Disclaimer: Harry Potter does not belong to me. All rights go to JK Rowling/Warner Bros. I do not profit in any way.
Through the Veil
He saw a green flash, but never felt himself hit the floor.
Sirius was floating... memories playing around him; all of his senses ignited with the ghosts of his past.
Sirius Black was four years old, and he could hear his mother laugh from the kitchen.
He was six, and flying his first broomstick around the yard.
Sirius was six-and-a-half, and crying; his father had snapped the broom in half in punishment for talking to a muggle neighbour.
He was eight, attempting to fit in with his cousins, Bellatrix and Narcissa.
Nine, and he and Andromeda were bonding over being the outcasts.
At age ten, he was already beginning to hate his parents fiercely.
Sirius was eleven, and he'd just been sorted into Gryffindor. He sent a letter home, telling his family of his new house, the new friends he'd made.
He received a howler in return, outlining exactly what he'd done to disgrace the family name.
At twelve, Sirius was both happier than he'd ever been, and desperately lonely. His best mates meant the world to him, but he was resented by his own family.
Sirius had his first kiss at thirteen, and it was bloody awful.
Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen. The years passed in a flash. Sirius couldn't wait to get out of school, to be able to actually help with the war his parents were on the opposite side of.
Sirius shouldn't have wished those years away, but he was young, and despite being more pessimistic than most, youth comes with automatic, subconsious optimism.
Little did he know back then that those were the years he'd look back on in hard times to come. Those years were the ones that kept him relatively sane.
At twenty-one, Sirius lost his best friends. Peter had betrayed them. Remus believed he'd done it. From that moment on, Sirius was hollow.
He laughed as the guards dragged him away. Because if he didn't, he'd cry. Because laughing always made things better. And perhaps Sirius was laughing at the sick irony. A Black's a Black. His family weren't opposed to murder, and no matter how much he tried to distance himself, however much James tried to convince him otherwise, he'd always be tarred with the same brush.
Shame he wouldn't be able to give James an 'I-told-you-so!"
Sirius laughed because perhaps he would have welcomed the numbness the loss of his soul would bring.
Twenties and thirties were difficult to distinguish; one blended into the other. He didn't care that he was rotting away in Azkaban. All he cared about was Harry. Harry was safe. Lily and James's son - he lived on.
Sirius escaped jail eventually, but he never escaped the Azkaban inside his mind.
He spent a few years with Harry, and every day was more painful. He was so much like them.
He looked exactly like James, but with Lily's eyes, and her temperament, too. Harry's face lit up every time he saw his godfather, and it was like a stabbing in the stomach. Sirius was the closest thing he had to family. They were both outcasts, he and Harry.
More than anything, Sirius wished Harry could remember them.
Harry got himself in trouble again, and Sirius rushed to defend him.
And then Sirius's time had come, and it was at last time to slip peacefully beyond the veil.
James's laugh.
A flash of red hair.
Everything was white.
A/N: Hi guys! I'm currently in the midst of Camp NaNoWriMo (google it), so I'm understandably busy at the moment. But my internet went down last night (long story), so I had time to finish this up – I started about 3 months ago. Oops.
Let me know what you thought!