!' Gideon shouts into the smog. Remus prays they're talking about height. ' And it doesn't matter how many times you call me Gid, I am not going to call you Fab!'

Sirius picks a direction and jogs aimlessly, dodging a stray stunner as he goes. The momentary light illuminates a masked body laid prone in the disturbed snow. Sirius spares a thought for the man, wonders if he knew him.

' Of course you knew him, you daft twat!' he says to himself, to the mist. ' You're related to most of the bastards!'

' Talking to yourself's the first sign of insanity, you know,' the bleakness replies, with the voice of a Prewett twin.

' Pretty sure the first sign of insanity is being born into my family,' Sirius replies, fairly certain it is Fabian, who backs towards Sirius, shooting spells at random. ' Where's your brother?'

' Over that way,' he gestures vaguely to the right. ' Helping Lupin.'

Sirius feels sick. ' Remus? What's-'

' Nothing like that! Don't panic, you great queen. Getting Meadows out of the way. Marlene's dead.'

' Shit,' is all Sirius manages to say, in his rush of relief tinged with loss. He didn't think anything could best his former Quidditch Captain. She was the last one, too. All the McKinnon's, gone. ' Shit.'

' Yeah,' Fabian agrees, dodging a flare of green death and pulling Sirius out of it's path.

Sirius opens his mouth to thank the red-headed man, but catches an eerily familiar flash of almost colourless light and throws his entire bodyweight at the older man, knocking him to the ground.

Fabian jumps up looking like he's about to protest to such treatment, then spots the bloody gash across Sirius' arm where his robes have been slashed open. His mouth flaps for a moment, clearly unsure how to express his gratitude, before Sirius stops him.

' Call it even, mate,' he says evenly, climbing to his feet and casting about for the birds-nest mop of hair he knows so well. ' You seen James?'

Fabian gestures vaguely again, firing off hexes at an unseen opponent through the mist. It is good enough, and Sirius sets off in the general direction.

With Gideon's help, Remus drags Dorcas behind a fairly sturdy looking building. She is still sobbing, though quieter now, which is good. There aren't as many bangs or flashes here, which is also good.

Gideon dashes back to the fight once Marlene's body has been pulled to one side. Remus can't look at it - he has to think of it as an It because it certainly isn't her anymore - but he doesn't want to leave Dorcas by herself in such a state. She has curled into herself and snuggled into Remus' side. He rubs her back absently.

He extinguishes his wand, but keeps it out. He hopes they will remain invisible, hidden in the dust and fog, but he isn't stupid or naive enough to leave it to chance.

He wonders how long they have been there, and glances habitually down at his watch. But it isn't where it should be and all that remains is a small burn on his wrist, the tell-tale sign of an unnoticed spell.

It feels like they've been fighting for hours, but he knows it's probably less than a single one. He thinks the anti-apparation charms should have broken by now, they were only set for fourty-five minutes, but to check he would have to leave Dorcas alone again.

Even as the thought flickers through his head, he hears a faint but familiar crack from somewhere down the street. Without even really thinking about it, he raps Dorcas hard on the head, which she doesn't seem to notice, and sees her blend into the wall behind her. It isn't a perfect disillusionment charm, by any means, but it is good enough in the all-obscuring haze that surrounds them.

As Remus stands and steps forward, Dorcas sobs again. He flicks his wand behind his back, silencing her, while still locating the freshly apparated person. It is not easy, and he briefly entertains the idea that the mist had thickened. He takes another few cautious steps before he catches the movement, and by then it's too late.

A disjointed hand snatches his wand away, while someone else's is pressed firmly between his shoulder blades. He forces his face to remain impassive, even as a voice he knows taunts him from just out of sight.

' Well, well, well. What have we here?' it mocks, then says with a much more jovial, sinister edge, ' This should be fun.'

' Prongs?' Sirius shouts, not really caring about attracting attention now. ' Prongs!'

' Padfoot?' comes the reply, thankfully quickly, and the anxious face of James Potter swims into focus. His glasses are askew, one lens smashed. He looks at Sirius' arm and says a bit stupidly, ' You're bleeding.'

' No shit,' Sirius grins, feeling, miraculously, like he is still only nineteen for the first time all night. ' You're glasses are broken.'

James grins back, apparently feeling the same rush of stolen youth, but then Sirius catches a glimpse of swishing red hair in the background, and remembers what he wanted his best mate for in the first place.

' You've got to get her out of here, Prongs.'

' Lily? Why? You know she can handle herself-'

' Snape,' Sirius says, simply.

' You- You're sure? It's definitely him?'

' I know that spell anywhere,' Sirius says, jabbing a finger at the little scar on James' cheek that he can't see, but knows is there all the same. ' Snivelly's here, and he's going for the jugular.'

' Fuck,' James says with real feeling, glancing back over his shoulder to where the woman of his dreams is duelling with such ferocity that her wand is a blur. They both understand that that would stop if she knew she might hit her former friend, and she is more of a target for the Death Eaters than James and Sirius ever were. Lily needs to be fighting, or she needs to get out. ' Fuck,' James reiterates.

' Yeah,' Sirius agrees, firmly. He doesn't mean to say it. He meant to say Go on then, get her out of here! or Stop pratting about and get lost, Potter! or anything else to that general effect.

James understands anyway, and nods just as firmly.

' Find Remus and go,' he orders, then he turns around and sprints towards the raging redhead.

Sirius watches his best mate glance back at him once more before he twists on the spot and vanishes. He feels momentary relief before a laugh in the mist jolts him back to reality. He is still here, he is still fighting and he still recognises that maniacal glee anywhere.

