One day, your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it's worth watching.
-Anonymous
Standing in the nothingness that stretched out for an eternity before him, the man took a deep breath. The air was sweet and cool, surprisingly refreshing, and yet somehow he knew that it was unnecessary. Unnecessary because you don't really need to breathe when you're dead.
The man spread his arms, letting the sun hit him squarely in the chest and warm it thoroughly. Again, the feeling was hollow, beautiful and yet meaningless. The man felt sure that anything worth doing had already been done, anything worth experiencing already experienced.
Somehow, although no one had told him, the man knew that when he stepped forward, that would be it. The universe, perfect and ready, sat before him, quietly waiting to accept him into its folds and its winds and its magic. He wasn't frightened, for he felt sure that soon, everything would be all right again. Soon, everything would be just the way it should be. All he had to do was take that last step. And after so many wearied steps, after so much running, so much striding forward into the hatred and the fighting and the violence and the danger and the utter chaos he'd seen in his life, what was one more step? One small step, in the peace of this nothingness that was oddly comforting, and he wouldn't have to walk anymore. Wouldn't have to keep dragging himself forward for the good of those he loved, for the cause in which he'd believed so strongly, for that unknown reason that sat in his heart and urged him forward in spite of the darkness there.
There was no more darkness. Not anymore. The man had left that behind with the living, with those whose stories had yet to be completed. His story was done. He'd done all he could. The man wasn't sure exactly what would happen when he took that step, but he wasn't frightened. He felt, somewhere in him, that it would be all right. That the universe would finally take care of him. That perhaps he would simply become a part of it all – of the clouds through which he'd always loved zipping, of the dew that spotted the grass in the morning, of the stones that held up his beloved buildings. Of the immaterial bits of love and wonder and hope that he'd fought to keep in the world.
And so, grinning his trademark grin and keeping his head high as he'd learned to do, Sirius Black took his final step into the universe. And as he took that step, the moments of his life that had meant the most, that had changed the way things had gone, that had changed him… they seemed to play before him… and one last time, he lived the most important moments of his life… the seventeen most important ones, as seventeen had always been the most significant of magic numbers…