' If it isn't my little baby cousin,' the childish voice calls out. ' I've found you're little half-blood pet.'

Shit, Remus thinks, as he is manhandled towards Sirius. He knows this isn't going to end well. The Blacks aren't exactly known for their restraint and control.

Bellatrix calls out to him. In only a handful of words she manages to remind him that they are still technically related, that she is the oldest in their generation and that she remembers perfectly well when he was a helpless little babbling bundle in his crib. Remus imagines she taunted him like this when they were children, and it seems out of place on a battlefield.

' I've found you're little half-blood pet,' she coos. Remus knows she'll pay for that comment, even if it was an unintentional reference. Sirius never could let those type of slights pass without challenge.

The man restraining Remus pushes him forward again brandishing both his dark, wood wand and Remus' lighter Ash. He assumes it is Rodolphus Lestrange, because Remus has never met him before but he looks remarkably like Rabastan, who was a year below them at school. Then again, that might just be the inbreeding.

The figure that is Sirius becomes clearer as they draw near. He has his wand trained on Bellatrix, who giggles and twirls her own idly between her fingers.

' This is yours, isn't it?' she asks almost innocently, waving her hand lazily towards her husband. Remus is very pleased to see Sirius doesn't break his eye-contact with his cousin. He glowers at her, eye blazing through the fog, and doesn't respond. It is unexpected, but it seems to work.

' Do you want me to kill it?' she asks, more fiercely now.

Sirius stays silent, and Remus feels compelled to stare at him. As he does, he is hit with a sudden realisation; Sirius wouldn't be in this situation.

Sirius wouldn't have been taken by surprise; Sirius wouldn't have been disarmed without a fight; and Sirius - who always pushed the boundaries of proper etiquette in duels - would most certainly not be standing about like a lemon when there was a fight going on.

Spurred into recklessness by the thought, Remus stomps hard on Rodolphus' foot and flings his arm back until he feels it connect with something suspiciously nose-shaped. He hears a satisfying crunch and grabs the wands as he ducks from a spell that is surely coming, but Sirius beats his cousin and disarms her before she can act. She wails as she lunges after her wand, vanishing behind some rubble.

' Come on,' Remus urges and Sirius nods curtly, but as Remus feels the compression of apparation take hold he hears his friend calling into the smog.

' Hide and Seek is it, Bella? You never were very good at Muggle games.'

When Sirius returns to Headquarters, it is chaos. He says headquarters, but he means Sturgis Podmore's flat. Last week it was the Prewett's house and next week it will be Remus' place up in Yorkshire. It isn't safe to rely on one place too often.

He scans the room for anyone he recognises.

Moody is demanding reports from various battered, exhausted looking people. Both Prewett twins are sitting to one side mumbling to themselves. James and Lily are nowhere to be seen, probably gone home to cuddle and be a normal couple and feel like they aren't in the middle of a war, fighting a losing battle.

Sirius spots Remus in a corner comforting Dorcas, who is rocking back and forth and mumbling to herself. She has been disillusioned, and the spell is wearing off slowly. It makes her bizarrely transparent in places, and Sirius wants to laugh. He watches for a minute as Remus whispers soothingly to her and rubs reassuringly across her slumped shoulders. Moony is always good at this sort of thing. Sirius isn't.

He feels awkward and unhelpful now that the fight is over. He feels a little responsible, guilty even. It was his family that blew apart Benjy Fenwick tonight. His relatives that hexed the life out of Marlene. It could've been his brother that scarred Fabian's handsome face, or his cousin Narcissa's husband that stunned Emmeline into a coma.

And dear Bellatrix almost killed his Moony.

And he had done nothing. Sirius had frozen. If Remus hadn't acted, escaped, he doesn't know what could've happened. He doesn't really want to think about it.

' It isn't your fault,' that calm, reassuring voice tells him. He hadn't even noticed Remus moving. ' Don't blame yourself.'

Sirius hears himself laugh mirthlessly. ' I should look into blood magic. It'd even things up a bit.'

Remus smiles slightly, but his eyes are understanding. ' Did you get her?' he asks, sounding only mildly interested.

' No,' Sirius replies, grimly. ' Injured her, but someone apparated her out before I could finish her.'

' You'd really kill her?' Remus asks, in a strange sort of casually detached voice.

' She would've killed you,' Sirius says, hoping that explains enough.

Remus laughs now, quietly but properly. ' You'd murder for me? How romantic.'

' Can we go home?'

' 'Course we can. I'll just get someone to check on Dorcas for me.'

Sirius wants to kiss him, but he can't. Wizards haven't quite caught up with Muggles in the Gay Rights department, and Sirius doesn't want to alienate Remus even more than he already is. He feels a sudden pang of jealousy for his best friend. James can snog Lily daft, right here amongst the Order, just because he's happy to see her. Sirius nearly let Remus die tonight, and he can't even apologise properly.

' Come on, Pads,' Remus says, stepping towards the backdoor.

Sirius grabs his hand as he passes, halting him. He wants to say something romantic and fluffy and sweet, but he wouldn't know how even if he could, surrounded by all these people. He doesn't want to sound like James - who sprouted sentimental bullshit for years before Lily would even look at him, but he feels like something needs to be said.

' Remus,' he says quietly, because he knows it will have more impact. ' I mean it, you know.'

' I know,' Remus says, the corner of his mouth twitching.

Sirius catches the surprise in those amber eyes, and the sadness, the uncertainty, underneath. He decides that when they get home, when they're not being watched, he'll leave no room for that kind of doubt.